Liu Hongzhu: The sea gate is my "second life"

China Youth Daily Client News (Xu Fuyuan, Chen Jingjing, Song Shulin, China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Wang Sujie) The Seawall Embankment Management Office in Xiangshui County, Jiangsu Province, whistles the sea breeze all day long, and the waves are gushing. In this remote corner with no villages and no homes within these three or five miles, Liu Hongzhu, an accountant at the Seawall Embankment Management Office of the Xiangshui County Water Affairs Bureau, has the most important job every day to open and close the gates according to the time of rising and falling tides and patrol the seawall roads.

These two seemingly simple and boring things, he did for 37 years. Some people describe him as a tenaciously growing "salt artemisia grass" on the Yellow Beach, and some colleagues call him an "old yellow cow" who works hard, but Liu Hongzhu always says: "The steel gun is the second life of the soldier, and for the veteran, the sea gate is my second life." ”

Liu Hongzhu was cleaning up the silt on the sluice plate

The "old scalper" who regards the work of opening and closing the gate as a career

In 1984, Liu Hongzhu was transferred from the army and was assigned to work at the Xiangshui County Seawall Embankment Management Office on the Yellow Sea. When I first started working, the seawall was all dirt roads, dusty on sunny days, and muddy on rainy days. The conditions of the management office were very simple, and seven or eight people were crammed into 3 dilapidated old tile houses. "When I first arrived, there was a desolate tidal flat nearby, and there was no running water, so we dug a well in front of the dormitory to fetch water to eat." Wang Shiqing, director of the Seawall Embankment Management Institute in Xiangshui County, recalled. Because of the difficult conditions, seven or eight comrades who had worked with Liu Hongzhu at the beginning successively managed to transfer them from the seawall embankment management office.

In the 1980s, the Gaogang Gate and the Pugang Gate were not yet electrified, and they could only rely on the hand-cranked gate to complete the opening and closing of the gate, and to complete the opening or closing of the gate, the shook gate had to be turned 2500 times. "Closing the gate is easier, it takes about 20 minutes to complete, and it takes at least 40 minutes to open the gate, and opening the gate once it will be swollen and sore." Although the work is very tired, but Liu Hongzhu has never complained to others, and this seemingly simple but tiring switch gate action, Liu Hongzhu did it for more than 10 years, until the gate was energized and an electric device was installed.

For 37 years, Liu Hongzhu guarded the gate and the 47.8-kilometer seawall road. He witnessed the seawall from mud water road to gravel road to cement road, and his own embankment patrol also ranged from walking to cycling to motorcycle, and he had to ride more than 30 kilometers back and forth to Pugang Gate and Gaogang Gate every day to open, close and inspect the embankment. In so many years, he has ridden nearly 400,000 kilometers, which is equivalent to nearly 9 circles around the earth.

During this period, Liu Hongzhu's seawall office never received complaints from enterprises for water diversion or drainage, And Wang Shiqing said: "This is all thanks to old Liu, who regards the work of opening and closing gates as a career, and is an 'old cattle' who is down-to-earth and willing to do it." ”

To do the work is to be a "desperate sanlang"

In the past 37 years, Liu Hongzhu has hardly taken leave, his family has been sick and hospitalized, and he has rarely seen his companions, but when the typhoon and rain came, he was the first to appear on the gate. Whenever there was silt accumulating at the gate, whether it was hot or cold winter, he was always the first to jump down and measure the depth of the silt with his own height to support the dredging work.

"When I first started working, he always said that he was young and in good health, and he rushed to the front every time; now, after I work in the institute, he always says that he is experienced and still rushes to the front." Speaking of Liu Hongzhu, the master, Yang Zhenglei, an employee of the Xiangshui County Seawall Embankment Management Institute who returned from the army in 2018, is full of respect, and he is also the only "fresh blood" supplemented by the seawall embankment management office for more than 10 years.

In August 2012, Typhoon Davi and August 10, two natural disasters, came one after another. At the critical juncture, Liu Hongzhu, together with several cadres and workers in the institute, went all out to fight the disaster. "At that time, the wind and rain were mixed, and the rain was through the wind, and the wind pulled the rain, pouring down, and it hurt very much in the face." Liu Hongzhu recalled that on the way to the inspection embankment, he braved the wind and rain to move forward. Because the wind was too strong and the road was slippery, he fell heavily on the seawall road, injured his knees and elbows in many places, and the motorcycle was broken and could not move forward, but he still walked to the weak part of the seawall in the face of the storm to strengthen it, and insisted on observing here to prevent the danger of breaking the embankment or the wind and waves of the tide. In this way, in the absence of food supply, Liu Hongzhu kept it for three days and two nights, until the typhoon subsided, the tide receded, and he went to the hospital to bandage him.

On November 3, 2020, when Liu Hongzhu inspected the embankment, he found that after the No. 2 gate fell, the closure was not tight, which was significantly higher than the other two gates, and there was also a water leakage at the bottom. He immediately reported to the institute, with the cooperation of another colleague, the No. 2 gate was properly lifted, despite the cold and bone-chilling seawater, jumped into the water and swam to the gate, dived into the chaotic seawater three times to grope, and used his hands to remove the stones that rushed to the bottom of the gate with his hands, successfully eliminating the safety hazard. Colleagues who work with him said: "Old Liu, as long as you start working, you are a 'desperate sanlang'. ”

Because of the long expectation at the seaside, Liu Hongzhu's joints are not very good. "The sea breeze in autumn and winter is as cold as if it were going to drill into a bone crack." The 59-year-old Liu Hongzhu has been suffering from rheumatism for many years, and he cannot do without knee pads all year round, and soon after autumn every year, he wears thick clothes early, and he cannot blow electric fans on three volt days, but the matter of patrolling the seawall road never falls. "It's okay, I put on my army coat, I put on my knee pads, and the motorcycle drives slowly, so it's not so cold." In the face of his wife Qiu Mingxia's heartache, Liu Hongzhu always gently comforted.

The seawall has become the backbone of the whole family

"It's not that he hasn't complained, but he's a man with a solid eye, and he always says that the gate is the most important thing and can't be left unguarded." After a long time, I can only support him, after all, it is for work. Because I understand the particularity of Liu Hongzhu's work, the big and small things in the family are carried by his wife Qiu Mingxia.

"My son suffered from congenital heart disease when he was a child, and it was the party organization and the leading colleagues in the bureau who collected 9,000 yuan to go to Nanjing for surgery, so our whole family will remember this kindness at any time, patrol the seawall road, and guard the gate." On August 30, 2000, the "8.30" flood struck, and Liu Hongzhu had just arrived home to see his son who had returned from surgery when he received a call from the office. He told his wife that the seawall was short of manpower, that he could not drop the chain at a critical moment, and that you should work harder to take care of your son. After saying that, Liu Hongzhu plunged into the front line of disaster relief and rescue, and stuck to his post for 7 days and 7 nights in a row, until the flood drained and the tide receded, and then he dragged his tired body home.

Due to his long-term work at the beach, there is little interpersonal communication, and only when he is with his wife Qiu Mingxia, he will talk more. Now when he is fine, Liu Hongzhu asked his wife to teach him Hanyu Pinyin and sent WeChat to his son who works in Wuxi. "Now that it's just the two of us, and there's nothing going on at home, I'm going to come over and take care of him more often, so that he can guard the gate and the seawall road more comfortably." In Qiu Mingxia's view, the seawall guarded by Liu Hongzhu has become the sticking point of the whole family.

In December 2020, Liu Hongzhu was rated as a "good person in Jiangsu" by the Jiangsu Provincial Civilization Committee. It is often said that the work of opening and closing the gates is too boring, tedious, and a chore. But Liu Hongzhu has never thought so, in his view, opening the gate is related to the rise and fall of enterprises and the safety of people's lives and property, and cannot be taken lightly at all.

Source: China Youth Daily client