You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 531

From January 1 to 10, a strong cold air mass arrived from the north, and temperatures in central and eastern my country began to drop.

Snow began to fall south of the Yangtze River, heavy snow was accompanied by rain, and the roads began to freeze.

Various provinces have successively issued snow disaster warnings and road icing warning signals. As time goes by, the situation becomes more and more serious, roads are frozen and highways are closed, and various places have activated disaster emergency plans.

Starting from January 1, the Beijing-Zhuhai North Expressway in Guangdong Province had severe road icing due to low temperature, rain and snow. The thickest ice was 24-5 cm. The temperature even dropped to -6℃. There was cold wind, heavy fog, continuous rain and snow, and visibility was less than 8 meters. The road conditions deteriorated sharply. The ice and snow went from repeated freezing and thawing to freezing without melting. The ice layer quickly spread for dozens of kilometers, and the road was extremely slippery.

At 25 a.m. on the 9th, the Beijing-Zhuhai North Expressway was closed, and tens of thousands of passenger and truck vehicles and more than 3 drivers and passengers were trapped on the Beijing-Zhuhai North Expressway.

The Beijing-Guangzhou Line, the main railway out of Guangdong Province, has been unable to run normal trains since the 25th due to a power line failure in the Hunan section. As the weather continues to deteriorate, it is expected that the entire line will be difficult to return to normal in a short period of time.

The peak of the Spring Festival travel rush brought unprecedented pressure to Yangcheng Railway Station, with nearly 20 stranded passengers at the railway station. Some passengers had been waiting in the cold wind and rain for three days and three nights.

The Guangdong Railway Group was forced to completely stop the pre-sale of train tickets before the Spring Festival from the 27th, and all ticket windows were changed into ticket refund windows.

As for the airport, due to the snowstorm, more than 28 domestic airports were forced to close on the 10th, resulting in 37 flight delays and 15 flight cancellations at Baiyun Airport, stranding more than passengers. The stranded passengers arranged by the airlines have fully occupied the hotels around the airport, but there are still a large number of passengers who cannot be accommodated and are forced to stay in the terminal.

As a result, roads in southern China's Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi and other places were blocked by heavy snow and ice, power lines were broken, and even the railway tracks were unable to operate due to ice.

At that time, Chenzhou in southern Hunan Province was the worst hit. The entire city was without power, all production and life came to a standstill, and even hospitals were unable to operate. The city had to rely on energy reserves from the military for emergency response.

The city's power grid collapsed, tap water was lost, traffic lights were lost, gas stations were lost, banks were lost, television and the Internet were lost... The entire city was paralyzed, and it took 66 days to fully restore power supply.

Chenzhou is also the lifeline of north-south transportation. High-voltage wires that transmit power to the railway converge here. After the collapse of the power tower, the southern section of the "Beijing-Guangzhou Railway", one of China's railway arteries, was interrupted.

The road and rail networks in the south were almost completely paralyzed, the number of people stranded at the Yangcheng Railway Station continued to increase, and the original capacity of the railway station seemed stretched by this influx.

Seeing that the waiting hall could not accommodate any more people, the crowd outside still kept pouring into the train station.

However, after the train was delayed, the cold and hunger did not shake those who were eager to return home. They spread out their beds on the ground outside the station in the cold wind and waited firmly.

The theoretical capacity limit of Yangcheng Railway Station is designed to be 40,000 people, but it is stretched to its limits in the face of such a large number of stranded people.

It was still raining at the train station and the temperature was getting colder.

However, no one stranded at the train station was willing to leave.

They had been here for several days and their bodies were no longer able to support themselves, so they just sat on their luggage to rest.

Due to the long detention time, many people had finished their dry food, and some vendors took the opportunity to raise the price, resulting in a bucket of instant noodles being sold for 100 yuan.

What is more serious is that the difficulty of resolving the crisis was further increased due to the serious lack of infrastructure at Yangcheng Station at that time. There was a serious lack of facilities such as food, shelter and public toilets for passengers.

There is also a severe shortage of urgently needed supplies such as evacuation facilities, public broadcasting and electronic bulletin boards, rain boots, and warm clothing.

In the severe weather with continuous low temperature and rain, many disaster relief departments can only rush to the market to purchase supplies temporarily in an emergency. Such response measures are obviously of no help and are of no use.

Gradually, some passengers with poor physical fitness fainted due to hunger and fatigue, and they floated helplessly in the crowd like drowning people. The fainted people were carried out from the top of their heads and sent to the hospital. As more and more people were carried out, 30 people fainted in one day.

This further aroused the emotions of the people around. Some people clamored to break in, and some even directly climbed over the blockade. The whole scene became chaotic in an instant.

The soldiers who maintained order at the station formed a wall with their bodies. Facing beatings and insults from the surrounding crowd, they did not fight back or retaliate, but patiently and meticulously used their bodies to maintain order.

At this time, Jingdong Shopping Mall contacted the municipal government and expressed its willingness to contribute to disaster relief.

A large number of Jingdong couriers wearing red vests and red hats appeared near the Yangcheng Railway Station. They rode small tricycles and pulled a large amount of supplies towards the stranded people.

They kept shouting with electronic loudspeakers, "Don't be anxious, don't panic, we have prepared mineral water, instant noodles, biscuits, and bread for everyone!"

"Don't worry if you have children, we have milk powder!"

"There is hot water here. Please wait patiently. We have sufficient hot water supply. Please maintain order consciously!"

"We have raincoats, sleeping bags, quilts, and cotton-padded clothes here. Passengers who need them can register with the nearest staff and come to us to pick them up!"

Tens of thousands of small tricycles with red flags carrying food, water and other urgently needed supplies quickly calmed the emotional passengers.

For the passengers surrounded by chaos, collapse and other desperate emotions, the red flag fluttering in the wind on the tricycle became the most profound image in their memory.

That touch of red will be unforgettable for a long time.

Qin Shaoyan also put on a red vest and held a loudspeaker to distribute food and water to stranded passengers.

"Please be patient, we have sufficient food and water supply. Don't worry, we will ensure that no passenger will go hungry."

"The people of Yangcheng and Jingdong Mall will always be with you to spend this Spring Festival together. We will do our best to protect every passenger to return home safely!"

Qin Shaoyan stood on the pile of supplies, holding a loudspeaker and constantly comforting the people around him.

A reporter took out his camera and pressed the shutter to take a photo of the scene in front of him, but he didn't know at that time that the person in front of him was the richest man in China.

When the photo was sent back to the newspaper, an editor quickly recognized the person in the photo as Qin Shaoyan, and the photo made the front page headlines the next day.

……

"Interview? What interview?" Qin Shaoyan said as he moved several boxes of purified water to the car. He frowned and said, "I don't have time to accept any interviews. Let the reporters interview the couriers on the front line."

"Brother Qin, it would be bad if you don't show up. They came here just for you." Liu Qiangdong persuaded, "They are reporters from CCTV, it's hard to refuse them."

Qin Shaoyan thought about it and reluctantly nodded to agree to the interview.

(End of this chapter)