Source: People's Daily
4500 meters, one-man plateau post road (first-line research)
In the snowy plateau with an average altitude of more than 4,500 meters, there is a township postal route with the highest altitude and longest mileage in the world. Alpine, lack of oxygen, harsh natural environment, China Post Group Golmud City Branch courier Ge Jun ran for more than 10 years. Not afraid of the wind and snow to ensure the supply of materials, tirelessly serving the herdsmen and the masses, he chose this job, and he has insisted on it with love.
- Editor
In the southwest of Qinghai, a wild wasteland stretches through it.
The postal route starts from golmud city in Qinghai Province, passes south through the majestic Kunlun Mountains, then through the vast coco Xili no-man's land, and finally reaches the town of Tanggula Mountain, the source of the Yangtze River and on the Tuotuo River. The average altitude along the route is more than 4500 meters, the oxygen content is less than half of the mainland, and it is a place that is inaccessible. This is the highest and longest township postal route in the world.
In this forbidden area of life, Ge Jun, a courier of the Golmud City Branch of China Post Group, has been running for more than 10 years.
"Once a week, departs on Wednesdays for two days round trip, there is only one person in the whole process"
The night before departure, the reporter met Ge Jun. He was wearing orange and green overalls, and without waiting for the reporter to say hello, he grinned and a pair of thick hands reached over: "Hello, I am Ge Jun!" The crisp introduction and hearty laughter reveal the directness of the Northwestern people. However, his extraordinarily standard Mandarin impressed reporters.
In 1954, Ge Jun's grandfather responded to the call to take his family from Shanghai to the Great Northwest and enter the postal system to serve the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. In 1972, Ge Jun's father took up the same job as his grandfather and became a courier.
"Grandma is from Changsha, and my daughter-in-law is from Qinghai, and I have a different accent in my family, so I have long been used to it." Ge Jun joked, "The 3 men in the family drive the mail truck to run around on weekdays, there are many people who deal with them, and many dialects in many places will speak, and the best way to make them is Mandarin." Over time, I practiced. ”
Ge Jun has lived in Golmud, a new city rising from the desert Gobi since childhood, and is a man who dares to break through and fight. At the age of 18, he enlisted in the army as a mechanical repairman. After retiring from the army, he was admitted to the Qinghai Postal School and joined the party in the same year. After graduation, Ge Jun was assigned to the post office in Qilian County, Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where he worked as a courier, sat in a business hall, and did almost all the work of the postal system.
In 2009, the Golmud City Branch of China Post Group opened a car delivery post road from Golmud City to Tanggulashan Town, setting up 23 mail handover points along the route to serve the herdsmen along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway and in Tanggulashan Town.
In 2010, Ge Jun was 34 years old, which is the age of aggressiveness. At that time, the first courier on this postal route adjusted his position for physical reasons. "There are few big car drivers in the unit, I am a party member, who do I not go to?" Ge Jun took the initiative to apply, took over the burden, and ran for more than 10 years.
"Generally speaking, once a week, departs on Wednesdays, two days round trip, and there is only one person in the whole process. Some mail junctions are far from the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, and you have to drive a little longer on the Gobi Desert, with a round trip of nearly 900 kilometers. Ge Jun is all too familiar with this route, and in more than 10 years, he has traveled 175,000 kilometers between the two places.
"They saved me, I served everyone, they all helped each other over."
Early the next morning, depart from Golmud City and head south. Colorful mountains, snow-white peaks, soft fog, cascading clouds... Postal routes are long, and the junctions are often separated by tens of kilometers. Nearly an hour out of the city, the mail truck will go to the first stop - Kunlun Mountain South Pass gas station.
Ge Jun skillfully put on cotton gloves, took out the receipt book, and took a few couriers from the back of the carriage. "Take and put mail are exquisite, the first to put later, the last to put first." A cart of mail, I have to load a day, if the order is wrong, I have to turn back and forth for half a day. Ge Jun said, "From the opening of the postal road to the present, there are more and more mail along the road, the cars are getting bigger and bigger, from pickup trucks to vans, and now it is the fifth car." ”
Frozen Spring, Sonandaj Conservation Station, Five Beams... The altitude is getting higher and higher, and the temperature is gradually decreasing. Every time I went to a station, I had to get off the bus to unload the parcel, and the "hot gas" that was hard to save in the carriage was leaked as soon as the door was opened. "Let's not open the door at the same time, otherwise the wind will blow through the hall and the heat will go faster." Ge Jun shared his experience in keeping warm with reporters.
As the car traveled, the stretch of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway became bumpy, the road surface was undulating, and the car was like a boat. "It's a plateau permafrost, melting in the summer and freezing in the winter, and the roads are undulating like waves." Ge Jun tightly held the steering wheel and said, "The road is uneven, there are still many dangers, I had an accident when I ran for the first time." ”
In September 2010, Ge Jun, who was on the road for the first time, suddenly encountered a mudslide, and the car fell into the mud and could not move. In desperation, he went on foot to ask for help, and with the help of more than a dozen herders, he pulled the mail truck out of the mud. Although the car was "saved", the engine had a problem, and he had to end his "first experience" of the Getang postal road and had no choice but to return. "After I returned home, my family also advised me not to run away, I was not at ease." Ge Jun recalled, "But when I think of the scene of the herdsmen rescuing me and the look in their eyes when they received the mail, I felt that I could hold on any longer." ”
A year later, in the winter, the five beams at an altitude of 4415 meters were freezing cold. The one-year-old child of the Mongolian mother Zaya suddenly fell ill with a cold, and the fever continued to fall into a coma, and the worried Zaya waited in the bitter cold wind for a day without stopping the car, and later contacted Ge Jun. He drove down the town of Tanggula Mountain overnight and sent the child to Golmud for rescue, and the child was treated in time.
Now, thinking of the heavy snow that raged that night, Ge Jun was still afraid. "Normal weather is dangerous, not to mention heavy snow. But don't people save the line? Ge Jun said, "For more than 10 years, they have saved me, and I have served everyone, and they have all helped each other." ”
"I chose this job, and I have to keep going"
While talking and traveling, in the evening, after an 11-hour, 419-kilometer long journey, the mail truck crossed the Tuotuo River Bridge and arrived at the end of the postal road - Tanggula Mountain Town.
It was getting dark, and the town staff had already left work. At each junction, Ge Jun placed the parcel neatly at the door, and when it was all unloaded, the sky was completely dark.
Only then did Ge Jun, who had been busy for a day, have time to rest. Tanggulashan Town is the last stop of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway in Qinghai, where there are gas stations, restaurants, supermarkets, auto repair shops, guest houses, etc., the population is relatively dense, and the demand for materials is also greater.
On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2011, volunteers from the "China Yangtze River Source Natural Resources - Ecological Environment Comprehensive Station" in TanggulaShan Town posted that they wanted to eat mooncakes, and netizens from all over the world responded and sent them through the post. However, on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, it suddenly snowed heavily, and the volunteers did not hope until Ge Jun pushed open the gate of the comprehensive station in an army green cotton coat, and these intentions from Tiannanhaibei were finally sent to the hands of the volunteers.
For the herders along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway and in tanggula mountain towns, the postal route is not only a material supply line, but also an information line connecting the outside world.
"I'll never forget the tearful eyes of a Tibetan girl whose eyes were shining in the summer of 2012 when I delivered the express mail to the Tibetan girl Bazhu." Ge Jun recalled that Ba Zhu's family lived in Lazhi Village, Tanggula Mountain Town, and she had a live brain and could manage it, and she opened a homestay in her own yard 10 years ago. Once, a photographer from Guangdong lived at her house, and the express email sent by Ge Jun was the same photo that the photographer had taken for Ba Zhu. "These pictures are precious to her." Ge Jun felt that this moment was also of great significance to him.
"Recently, I can't hold my body and want to run away from The Cliff City." But if the driver on this mail route has something temporary, I still have to come back to the top. In the cold night of Tanggula Mountain Town, Ge Jun looked at the starry sky and said.
Among the postal routes managed by the Golmud City Branch of China Post, the hardship of the Golmud to Mangya section is second only to the Golmud to Tanggula Mountain section. "The distance is similar, also more than 400 kilometers, also a person running." But the altitude is only more than 3,000 meters, which is more than 1,500 meters lower than the Getang Post Road. Ge Jun said as he walked toward the mail truck. That night, he also filled the vehicle with antifreeze oil for tomorrow's return trip. Ge Jun said: "Choosing this job, I will continue to stick to it." ”