Zhang Lixing, Zhu Fengrong: Ma Lanhua, Ma Lanhua...

Guangming Daily reporter Yan Weiqi

Years later, when the mushroom smoke clouds rising in the air had long since dissipated, and Pingsha Mang was frozen as a photograph on the bookshelf, Zhang Lixing took his wife Zhu Fengrong and returned to Shanghai. He left his hometown at the age of 17 and returned with two sideburns.

In 1985, Zhang Lixing and Zhu Fengrong were in front of the office building of the Institute. Profile photo

In October 1966, a stuffy tank truck set off from Beijing, carrying Zhang Lixing, a graduate of Tsinghua University, and hundreds of young people into the distance.

Where does it end? Zhang Lixing did not know exactly. All I know is that it is deep in the Tianshan Mountains, a place that cannot be found on the map - Malan.

Two years later, Zhu Fengrong graduated from Tsinghua University and also came here. Since then, they have taken root in the Gobi Desert, become first-hand witnesses of the "two bombs and one star" cause in New China, and become "general couples" who have come out of the desert.

This summer, this reporter came to Zhang Lixing and Zhu Fengrong's home in Shanghai to listen to them recall the youth and love of the desert Gobi and sing the most beautiful songs of teenagers.

Take a group photo and set off

In 1965, when the graduation was assigned, Zhang Lixing did not hesitate to write two lines in the volunteer form: "I hope to go to the Great Northwest and go to the place where the motherland needs it." ”

In 1959, Zhang Lixing took the college entrance examination, and the first few volunteers were related to atomic energy. "When I was in high school, I knew that atomic energy was a national need, so I was determined to learn cutting-edge technology."

Soon after, he received an acceptance letter from the Department of Engineering Physics at Tsinghua University. In the second year of university, Tsinghua established the Department of Engineering Chemistry to accelerate research on nuclear technology. Including Zhang Lixing, 3 classes of students in the Department of Engineering Physics were transferred to the Department of Engineering Chemistry as a whole.

"We have to study how to refine uranium from uranium mines, and after graduation, we go to difficult areas." Zhang Lixing said that as for the extent of "hardship," everyone did not think about it, but only wanted to learn good skills and serve the motherland.

Zhu Fengrong is a classmate of Zhang Lixing at Wusong Middle School in Shanghai. Because of his excellent results in the college entrance examination, he was admitted to the Preparatory Department for Staying in the Soviet Union. A year later, Sino-Soviet relations broke down, leaving su had to be interrupted, and she was selected to be sent to the Department of Engineering Physics of Tsinghua University. In this way, she enrolled a year later than Zhang Lixing and became a classmate of the upper and lower levels.

Zhu Fengrong's major is isotope separation, which is the most confidential major in the Department of Engineering Physics, code-named 220.

She still remembers the admonition of the head of the department, He Dongchang: "You are all the best people from all over the country, and you all want to become Einstein and Marie Curie-like scientists." But I would like to tell you in particular that the engineering physics department is always prepared to go to the hardest places, even at the expense of one's own life. ”

Speaking of the years of study, Zhang Lixing and Zhu Fengrong invariably remembered the boiling Tsinghua Garden that night. On October 16, 1964, when Premier Zhou Enlai received the actors of the large-scale musical and dance epic "Dongfang Hong" at the Great Hall of the People, he solemnly announced: China's first atomic bomb explosion was successful! That night, the students who participated in the performance at Tsinghua University brought the news back to the school.

"At that time, I was already lying on the dormitory bed, and I heard a sudden noise in the corridor, and I immediately jumped down, that happy..." At night, Zhang Lixing and Zhu Fengrong both joined the crowd of celebratory people. In front of the great hall, cheers and songs soared into the sky and echoed in the sky for a long time.

The time has come for parting. Zhang Lixing received a notice: Xinjiang, 21 base. Base 21 also has a nice name, Malan. Zhang Lixing did not know how far away the 21 base was, nor did he know whether Ma Lan had Ma Lanhua. The only thing he had in mind was: take a group photo and set off.

He plucked up the courage to find Zhu Fengrong, who was still doing the graduation project at school. Finally, a group photo froze the simple smiles of the two young people, and also froze the life of a lifetime of fighting side by side and working together.

Every day, I am in the invisible "sword mountain and fire sea"

"There is a place called Malan, you want to look for it, please go out of the Yang Pass in the west, Dan's heart is in the desert, the blood and sweat are difficult, put the silver star, dance the long sword, and raise the bright sun to shine in the clear sky..." A song "Ma Lan Ballad" tells how much the youth of struggle.

"Desolate." After many years, I wanted to see Hongshan at first, Zhang Lixing blurted out these two words.

"There was nothing but a few rows of houses built, and the houses were empty." The Hongshan Mountain where Zhang Lixing works is still 40 kilometers away from the base living area Malan, and the car has to drive all the way to the ravine, driving to a place where there is almost no human habitation.

In the autumn of 1968, with two boxes of books, Zhu Fengrong also came.

The Shanghai girl could have stayed in Beijing to work, and the school wanted her to stay at the school as a teacher. But Zhu Fengrong has her own plan: "Learning this major is because of the needs of the country, I want to better play my role, and it is more suitable for me to do scientific research in the front line." ”

At the beginning of the construction of the Malan base, it was precisely the time to employ people, and the radiochemical diagnosis of nuclear tests urgently needed professional talents such as Zhu Fengrong.

After the detonation, the pilot flew the plane through the smoke clouds, risking his life and retrieving only a very small number of samples. Zhu Fengrong and her colleagues used this extremely precious sample to analyze it on the only commercial instrument at that time. In order to improve diagnostic accuracy a little, and improve it a little more, better instruments and methods must be designed. People think about it day and night.

Once, again, I worked in the lab until late at night. On the way back to the dormitory alone, Zhu Fengrong and a lone wolf collided head-on. In the night, the wolf's eyes emitted two faint rays of light.

confrontation.

Not knowing where the courage came from, Zhu Fengrong took off her big leather hat and threw it out fiercely, smashing it on the wolf's head. The wolf turned and ran.

"At that time, you must not be afraid, you must stare at it deadly, and your eyes are more fierce and firm than it." I had pulled my belt out and was ready to fight it. Looking back on this "chance encounter" now, Zhu Fengrong has a relaxed face and regards it as a gift in a difficult life.

She is more proud that the research of carbon particle ion source technology has successfully increased the detection sensitivity by dozens of times, reaching the international advanced level, so that the diagnosis of nuclear elastic energy has accurate and reliable data.

"The formation of a set of diagnostic methods is not achieved at one time, what we have to do is to continuously improve and make a better 'scale'." Long-term close contact with nuclear blast samples, Zhu Fengrong also paid the price of health, white blood cells once dropped to 2000, while normal people's white blood cells are not less than 4000.

Zhang Lixing's work focuses on underground nuclear tests. At 00:15 on September 23, 1969, after an earth-shattering noise, the huge energy released by the earth explosion made the mountain in the test area shake violently - the first pingdong underground nuclear test in New China was successful!

For this moment, Zhang Lixing's "Geology and Hydrology Research Laboratory" worked silently for nearly 5 years.

"In Maran, every day, I am in an invisible 'sea of swords and fires.'" Zhang Lixing said, "Our cause determines that we are fighting hard in the desert and living silently in the Gobi. What is done is earth-shattering, and what is done is anonymity. ”

From the establishment of the China Nuclear Test Base in June 1958 to the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in September 1996, China has successfully conducted 45 nuclear tests. Zhu Fengrong participated in the whole 37 times, and Zhang Lixing participated in 29 times. In view of their outstanding contributions, the two were awarded the rank of major general of professional technology by the Central Military Commission.

"I'm still the teenager I was before, and I haven't changed a bit"

In Zhang Lixing and Zhu Fengrong's home, there is a gray artificial leather suitcase, the style of the old Shanghai, which was a gift from her sister to Zhang Lixing when she was in college.

In 2019, this suitcase full of youth and nostalgia, sweat and laughter returned to Shanghai with its owner.

The "general couple" returned with white hair, like an ordinary pair of old people.

Back at Wusong Middle School, the students gathered around and asked: Why go to Malan, does Malan have Malan flowers?

Yes, in the depths of the Gobi, the purple flowers, small, but blooming warmly, unreservedly showing the power of life.

On December 12, 1969, the two single beds were put together, and Zhang Lixing and Zhu Fengrong got married.

The eldest sister of the colleague brought a good-looking pillowcase and lent it to the newcomer to swing. The warm pot could not be bought, and the comrade-in-arms sent one. Then buy some hard candy at the military service agency of the base, and the comrades will share a point, even if it is a wedding ceremony.

In Hongshan, the vegetables for most of the year are the "old three" - cabbage, turnips and potatoes. In 1974, when her daughter was born, Zhu Fengrong asked someone to carry some eggs from Shanghai.

After thousands of kilometers of eggs arrived in The Red Mountains. They found a paper box, padded it with cotton, put the leather hat in the center of the box, put the egg in the leather hat, inserted a thermometer to monitor the temperature, placed a glass bottle of hot water around the leather hat, and wrapped the paper box in a leather coat. It wasn't long before a litter of chicks was born!

On Sundays, we ride into the mountains to dig up wild vegetables to feed the chickens, and we also have to pick up cow dung and fertilize the land so that the children can eat the green leafy vegetables they grow. "Even the golden melons in Chongming, Shanghai, are planted with live melons in Hongshan." Zhu Fengrong said triumphantly.

"The days of the Red Mountain are not only hard, but also beautiful." Zhu Fengrong remembers that after the summer rains, there are white snow-capped mountains in the distance and wildflowers blooming around her; she remembers the joy of catching fish along the ravine stream after completing her task.

In fact, they have too many opportunities to leave. In 1980, Zhang Lixing, as one of the first visiting scholars sent abroad after the reform and opening up, went abroad for further study. Two years later, without hesitation, he still returned to the Gobi.

In 1990, the development and opening up of Pudong was in full swing. The teachers of their alma mater invited the two to return to Shanghai and work at Tsinghua's point in Pudong. The couple politely refused the teacher's kindness.

"We are just ordinary students who graduated from Tsinghua University, and only because we have thrown ourselves into a great cause and combined the pursuit of our ideals with the destiny of the country and the nation have embodied our own life value." Zhu Fengrong said.

Now, she loves to sing, and Together with Zhang Lixing, she has joined the Art Troupe of the Shanghai Alumni Association of Tsinghua University, whose average age is more than 74 years old.

"I'm still the teenager I was before / There is no change in the slightest / Time is just a test / The faith planted in my heart has not diminished in the slightest..." Singing "Youth", their eyes flashed.

They also love to sing "The Motherland Will Not Forget": "Which one am I in the vast sea of people / Which one am I in the rushing waves... I don't need you to know me/ I don't want you to know me / I melt my youth into the rivers of the motherland..."

When the song sounded, the long wind of the Gobi was blowing in the ears, and the gushing river sound of Wu Songkou was blown.

Source: Guangming Daily