When the mountain song comes, the good news comes.
On the hundreds of kilometers of plateau in the Tibetan countryside, people used to wait for an old friend named Wang Shunyou to lead a horse on certain days. When his mountain song drifted into the countryside, the villagers knew that there were relatives from outside the mountain who had sent letters.
During the 20 years without access to the road, Wang Shunyou worked as a township mail courier in Muli County, Sichuan Province, delivering letters to villages in the mountains. In Muli, there are more than 20 mountains above 5,000 meters above sea level, and where the mountains are densely forested, the roads are difficult to walk. One man and one horse, Wang Shunyou has traveled 260,000 kilometers, equivalent to 21 25,000-mile long marches, 6 circles around the earth's equator, delivering nearly 10,000 pieces of various types of mail every year, without delaying a shift or losing a single mail.
In 2005, Wang Shunyou was selected as one of the top ten people who moved China of the year, and his deeds were adapted into the movie "The Messenger of Shambhala". Until 2017, the townships of Muli County were connected to roads, letters began to be sent into the mountains by cars, and Wang Shunyou returned to work at the county post office.
In the early morning of May 30, 56-year-old Wang Shunyou died of a sudden illness at home. Bid farewell to the "Maban Post Road" that he has walked for 32 years.
Wang Shunyou led a horse to climb the mountain to deliver a letter. Source: Sichuan Post
A man, a horse
The county seat of Muli is two thousand meters above sea level, and the postal route is higher.
The mountain road is steep, and the highest postal road is nearly 5,000 meters above sea level. "A mountain has four seasons, ten miles of different days." By the time you pass through the blizzard at the top of Mount Charwa and reach the Yalong River Valley below the mountain, it is already a high temperature of 40 ° C.
The postal route that Wang Shunyou took originally belonged to his father, Wang Youcai. At that time, Wang Youcai had to carry forty or fifty pounds of newspapers and mail from Muli County to Weibo Township. In the 1960s, the postmen on the road had one more companion: horses. Later, the postal route had a new name: "Maban Postal Route". At its peak, there are 15 Maban postal routes in Muli County, with a one-way length of 2303 kilometers.
In the winter of 1985, Wang Youcai ended his 30-year career as a Maban postal road and handed over the parcel and reins to his 19-year-old son Wang Shunyou. In the long years that followed, Wang Shunyou became a messenger through the depths of the mountains.
Wang Shunyou's good friend Cai Shunhua grew up here, and his father once walked the same postal route. Cai Shunhua said that the mountains in Muli are winding and winding, and the road is not like a road. Some only allow the next person and one horse, and one foot slips, and they may fall off the cliff.
Wang Shunyou cherished each of his horses, and he gave them different names. On the mail road, if you can't eat, you have to feed the horses grass. "He felt that the horses had helped him carry the parcel, which was higher than his own status." Friend Luo Wenzhong remembers.
For the first 365 days of the year, he was on the mail road for 330 days, and he basically had only one horse with him. The horses accompanied him through the paths along the cliffs and the boardwalks on the rough waters. The horse watched him encounter rain and snow, found a branch, put a green postal cloth on it for a night, and saw that his stomach hurt so much that he couldn't stand it, so he unscrewed the bottle cap and took a sip of white wine to relieve the pain.
On the way back to the county seat, the mail had been sent, and the horse was much more relaxed. Sometimes it rains uphill, a large section of the road requires hands and feet and climbing, the horse walks in front, Wang Shunyou drags the horse's tail to climb up.
Cai Shunhua still remembered a past story that Wang Shunyou told him. In 1995, Wang Shunyou led his horse across the Yalong River to the "Ninety-Nine Turns", which was feared by the locals. A pheasant flew out, startling the horse and kicking and jumping, kicking him in the stomach. Wang Shunyou fell to the ground in pain, but he still insisted on delivering the letter. "In order to send a letter, he delayed treatment, and the doctor said that if he came a few dozen minutes late, he would not be able to do it."
Later, Cai Shunhua learned from the news that after being kicked and injured for 9 days, Wang Shunyou returned to Muli County after delivering the mail. Because of the delay for too long, severe intestinal adhesions have occurred. Wang Shunyou saved a life, but his large intestine has since been shortened.
In the past 20 years, Wang Shunyou has been engaged in township postal delivery work in Muli County, Liangshan Prefecture Branch of Sichuan Postal Company, responsible for the mail delivery work from Muli County to Baidian Township, Sanjue Township, Weibo Township, Kara Township and Liziping Township. He trekked 260,000 kilometers on the Maban Post Road without delaying a single shift and losing a single piece of mail.
Wang Shunyou led the horse on the way to deliver the mail. Source: Sichuan Post
"He's coming, the good news is coming"
As soon as Wang Shunyou came, the whole village knew.
He likes to open his voice and sing mountain songs in the wilderness, like a "plateau horn", which can be heard by anyone who is doing farm work several kilometers away.
In Luo Wenzhong's memory, when the villagers saw him, they would be so excited that they "wanted to wipe their tears." In the era of no telephone and network,
The postman maintains the connection between the mountain village and the outside world. Children who study in the city, girls who marry far away, and family members who work outside the city, villagers will wait for Wang Shunyou to lead his horse to deliver letters on certain days. "He's coming, and the general good news is coming."
Wang Shunyou was reluctant to ride a horse, and 16-year-old Luo Wenzhong rode it.
Luo Wenzhong remembers that it was 1994, on the way from the village to the county seat to study, he first met Wang Shunyou in the mountains.
To go from home to school, it takes two days to walk over the mountains. He traveled with his classmates, climbing to a high mountain beam on the way and stopping to rest. Not far away came a horse bell, and the tanned Wang Shunyou led the horse to come.
"Where are you going?" "We went to school in the county seat."
"Let's go the same way." Wang Shunyou asked Luo Wenzhong and his classmates to take off their school bags and put them on horseback. In the deep mountains and old forests, this stranger made Luo Wenzhong feel kind. After walking for two or three hours, the two teenagers really couldn't walk, so Wang Shunyou let them take turns riding for a while, leading the horses in front of them, and singing the stories along the way with mountain songs.
Later, his family told him that the man's name was Wang Shunyou, and he was a person who had been delivering letters to his fellow villagers for many years.
In 1997, muli county town to Baidi township through the road, a 4-hour car ride can be reached. But Wang Shunyou insisted on "taking a long detour", he could find the homes of most of the villagers, and if they did not take a detour, they would have to go to the township to get it themselves.
After completing his studies in 1998, Luo Wenzhong returned to his hometown of Baidi Township as a primary school teacher. The school is remote, but Wang Shunyou will still hand over the letter to him. Back and forth for a month, they had to meet four times, and after a long time, the two became good friends.
Luo Wenzhong said that in addition to letters, Wang Shunyou's parcel also contained many "treasures". The county town has a new variety of cabbage, eggplant, tomato seeds, he will buy a little to bring to the villagers, which family has a cold, he will take cold medicine to send.
Villagers can say which day he passed by when they look at the wall calendar, "The error cannot be wrong for a day or two." "Wang Shunyou will also stay in this village for one night. There is no need to look for him, and the villagers know where he is. In the evening, seven or eight people gathered around the edge of the village elementary school, lit a campfire, poured a bowl full of wine, and drank it from one sip to me.
When the next day was leaving, the villagers asked him to help carry the family's specialties to the family in the county. The old man of the village would grab him, grab a handful of hemp sugar and boil a few eggs, and stuff them into his parcel.
On the way to deliver the letter, Wang Shunyou rested on the mountain. Source: Sichuan Post
A postman who loves to sing and a man who steals crying
Wang Shunyou likes to sing, and everyone in the Post and Telecommunications Bureau knows it. Fourteen or five days of going back and forth, colleagues rarely met him, and when they met, they had to drink some wine together. They liked to listen to him sing, to sing the mountain songs he had made up on the mail road. Someone always came up to him, "Brother Wang, what good mountain songs have you heard lately, give us two whole songs?" "The shy man will not shirk, clear his throat and sing to them.
For a long time, his son Wang Yinhai felt that his father was like a "familiar stranger" . In a year, all of Wang Shunyou's rest time was linked together, and he stayed at home for only one month.
The doll thinks of her father, and the father does not know. Every time he mentioned his wife and children at home, Wang Shunyou could only smile bitterly at his friend. "I feel ashamed to take less care of the children in the family." When swinging the dragon gate array, Wang Shunyou confided to Luo Wenzhong, "These letters are very important, if I don't leave, there may be no one leaving." ”
Shi Jin, a reporter for Liangshan Daily, followed Wang Shunyou on his postal route in 2005. On the mountainside of Charwa, he talked about being kicked in the gut by a mule. At that time, he said, there was no way, the mail had not been delivered, and it had to be insisted. "He said he cried in pain and cried and walked." Shi Jin remembered that the people around him were suddenly quiet.
Shi Jin recorded the man's helplessness in a biography written for Wang Shunyou. In order to ensure that her brother studied, Wang Shunyou's daughter Xiaoying dropped out of school at a very young age and helped her mother take care of cattle and sheep. In order to earn money to treat her mother's illness, in June 2004, 14-year-old Wang Xiaoying did not greet adults and went to work in the Mulicha Brown district, which was hundreds of miles away from home.
In the months that Xiaoying went out to work, Wang Shunyou secretly cried several times. He inquired around about his daughter's whereabouts. After learning about it, he couldn't bear to let his child work outside, but he couldn't find time to pick her up and take her home. Later, the leader of Wang Shunyou's unit learned of this and sent someone to pick up Xiaoying.
It was also that year that his son Wang Yinhai and his father "reached a reconciliation" on the postal route. He saw the foot nests trampled by cattle and horses on the mountain road, and he also saw the mountain village that was as lively as a festival because of his father's arrival.
In 2006, Wang Yinhai became a staff member of the Muli County Post Office, which can also be regarded as "inheriting his father's business".
Wang Shunyou handed the letter to the villagers. Source: Sichuan Post
I wish I was the last "Maban Post Road" township postman
People on the mail road don't like to show off.
In 2005, Wang Shunyou was named "National Model Worker" and was selected as one of the top ten people who moved China in the year. People who walk through the forest and beat leaves in the mountains have entered the vision of more people.
In October of the same year, he was invited to the podium of the UPU Administrative Council, breaking the UPU's 131-year practice and becoming the first Chinese grassroots postman to enter the UPU headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The president of the UPU was touched by his experience and said that he "hopes to come to China once in my lifetime and take the postal route with Wang Shunyou."
Later, his honorary titles gradually increased to the point where he could fill a piece of paper. As a friend, Luo Wenzhong did not know this, nor did he hear Wang Shunyou mention it. He said many villagers did not know that Wang Shunyou had so many honors until he died.
The last time Cai Shunhua and Wang Shunyou met was a week ago, when they met him on the street and greeted him, when he looked better and in a better mood. "He's joking. Some time ago, we chatted and talked about how lately Muli was very dry and it was not raining. He also joked that he would ask me to contact Sun Wukong and ask the Dragon King for some rain. ”
The afternoon before he left, Wang Shunyou also called and chatted with Cai Shunhua, "Brother, it hasn't rained recently, I asked you to contact Sun Wukong, have you contacted you in the end? Unexpectedly, the next day, my friend died of a sudden illness at home.
After learning the news, Shi Jin hurriedly drove from Xichang to Muli to send his old friend on the last journey. On the way, Shi Jin remembered the question he had asked Wang Shunyou many years ago: "What is your biggest dream?" Wang Shunyou told her that he hoped that the road in Muli would be built, that the postman would be able to deliver mail in a car, and that he would be the last "Maban Post Road" township postman.
His wish has been fulfilled. At the end of 2017, every village in Muli County was connected to the road, and mail was no longer the only way to go outside the mountain, and since then, Wang Shunyou left the "Maban Post Road" to engage in party management.
The ancient road is still there, and there seems to be a burst of loud mountain songs on the mountain. "There is no end to the Maban postal road, the sound of footprints and hooves is composed of spring and autumn, who knows that the three or nine nights are difficult, and the spirits and mountain songs relieve sorrows..." Just in the smoke and rain, Wang Shunyou led his beloved horse and walked away.
The content of this article refers to "100 Chinese Objects That Have Touched Since the Founding of New China: Wang Shunyou"
Beijing News trainee reporter Guo Yimeng intern Lan Han
Edited by Li Ming
Proofreading Li Lijun