Drive north and drive all the way out of Yumin County, Xinjiang. Under the shadow of the sky and clouds, on the vast Gobi, a little greenery adds life. The mountain road winds, and a sentry tower faintly appears in front of you. In the rear seat of the car, an old man stared out the window.
Through the flying dust, turning his eyes to the 40-year-old "small poplar" in the distance, the old man raised his hand and gently wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. At this moment, memories came like a tidal wave.
The old man' name was Cheng Fusheng, and he was a veteran of the Tasti Border Defense Company of the Xinjiang Military Region.
40 years ago, veterans were still recruits. Cheng Fusheng went with the team to the company's outpost squad to garrison. There, he and his comrades planted the first poplar trees next to the outpost. 40 years later, recruits are veterans. Take off your military uniform, the original intention is still the same. Every once in a while, whenever his physical condition permitted, he would return to the post to have a look.
The small poplar of the outpost is a symbol of the soldiers standing on the border defense line, the soul and root of a company, and the spiritual totem of the people in the northern Frontier of the era.
Tasty, Kazakh means "beach of stones". It is on this Gobi desert that a stubble of border guards let green and stick to it take root here. In the past 40 years since the establishment of the outpost of the Tasti Border Defense Company, the officers and men have persistently inherited the small poplar spirit of "taking root in border defense and vigorously moving forward", and have given a new era connotation of "small poplar to people" with a pioneering attitude toward life, the responsibility of defending the country and the border, the strong will to take root on the ground, and the simple feeling of silent dedication.
In 1982, the outpost of the Tasti Border Defense Company of the Xinjiang Military Region was officially named "Little Poplar Outpost".
In the past 40 years, the officers and men of the sentry have changed stubble after stubble, and the sentry keeper's original intention has never changed. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the designation of the "Little Poplar Outpost", let us approach this post again and approach the officers and men here.
Recruits hold a sentry ceremony in front of the sentry tower.
Goodbye poplar
In the heart of veteran Cheng Fusheng, the small poplar tree next to the outpost carried his youthful time of burning passion. After leaving the outpost for decades, the tree he planted himself still often appears in dreams today...
40 years ago, Cheng Fusheng, who was still a recruit, planted the first poplar trees with his comrades-in-arms next to the post.
At that time, he did not know that this small poplar would become the soul of a sentinel and the youth of a generation.
He could not have imagined that many years later, a popular military song would give this tree a household name "special honor", so that this northern Xinjiang outpost class would be familiar to more people, and also give the border guards a deeper meaning.
After retiring from the army, Cheng Fusheng never forgot the post he had been stationed for many years. Every few years, he would return to the post, look at the trees, look at the soldiers, and reminisce about his youth. In his heart, that green color was the most intense color in life.
Cheng Fusheng's hometown is in Ili, where the purple lavender flower fields are as colorful as the sea, and the sassafras pine and arrow pole Yang Yingfeng are upright... The environment of the outpost station is harsh, the winter is full of wind and snow, the summer is dry and hot, and the wind rolls up the sand and gravel, and the green is scarce and precious here. In sharp contrast, Cheng Fusheng came up with the idea of trying to plant trees at the outpost.
In the spring of 1982, when Cheng Fusheng returned from a leave of absence, he brought back 10 saplings. With the consent of the company cadres, Cheng Fusheng and his comrades-in-arms worked feverishly on the river beach.
Digging pits, watering, fertilizing, taking good care of them every day... All winter passed, when the spring breeze blew up the river beach, 9 of the 10 trees did not move, and only 1 strong sapling pulled out its young shoots in the sun. A touch of green also sent a spring breeze to Cheng Fusheng's heart.
He hugged his comrades excitedly.
40 years have passed, and standing in front of the already leafy poplar tree again, this scene is still as clear as yesterday. Mossing the mottled bark, gazing at the green leaves, listening to the rustle of the wind blowing the leaves, the veteran burst into tears.
In 40 years, poplar trees have grown from more than a foot tall to more than half a meter in diameter today. Cheng Fusheng witnessed the green taking root in the Gobi, and this Gobi also witnessed the silent persistence of a group of soldiers.
The years have changed, and the inheritance has never been broken. To this day, "perseverance" and "rooting" are still the unchanging souls of the small poplar outpost.
Leisure time after the sentry.
Pursue that green
Looking at the camp gate for a long time, I saw a familiar figure appear in front of me, and A smile appeared on the face of Sergeant Umar Jiang. He took three steps and made two steps to run forward, shook Cheng Fusheng's hand hard and said, "Captain Cheng, welcome home!" ”
This young sergeant was a fellow soldier with Cheng Fusheng. On the military road, Cheng Fusheng was his "leader".
When Wumaerjiang was in high school, Cheng Fusheng was invited to give a lecture at his school. As a student representative, Wumaierjiang had a close contact with Cheng Fusheng. In this way, a poplar tree and a post entered the heart of this Uighur teenager.
After graduating from high school, Umarjan put on a military uniform as he wished. With his outstanding performance in the recruit company, he was assigned to the long-awaited Tasti Border Guard Company. As a member of the Little Poplar Outpost, Umarjan is full of pride, but the defensive life is far from the legend and romance imagined.
Patrolling, performing and training day after day, the passion and fighting spirit of the Umar River were gradually worn away by the wind and sand on the Gobi. Lu Yajie, the instructor at the time, was a man with a heart, and soon realized that Umar jiang did not seem to smile as much as before.
In front of the poplar tree, the two men talked for a long time.
Lu Yajie once again told him the story of the little poplar and proposed to let this smiling young man serve as the docent of the "Little Poplar Exhibition Hall".
Officers and soldiers watered the poplar trees.
At the end of that year, the outpost was closed by heavy snow for half a month, and the supply vehicles were blocked by wind and snow. The comrades of the company cleared the snow barrier all the way and took several days to transport the supplies to the outpost. Along with the car came a letter spanning thousands of kilometers.
The writer was Wang Dianxi, a primary school student from Changsha, Hunan Province, whose father was a veteran. Often listening to his father sing the military song "Little Poplar" and writing letters to the Uncle of the People's Liberation Army at the Little Poplar Outpost became a big wish of Xiao Dianxi.
Holding the letterhead in his hand, Wumair Jiang was warmed and moved by the words flowing on the letterhead.
Lu Yajie proposed that everyone send a special New Year's gift to Xiao Dianxi - a photo of the small poplar post signed by all the officers and soldiers.
According to the telephone number left in the letter, one afternoon after the snow, the officers and soldiers dialed Wang Dianxi's father's phone.
As a representative of the officers and soldiers, WuMaierjiang sang the song "Little Poplar" for Xiao Dianxi, and when the familiar melody sounded, a smile appeared on Xiao Dianxi's face at the end of the video phone...
Every once in a while, Xiao Dianxi would call "Uncle Wumai Erjiang". After talking, the young warriors felt a trust and concern from afar, and gradually strengthened their faith in the Gobi.
"Pass the story down." Umarjiang began to collect and write the "Little Poplar Story Collection". From Li Yongqiang, the heroic model platoon leader, to Cheng Fusheng, the old squad leader, from the excellent political instructor Yuan Taikang to the coach pacesetter Song Fei... In the deeds of the sentry predecessors, Wumaerjiang felt the surging blood of the "small poplar descendants".
"Hold on to the outpost, and everyone can be a poplar tree that stands tall in the wind." Umarjan suggested to the company that any soldier who had achieved excellent results in training, duty, and other tasks could engrave his name on the 365-level stone steps leading to the post.
Facing the wind, the small poplar stood on the border line, and the stubble officers and soldiers grew with the poplar tree.
Looking at the shining names on the stone steps, the new platoon leader Huang Yuanlei had a new goal in mind: to carve his name on the 365-level stone step road; Wumaerjiang stared at the 8 big characters of "rooted in border defense and vigorous upwards" on the distant mountain, and told himself in his heart: I am a small poplar in the outpost!
Watch over that smear of green
Second Grade Sergeant Yang Kexi never thought that he would know what watchfulness was because he grew vegetables.
The morning light is faint, and the poplar trees sway in the wind.
As a grower, Yang Kexi picked up his hoe at dawn and walked into the greenhouse of the outpost. The weather forecast said it was a good day, and he planned to water the freshly planted peppers once.
As the sun shines, the temperature in the greenhouse gradually rises. Yang Kexi carried a bucket of water and watered the red peppers one by one, and his dark face smiled brightly.
Officers and men patrolled the border line on snow.
Yang Kexi's hometown is in a small mountain village in Tianshui, Gansu. After failing the college entrance examination, he helped his parents take care of dozens of acres of vegetable fields. Yearning for the barracks, he said to the cadres of the troops: "As long as I can become a soldier, I am willing to go wherever I go and what I want." ”
As if it were an arrangement in the dark, yang Kexi was assigned to the company's planting and breeding post soon after the next company.
"Turn around and back on the vegetable floor." During that time, the "retreat drum" in Yang Kexi's heart became louder and louder. In a dilemma, one night, the fierce wind swept through the ice ballast, and the tarpaulin at the top of the company's greenhouse was blown without a trace.
Without saying a word, Yang Kexi climbed to the roof of the tent with the tarpaulin on his shoulder, and against the cold wind, he re-laid the tarpaulin little by little. The next morning, as soon as he opened his eyes, Yang Kexi ran to the greenhouse. The scene in front of him stunned him: the tarpaulin was once again swept up by the wind, and the vegetable seedlings in the greenhouse, covered with ice and snow, were all beaten.
Yang Kexi squatted next to the vegetable field, sighing and crying.
As a fellow grower, the first-class sergeant Wang Kehuai was also very distressed to see this scene.
Calling on the "apprentice" Yang Kexi, the two rushed to the nearby villagers' homes to buy a batch of vegetable seedlings and a few bundles of tarpaulin. "After laying the tarpaulin and calling me, the fresh vegetables at the outpost are expensive, and we can take care of it." Wang Kehuai said.
In fact, Wang Kehuai also had a dream of special combat.
When the recruit company, in order to improve his training performance, he sprinted with a 10-pound sandbag. When the recruits got out of the company, Wang Kehuai entered the cooking class, "doing the same thing in the grass-roots company."
Panning rice, washing vegetables, cutting vegetables... The work of the cooking class is monotonous and boring, and sometimes the kitchen is busy, and he can only use his rest time to practice physical fitness. During the Spring Festival of that year, an old classmate called for a blessing and learned that Wang Kehuai, who wanted to become a special combatant, had become a cook, so he "complained" for him: "Where can the cooks not do it, why go to the frontier so far away." ”
"The cooker is connected to the stomach of the officers and soldiers, and it is indispensable to guard." The words of Wang Rui, the instructor at the time, made Wang Kehuai suddenly enlightened.
That year, the company built a new greenhouse on a saline field. Yang Kexi tried his best to dig one pickaxe after another, shovel after shovel, and built a new greenhouse next to the original vegetable field.
The soil is not good, they bring black soil from the riverbed 3 km away; The nutrition is not enough, they pull sheep manure from the herdsmen's homes for fattening...
Yang Kexi pushed the cart again and again, and planted fresh vegetables on the saline ground covered with stones.
Not long ago, during the Dragon Boat Festival, Yang Kexi and his wife video, looking at her tanned husband, she couldn't help but cry. He smiled and comforted: "I have grown live vegetables on the salt and alkali ground, and my sense of accomplishment is many miles." ”
Nowadays, Yang Kexi often likes to sit alone under the poplar tree. Someone asked him, "Is it worth it to stay at the outpost?" Yang Kexi often laughed but did not answer, but his eyes looked leisurely into the distance.
In his view, every harvest season, the bitterness and tiredness, loneliness and loneliness in his heart have turned into this refreshing greenery and full of vitality.
A small poplar outpost in the setting sun.
Become that smear of green
A dry ditch lay lifelessly, and a whirlwind swept up a column of yellow sand and quickly lifted into the air.
The wind here left a deep impression on Zhu Huijie, an engineer at a certain research institute of the Army Research Institute, who was squatting at the outpost.
Zhu Huijie said that it was the height of summer, the temperature could reach thirty-eight and nine degrees Celsius during the day, and the slightest movement was sweat. The company was short of water, and the officers and men could only take a bath once a week; Zhu Huijie was very uncomfortable, but the officers and men said, "Very happy."
Later, When Zhu Huijie went to the outpost on duty, he learned that "this statement is not false." Stationed in the outpost class with more difficult conditions, he truly realized that the happiness that the officers and men said was "real happiness."
Roads were built, electricity was connected, there was a mobile phone signal...
The soldiers told Zhu Huijie that because of the remoteness and scarcity, when the garrison conditions are slightly improved, it will stir up waves in the hearts of the officers and men, and everyone can always harvest "multiplied sweetness" in their hearts.
Some officers and men have not even been to the county seat where they are stationed. Even so, complaints are rarely heard. When you encounter the opportunity to take a vacation and study, everyone is pushing me and letting go. "I didn't ask them why, but I seemed to understand, because when you got to the company, you would be pulled by a force." Zhu Huijie said that this is a kind of spiritual inheritance force.
He is a meter and eighty-tall head, with muscular muscles and a simple smile, like the guard "Wei Monk" in the TV series "Bright Sword". The name of the private is Chen Ye, and he is a new recruit who has just laid down the company this year.
Chen Ye's home is less than 800 meters away from the Lufeng Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery. After graduating from high school, he caught up with the conscription season, and grew up in a red atmosphere, he signed up early and joined the army as he wished.
There is an unwritten rule in the company that only a soldier of excellent quality is eligible to go to the small poplar post to defend.
In order to achieve this goal, every day Chen Ye carried his backpack around the camp to practice; According to the standard gun movements, he repeatedly practiced hanging from a brick. After a few months, the young man's delicate skin was tanned, and there was a confident glow in his eyes.
Not long ago, the company conducted an examination of all the recruits, and Chen Ye won the championship in one fell swoop and successfully obtained the "garrison qualification certificate."
In the company, groups of recruits like Chen Ye, after the baptism of the wind sword and frost sword, grew into a bloody "rough man". Through rigorous training, the bloodiness of soldiers is integrated into their bloodline; The scars that fell during training also became the "medal" on their growth path.
A tree is evergreen, a group of people grows, a sentinel has a new look, and a spirit is passed on forever. Nowadays, the Xiaobaiyang outpost has been rated as a "patriotic education base" and a "national defense education demonstration base" by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and young people come to the outpost every winter and summer vacation to visit and study. The children walked into the outpost to understand the story of the little poplar, appreciate the patrol style of the officers and men on duty, and also let the "little poplar spirit" become the positive energy of the generation's heart.
One weekend early in the morning, Chen Ye greeted the morning light to receive the post. Soon, a group of elementary school students who had come to visit the outpost were bouncing toward him with school bags. Suddenly, the little boy in the lead stood upright and raised his right hand- a standard Young Pioneer salute!
"Uncle Plais has worked hard!" The little boys who followed closely behind said the words one by one.
Chen Ye's ears echoed this sentence repeatedly - for the first time, he was saluted; For the first time, he experienced the solemnity and weight of the word "perseverance".
Sentry, Chen Ye told the company comrades about this matter; I called in the evening and told my parents about the scene.
My heart is at home. On the phone, Chen Ye said that he was not only happy, but also "the happiest."
That night, Chen Ye also had a dream, dreaming that he had become a small poplar and guarded the frontier of the motherland.
(This version of the picture is taken by Wang Yue)
Source: People's Liberation Army Daily