In July 1986, a young militiaman named Huang Jicai was given an almost impossible task of going to the deserted "Kaishan Island" to guard the motherland's sea frontier. After the dozen or so people who had been sent there earlier retreated one after another, Huang Jicai resolutely took up the task and sat alone on a small boat bound for Kaishan Island.
Life on the island was even more terrifying than Huang Jicai imagined, but it was not long before his wife Wang Shihua quit her stable job because she was worried about her husband's life and came to the island to share happiness and hardship with him. In this way, the husband and wife stood guard and built a small island, and have been sticking to Kaishan Island for 32 years.
So, how did Huang Jicai and his wife survive under such harsh conditions? And what makes them so determined?
Island life insurance
Kaishan Island belongs to Guanyun County, Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province, although its total area is only 0.013 square kilometers, and the environment on the island is very harsh. However, because it is located in the outpost of the Yellow Sea on the mainland, it is a very important national defense strategic island, so it must be strictly guarded to ensure national security.
In 1986, the People's Armed Forces Department of Guanyun County set up a militia post on the island and wanted to send militia to guard the island. Unexpectedly, more than a dozen militiamen who went to the island one after another chose to give up because they could not stand the harsh environment there. Among them, the longest lasted only 13 days, and the shortest even fled back as soon as they arrived there.
Just when everyone was at a loss, Wang Changjie, minister of the Armed Forces Department, thought of Wang Jicai, who was honest and honest in his daily life. After learning of Minister Wang's intentions, Wang Changjie only hesitated for a moment before accepting the task. In fact, Wang Changjie did not know how difficult the conditions on the island were.
Before that, he had heard the old man in the village mention that the island was not a place for people to stay at all, and even if he was not bitten by the poisonous snakes and beasts there after going there, he would be too lonely to cause him to be lonely and depressed. But at that time, Wang Changjie only said one sentence: "No matter how difficult the work is, someone always needs to go up." ”
On the morning of August 14, after bidding farewell to his wife and daughter, 27-year-old Wang Changjie took some necessities of life and the "tips and tricks" given to him by his leaders and went to Kaishan Island, 12 nautical miles away. Although Wang Changjie had made mental preparations, the situation on the island still shocked him greatly.
There is not only no water and electricity, but also no crops, just a row of empty factories and countless mosquitoes, and the simple environment is accompanied by the cold sea breeze, which is particularly lonely and desolate.
On the first night on the island, the double discomfort of physical and psychological discomfort made it difficult for Wang Jicai to sleep, so he curled up in the corner of the room, opened the "tips", and found that it was some cigarettes and liquor. Wang Jicai, who originally did not drink alcohol, could only give himself courage by drinking.
On the first day, there was such a thrilling past, but I did not expect that the next morning, it would rain heavily on the island. Due to the rising water level, the rats, ants and snakes on the island all climbed into the house, and Wang Jicai had no choice but to close the door tightly to protect himself. It rained heavily for four days, and for those four days he barely fed his stomach with dry food he brought, until the sun came out on the fifth day, and he had a chance to go out to catch his breath.
Husband and wife suffer together
Because he was afraid that his family would be worried, before Wang Jicai left home, he only told his wife Wang Shihua that he was going to go on a special mission, and did not tell his wife that he was going to guard the island. But Wang Shihua, who has never been able to contact her husband, is very anxious in her heart, and after many inquiries, she learned her husband's whereabouts from the mouth of the villagers.
On the morning of August 30, Wang Shihua, accompanied by several comrades of the Armed Forces Department, came to Kaishan Island. At the first sight of her husband, Wang Shihua couldn't help but cry bitterly. Although less than half a month had passed, Wang Jicai at this time was already dark-skinned, his cheeks were thin and sunken inward, and his face was haggard and alive like a wild man.
Seeing his wife like this, Wang Jicai rushed forward to comfort him and took his wife around the island. Wang Shihua, who learned of the specific situation on the island, was even more determined to let her husband leave here. But wang Jicai immediately rejected her after hearing this, and Wang Jicai said: "I have accepted the task of the organization, how can I give up easily?" Wang Shihua knew her husband's temper, and once she stubbornly stood up, ten cows could not move, so she had to give up persuasion.
But when Wang Shihua returned home, because she was worried about her husband and couldn't eat or sleep well all day, after thinking about it repeatedly, she decided to quit her job as a teacher and accompany Wang Jicai to shou island. She originally wanted to take her daughter to the island with her, but considering the difficult conditions there and the fact that her daughter would need a good education in the future, she still entrusted her daughter to the care of her in-laws.
Wang Shihua, who had just landed on the island, like Wang Jicai, could not sleep at night in fear, and whenever Wang Jicai gently comforted his wife to coax her to sleep. The arrival of his wife also gave Wang Jicai a little more comfort, and he no longer had to spend his whole day relying on tobacco and alcohol. In this way, the husband and wife accompanied each other and worked together, and life on the island was finally on the right track.
Wang Shihua followed Wang Jicai to learn how to survey the sea, how to identify the ships coming and going, and how to record all the conditions of the day. Slowly, she has fully become a qualified island keeper, and when Wang Jicai leaves the island, she can also complete all the work alone.
At that time, the combined salaries of Wang Jicai and his wife were only more than 5,000 yuan a year, and every penny of their money was eager to break into several petals to spend.
The clothes of the two are always "new three years, old three years, sewing and mending for another three years", and the food on weekdays is also supplied by fishermen passing by. For them, a bowl of shimizu noodles is already a rare delicacy.
Wang Shihua also raised a few hens on the island, and they were reluctant to eat the eggs themselves, so they were taken to the shore for more grain. Sometimes in the event of a typhoon without boats passing by, they can only rely on some shellfish to survive.
Once, when Wang Jicai's father was sending them supplies, he also brought a national flag, and the old father said: "To defend the island is to defend the position, and we must be in the flag." From that day on, the two men held a flag-raising ceremony every morning, and for 32 years they raised the flag more than 10,000 times on this deserted island.
The spirit is passed on forever
It is worth celebrating that on July 9, 1987, Wang Shihua also gave birth to a boy on the island and named wang Zhiguo. At that time, due to the heavy work on the island, Wang Shihua decided to go ashore to produce again near the production date, but he did not expect that in July, the fishing period was closed, and there was not a single passing fishing boat.
On the day of her birth, she rushed to the sea to blow strong winds, and forcibly going to sea would only be more dangerous, so Wang Jicai had no choice but to deliver the baby for his wife personally.
The arrival of new life has made the whole island full of vitality, and Wang Jicai and his wife hold their young sons every day to raise the flag and tour the island together.
As her son grew older and reached the age of going to school, Wang Shihua once again persuaded her husband to go to the island. But when Wang Jicai plucked up the courage to find Wang Changjie, who had been assigned him the task that year, he found that he was already suffering from cancer for a long time.
When he saw Wang Jicai, Wang Changjie graciously grabbed his hand and said weakly, "Little King, I will be relieved to hand over Kaishan Island to you." Looking at the old leader who was sick and afflicted in front of him, Wang Jicai could not say anything about resigning, so he once again strengthened his determination to defend the island and continued to return to Kaishan Island to complete his mission.
In fact, Wang Jicai's heart was always full of debt to his wife and children. Because the family was poor, when the eldest daughter got married, he could not even get a decent dowry, the younger son's tuition was all on loans, and most of the family's living expenses were maintained by borrowing money from relatives.
But Wang Jicai is not without the opportunity to get rich. In 1993, a smuggler bribed Wang Jicai with a heavy amount of 100,000 yuan, wanting him to be accommodating and store 60 smuggled cars on Kaishan Island, which was undoubtedly rejected by Wang Jicai. In addition, he refused the sea transport job that his brother-in-law had asked him to find, and only wanted to guard this small border island.
In order to pay off the debt, the couple decided to catch some small fish and shrimp at sea in their leisure time and take them to the shore to buy, so that they could earn thousands of yuan more a year. Even in the face of such a hard life, Wang Jicai never regretted his original choice.
The parents' firm belief deeply infected the youngest son, Wang Zhiguo, after graduating from graduate school, Wang Zhiguo refused the high-paying job of the enterprise and chose to devote himself to the military camp to serve the motherland. In 2018, he was transferred to the Coast Guard and, like his parents, continued to guard the waters of his homeland.
On July 27 of the same year, Wang Shihua went to the shore to treat necrosis of the femoral head, but he did not expect that misfortune would happen. Wang Jicai, who was patrolling the island alone, died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 58.
An outstanding Communist Party member who dedicated all his youth to the cause of the motherland's security eventually left his most proud post.
After Wang Jicai's death, Wang Shihua did not continue to be depressed endlessly. She submitted an application to her superiors to continue to guard the island, and wanted to fulfill her husband's wish and sweat all her sweat on Kaishan Island.
Wang Shihua's sense of responsibility deeply touched the superior leaders, because she was also elderly, and the organization decided to hire her as the honorary director of the Kaishan Island outpost. Thereafter, the post was changed to a rotational guard system, with the selected militia taking turns on duty on the island for ten to fifteen days.
Today's Kaishan Island has been renewed, not only has enough fresh water for the militia to live, relying on light energy to generate electricity, the island is now full of electricity, fully able to meet people's basic life.
In addition to being on duty on the island, Wang Shihua will also give lectures throughout the country to introduce Wang Jicai's honorary deeds. In 2021, the movie "Island Keeper", which changed the real life of the couple, was released, which caused strong repercussions from all walks of life.
end
"Profiting the country, not seeking wealth and nobility", Wang Jicai and Wang Shihua are willing to sacrifice their spirit for the cause of the motherland, which is worthy of study and praise by every citizen. It is precisely because of such grassroots masses that they have taken root in the borders of the motherland that we have a beautiful and happy new life today.