【Culture Yongchang】Sun Zhiming | Prose: Jinchuan River

As a Northwesterner, water is my favorite.

One side of the water and soil raises one side of the people, one side of the people raises the other side of the water and soil, and the most cherished thing of one side of the people is the river of this side. As a Yongchang person, no one objects that the ice and snow of Qilian Mountain nourish the land of Yongchang, and the Jinchuan River, which is formed by the collection of countless springs, is the blessing of the vast land of Yongchang given by God.

All the water systems on the land of Yongchang are naturally flowing from southwest to east, and people build reservoirs and canals and dams, so that the river water changes its direction and flows vertically and horizontally to the southeast, north and south, watering countless fertile lands in the corridor oasis, and deriving a brilliant farming culture. But a spring in front of Shuiyun Mountain flows westward, and she flows westward for nothing else, just for the many springs in Beihaizi waiting for her. The different paths of mountains and water come to the same end, and the combination of clouds and fog has achieved the beauty of the world on the land of Yongchang.

In front of the big sand ditch in the east of Beihaizi, there is a large canal that conveys water from the Huangcheng Reservoir in the depths of the Qilian Mountains to the Jinchuan Gorge Reservoir, the bottom of the canal appears when the water is not conveyed, and the water flow is rapid, like a strong man who rushes out of the shear path in the oblique thorn, and inserts the Jinchuan River into the eyebrows of the village under the Shuiyun Mountain.

In the eyes of Jin Chuanhe, that canal could only attract her attention when it was at its most violent. After all, the water of this canal is also washed out of those deep valleys that are entangled in the depths of the Qilian Mountains, and the goal is to reach the Jinchuan Gorge Reservoir. That's how the canal is self-expressing. In addition to flooding, the Jinchuan River, which is a stone's throw away, is often clear on weekdays, but the turbid current in that canal is often rampage.

When the two streams of water are combined into one, the Jinchuan River can not dry up the canal water, it is muddy, turbid, not clear, after a short distance, quietly dives into the reservoir, and in the south of the reservoir of the vast clear waves, it forms a clear ripple.

The passage of time has changed the face of the Jinchuan River, and the current riverbed is by no means what it used to be. She was calm and broad-minded before the Jinchuan Gorge Reservoir Dam, and she did not compete with the Jinchuan Gorge, Sandaowan, and Hanjiaxia, nor did she fight with the people at the edge of the desert to extract her blood vessels from the ground, but she was tolerant of the overexploitation of the Gobi, and even more so for a long time, she continued to rush out of the gorge and the vast land on the edge of the Gobi and the desert. If a road stubbornly goes down to a seemingly desperate place, it will always be another village. When a river flows towards the depths of the lofty mountains and the Gobi wilderness, it must be tempted by the beauty of the wilderness and shoulders the heavy responsibility of a sacred mission. There is a plaque on the north side of the drum tower of the county seat built in the Ming Dynasty, which is the four words "protect Jinchuan", which has long shown the historical mission of Jinchuan River. Just for these four words, Jinchuanhe has made irreplaceable great contributions.

The Jinchuan River, like the two ancient trees in front of the gate of Beihaizi Park, embraces the vicissitudes of loess and the old wall of the years. It is like a beauty secretly drunk half drunk, and the small steps come forward, the waist and chest like clouds, dare to hate and love, and vigorously throw into the reservoir, regardless of the clouds and hatred and rain, the universe is reversed, and the yin and yang turns, and thousands of tenderness, thousands of honeys, melt to the fullest, for a lifetime of trickle, not to try to be magnificent for a moment, and not to change the original intention of three lives and three lifetimes.

The springs that make up the Jinchuan River are so small and obscure that some of them have dried up in the most recent era, such as the springs in the jujube grove north of the city, which dried up and then came out of the water, because of the over-cultivation of farmland near the edge of the desert, the drilling of too many wells, and the extraction of too much groundwater. The well was closed, and the spring water upstream came out again. Some chapters of history coincide at different times, some for earth-shaking events, and some for trivial matters. Just like the Jinchuan River, the springs at the source of the river, even if they are supported by the ice and snow of the Qilian Mountains, are difficult to survive before they are overexploited. The long wind and sunset in the desert and the gentle wind and drizzle in the Qilian Mountains will be affected, whether it is the admiration of big attractions or the nostalgia for small farmers. The things in the world are not the same way, and those things that seem to be unrelated are not really unrelated.

A few limited rivers in Yongchang have witnessed the rapid changes and arbitrary expansion of the land of Yongchang and Jinchang, but the result of this development is more difficult to cure than the decline. Because the civilization map of the land of Hexi is always based on a limited number of blue veins as the meridians, if these blues turn red yellow or dry up, not only will you lose your face, but you will also be sorry......

It was the late autumn season again, and I came to the Jinchuan River, and the people on both sides of the river were already wearing thick cotton clothes. Obviously, this is not the season to swim, nor is it a place to swim, and I don't have the slightest idea of swimming in my head, only to show that I am too focused on how a drop of water that flows down from the depths of the Qilian Mountains and every drop of water that countless others gather into a meandering river and merge into the Jinchuan Gorge Reservoir.

A drop of water cannot become a river. As for where the Jinchuan River is, and where the Jinchuan River will eventually flow, it is not a matter for the first drop of water to consider. Water is the most realistic, always flowing low, not too ambitious, and not thinking about how to get ahead, superior to others. Without this reality, there can be no so-called farthest drop of water. As a small river with a basin that is not too long, only when it enters the Jinchuan Gorge Reservoir, passes through Sandao Bay, passes through Hanjiaxia, passes through the Gobi Town, Shuangwan, Minqin and reaches the desert, is our friendly mother river.

When I was still a baby, when I was still in my mother's arms, my mother carried me more than once to see the Jinchuan River, perhaps my mother did not mean to do so, she carried me to walk on the riverbank by the village, or wander on the river bridge made of trees, but there was something to do, and there was no place to entrust the baby in her arms. I must have cried at the Jinchuan River without knowing anything, and I must have laughed childishly and ignorantly at the Jinchuan River for no reason. Because of this, on the surface, I don't have any special feelings for Jinchuanhe, but Jinchuanhe has a special affection for me. If not, how is it that, unlike other city people, who have lived in the city for decades, to show an alternative obsession with water wherever they go? In many of my articles, there are descriptions of the Jinchuan River? Because my mother made me suck too much of the taste of the Jinchuan River when she fed me!

Although in the city, when all kinds of desires collide with electricity, there will definitely be magnificent literary inspiration, but those huge literary elements are destined to be hidden only in the heaviest part of the mountain and the purest water.

When my mother was standing on the bank of the Jinchuan River with her arms or walking on the river bridge, my mother was my mother, and the Jinchuan River was the Jinchuan River. Only when I grow up and have my own independent soul will the Jinchuan River become our mother river.

Looking at the Jinchuan River returning to the reservoir in this way, thinking about the time when the river finally returned to the vastness, I suddenly found that the meaning of eternity is not as absolutely desirable as we usually desire, but I hope that as an inconspicuous small river in the Hexi Corridor, it will always be just an amiable and respectable river. If it is like in the past, once it falls into the vast desert, it will be too far away from us. It's too far away, and it feels vague.

In any case, it could not stop me from standing on the bridge of the Jinchuan River, thinking about how the people on both sides of the river forced their faces to laugh and have fun in the midst of suffering. Those who can't bear to speak out about suffering are often the ones who understand suffering best. And what turns suffering into a legend is the truth and humanity that will be left to future generations in a non-suffering way.

The things in the world are originally fish or not, the river water has to flow for a long time, and there are springs and springs, and the green mountains always grow.

Walking along the Jinchuan River, more often than not, it is better to be abandoned by the mountains and rivers than to abandon the mountains and rivers.