The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 448 The team is a melting pot
In July of this year, Ge Xiaohu served as the deputy company commander of the wired company of a communications battalion of the Northern Xinjiang Military Region of the Army, and happened to be participating in a joint military exercise in Wei County.

When the big earthquake occurred, several company cadres got together to analyze and estimate, and felt that the epicenter would not be too far away. With such a big disaster, the superiors would definitely send them, the exercise troops, to participate in disaster relief nearby.

Therefore, without waiting for notification from their superiors, some exercise troops began to make preparations to rush to the disaster area for disaster relief.

At this time, the old company commander Gao Wenhe, who had been confirmed to be transferred to civilian work, came to the company headquarters. He said, "The new company commander has not been appointed yet. Although I have sciatica and cannot straighten my waist, I still request to go with the troops and contribute to the people in the disaster area." Ge Xiaohu was moved by the old company commander's courage to act upon orders.

At 8 a.m., the company received an order via wired connection to the regiment headquarters to rush to Qiaotou area for disaster rescue. In just 30 minutes, the company had all the personnel, equipment and supplies in place and headed to Qiaotou in a motorized manner.

……

There was still 45 kilometers to Qiaotou. Due to road congestion, the troops had to detour through Fengxian County and finally decided to march quickly on foot.

While Ge Xiaohu and the old company commander were on the march, each squad and platoon held meetings on the road to carry out ideological mobilization.

The officers and soldiers were excited and expressed their willingness to take the lead in disaster relief and make new contributions. After an hour's forced march, they arrived at Qiaotou at noon.

When the troops entered the city, they were shocked by what they saw: broken walls, devastation, and things lying all over the place... it was a horrible sight.

There were countless wounded soldiers, some of whom had just crawled out of the ruins and had not had time to be bandaged, while others limped out of the city in fear.

At the moment when everyone was shocked and sad, the regiment political commissar Jiang came to Ge Xiaohu and his team. He said seriously and loudly: "The regiment orders your company to immediately go to the waiting room of Qiaotou Railway Station to rescue people. The disaster there is the worst." There was no time to lose, so Ge ​​Xiaohu quickly led his team there.

At that time, the railway station building collapsed severely and the cries of the injured were endless.

Regardless of the fatigue from the journey and the thirst and hunger from not eating or drinking for a day and a night, the officers and soldiers of the cable company rushed to wherever there was a call for help.

During the frequent aftershocks, the officers and soldiers put their own lives at risk. Some carried things on their shoulders, some dug with their hands, moved concrete slabs, dug through rubble, and chiseled open broken walls, trying their best to save people.

In a corner of the station, soldiers Chen Xiaoshan and Yu Haifeng were the first to rescue the ticket seller Huang Lianyu from the box office.

In another corner of the station, more than a dozen soldiers in the second row had their hands bleeding from being rubbed by bricks and stones. They endured the pain, lifted the concrete beam weighing more than a thousand pounds, and rescued the passenger Meng Guangmei.

In order to rescue a 4-year-old boy, comrades from the third shift and the kitchen squad have been fighting for more than 3 hours, but there is still a concrete beam stuck on the child's left leg and they can't pull it out, and everyone is extremely anxious.

Ge Xiaohu and other company cadres helped to study the rescue plan and decided to use a steel chisel to cut the concrete beam and pull out the child's legs.

In order to prevent the child from being hurt by falling cement blocks during the aftershock, squad leader Ma Wenqiang bent over to protect him.

Everyone fed the child water and food, and the medical worker gave him a painkiller injection, and finally the child was rescued.

Another fierce battle was going on to the east of the waiting room.

Deputy Company Commander Ge Xiaohu led the soldiers to rescue steel worker Sun Xiangmin.

After more than three hours of intense fighting, they finally dug out a hole more than two meters deep.

A huge concrete slab pressed tightly against Sun Xiangmin's left leg.

People couldn't lift it up; the jack couldn't reach it. The only way to rescue the person was to break the concrete board.

At this moment, a strong aftershock occurred, and debris fell and hit the head of Wu Kangmei, the squad leader of the Sixth Squad, who was rescuing people below.

Seeing this, Sun Xiangmin said to Ge Xiaohu with both worry and excitement: "Just saw off my injured leg."

Ge Xiaohu shook his head and said to him firmly: "You are a steel worker, you can't be without legs. We will be responsible for you to the end."

The cave was hot and stuffy, and was surrounded by cement slabs and steel bar stubs. It was impossible to turn around or raise your head.

Everyone knows that in such an environment, sacrifice is possible at any time.

But Ge Xiaohu was not afraid. He insisted on smashing it with one hammer and digging it out bit by bit.

The steel bars cut holes in his body and the nails pierced his right foot, but he didn't care.

With everyone's close cooperation and more than 9 hours of efforts, Sun Xiangmin was finally pulled back from the brink of death.

Later statistics showed that during the rescue operation at the railway station, the cable company rescued 78 people from the rubble.

"Because of the sacrifices, we have great ambitions. We dare to change the sun and the moon into a new sky."

In this unprecedentedly cruel struggle of life and death, thanks to the joint efforts of the military and civilians, after a week, the dawn of hope was finally seen on the ruins.

After clearing the long-distance bus station, Ge Xiaohu and his company moved to areas such as Qiaotou Tobacco Warehouse.

There were many brands of cigarettes in the tobacco warehouse, such as Tulip, Moju, Qianmen, Evergrande, Magnolia, and Dajingmen, but the soldiers remained unmoved and did not harm any of them, and they handed them over without reservation.

Yi Yuanchao and his company are stationed at the Qiaotou Labor Protection Clothing Factory, which is responsible for supplying labor protection clothing to more than a dozen large factories including the Kailuan Coal Mine.

After the earthquake, factory buildings collapsed and machines were damaged or buried.

In order to solve the clothing problem for the people in the disaster area, their officers and soldiers used a few sledgehammers and steel drills to dig up the criss-crossing steel frames and concrete beams and cleared out the machines and cloth one by one.

In the scorching hot summer, with the scorching sun and choking dust, the soldiers fought hard for days. Some of them were exhausted and fainted on the spot.

During those days, Yi Yuanchao and his company dug out more than 17 machines and rolls of cloth from the ruins.

A few days later, the factory resumed production, with motors roaring and wheels spinning.

The first batch of labor protection clothing after the earthquake was finally produced, solving the urgent needs of the victims.

When Yi Yuanchao and his team were digging out the collapsed cold storage, they found piles of pork emitting a tempting smell. However, the soldiers were not afraid and carried out a thorough cleanup.

The soldiers did not take any of the meat, but handed it all over to the organization, which was distributed to the wounded in the disaster areas who needed it most to supplement their nutrition.

On the afternoon of July 7, a sudden strong aftershock caused the city, which had just calmed down, to shake and tremble again...

For the first time, many young soldiers felt that the god of death had always been around them...

When everyone was still in shock, someone's intermittent cries for help were heard.

Deputy Company Commander Yi Yuanchao braved the aftershocks and went deep into the cave where the cry for help came from! "The cry for help came from the cracks in the remaining wall!"

There were no cranes or bulldozers in those days, so the soldiers used their steel-like arms and shoulders to carry away more than 70 cement slabs, 14 cement beams, and thousands of pounds of steel bars. Only then did they finally see the survivor whose feet were stuck tightly by two cement beams and could not move...

What no one expected was that the first words the survivor said when he saw the PLA were: "Please, saw off my feet! I can't let you take risks anymore!" These words made everyone present feel nervous and tears rolled down their cheeks...

"Don't shout, don't shout! No matter how hard or tiring it is, we will rescue you intact!" With the efforts of dozens of people, the beam was finally hoisted up, and the survivor survived...

By late August, the weather turned cooler and the dew in Qiaotou area was particularly heavy.

When they woke up early in the morning, the tents and mosquito nets where Yan Jiekuang and other soldiers lived were all wet.

From this, the comrades thought about how the disaster-stricken people would survive the cold winter, and they should build houses for them to spend the winter.

The small mountainous area is the most densely populated residential area in Qiaotou City, with low and dilapidated houses and a dense population.

There aren’t many casualties here, but there are many injured, and the housing needs are urgent.

Yan Jiekuang and others were responsible for "building houses" in this area.

They used local materials and the waste from collapsed houses as materials for "building houses".

Working day and night, they built more than 500 cold-proof sheds in ten days, solving the wintering problem for most of the disaster-stricken people in the area.

During the three days and three nights before completion, the officers and soldiers hardly slept a wink. They affectionately called this "house building" the "Battle of the Hill."

...Li Kangzhan and the soldiers of their heavy artillery battalion usually do "detailed work" and "physical work". Their battalion has cleaned up no less than 10,000 tons of supplies from the ruins.

From precious gold, watches, and cash to batches of machinery and equipment, production supplies, from ordinary clothes to a screw, they are all “not damaged, not lost, and not occupied,” demonstrating the quality and sentiments of the people's soldiers.

During the most difficult days of disaster relief, the officers and soldiers slept on the streets, bitten by mosquitoes, and their clothes and bedding soaked by dew, but they refused to use the relief supplies such as wood, tarpaulins, and tarpaulins piled around them.

Some people said distressedly: "You can at least build a shed to block the dew."

During this period, Li Kangzhan's troops also participated in battles such as firefighting in earthquake shelters. More importantly, the task of building earthquake shelters was extremely arduous.

Since the soldiers had never done such work before, they learned by doing, practiced by learning, and humbly learned the experience and practices of the infrastructure engineering corps. They built rows of earthquake-proof sheds among the collapsed ruins, which were like beautiful scenery and brought vitality to the earthquake-stricken areas.

Some soldiers were building a simple shed for the supply and marketing cooperative employees. They erected a large round log as a pillar, but after burying it they found that it was too high, so the people nearby suggested sawing it off.

However, the deputy battalion commander Li Kangzhan said: "We are building a temporary house now. If we keep this wood, it will be of greater use in the future." They pulled out the buried wood, dug a new hole and buried it again.

During the days of earthquake relief in Qiaotou, the officers and soldiers from the Beijing Garrison worked day and night and tried their best, but they still felt there were many mistakes and regrets.

These days, disaster relief equipment is backward and tools are in short supply.

Faced with ruins and cries for help, the rescue soldiers could only use their hands... their hands were worn out, but they continued to rescue...

Even so, many regrettable things still happen.

On the afternoon of the first day of disaster relief, Jiang Jianguo's troops worked hard to rescue a 7-year-old girl named Yang Chunlan.

At that time, she was pinned under the concrete slab and unable to move. Although her tears had dried up, her mind was still clear and she told Jiang Jianguo and others about her experiences one by one.

At around 3 pm, Jiang Jianguo and his team dug her out and found that she was intact. Everyone was very happy and fed her some food and water.

Jiang Jianguo and several soldiers quickly carried her to a nearby first aid station on a stretcher, and then returned to save more people.

When it was getting dark, Jiang Jianguo thought of the little girl and felt a little worried, so he went to the first aid station to visit her again.

The medical staff sadly told them that the little girl named Yang Chunlan had died.

This made Jiang Jianguo and others regret it deeply.

Perhaps it was because the little girl stayed in the ruins for too long that she became severely exhausted. In addition, the medical staff ignored her because they saw that she had no serious injuries and went to rescue the more seriously injured. They did not give her any measures such as infusion, which left her with a permanent regret.

After that, Jiang Jianguo thought of this little girl countless times and felt extremely guilty.

He felt that it was all his fault. If he had sent a soldier to watch over her, or had given more specific instructions to the medical staff, perhaps the tragedy would not have happened.

After this incident, Jiang Jianguo and his comrades in the company turned their grief into strength, and many moving stories emerged during the disaster relief period.

Gao Pei, a soldier in the company, was less than 18 years old. Like many young recruits, he was so scared when he first saw the bodies of the victims scattered all over the ground that his hair stood up!

But later on, when they were transporting the bodies of the victims, they were so tired that they could fall asleep leaning against the wall...

After dozens of sleepless hours, high temperatures, aftershocks, lack of water, and lack of food began to become the biggest threats. They could still hold on without food, but in the 40-degree Celsius heat, many people fainted due to lack of water...

Squad leader Ma Guowei and his comrades had a hard time scooping out some green water from the collapsed swimming pool.

This small cup of water was passed around among dozens of comrades, and everyone just used it to moisten their lips and throats.

Many people didn't even get to drink the water from the swimming pool. Instead, they lay on the ground and sucked up the muddy water left over from the rain with their mouths.

"The water was hot, yellow, and full of earthy smells, mixed with a foul odor."

Due to the severe water shortage, the thing that Liu Zhiye, deputy commander-in-chief of the front line, regretted most was "insufficient preparation". He did not prepare more clean water in the space in advance.

Most of the clean water and supplies in Liu Zhiye's space were sent to the field hospital, which had more than 100,000 wounded soldiers, because they needed it more.

Land routes are interrupted, material transportation is extremely tight, and air transport space is limited.

Therefore, clean fresh water was still in short supply. Liu Zhiye and the soldiers endured the physiological limit of having no water to drink for two consecutive days. In his diary, he wrote the five words "A drop of water is more valuable than oil" in the most eye-catching place...

…………

In this tragic and bloody battle, Qiao Tou was put to the test, the people were put to the test, and the soldiers were all put to the test.

The couple Liu Zhitai and He Hongmei also volunteered to participate in this great rescue mission.

At that time, some of the wounded in the field hospital had injuries to their hands and arms and could not take care of themselves when eating or drinking, so they fed them food and water one spoonful at a time.

Some of the wounded had difficulty breathing, so they performed mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration; some of the wounded couldn't defecate, and their condition didn't improve after taking medicine, so they used their hands to help them dig out the stool little by little; some of the wounded couldn't urinate, so they held the catheter in their mouths and sucked it out mouthful by mouthful...

Once, when Liu Zhitai's medical team was rescuing a wounded person, an aftershock hit, causing nearby broken walls to collapse, broken bricks and rocks to fly everywhere, and the lives of the wounded and sick were threatened.

Liu Zhitai and the nurses quickly rushed to the wounded, using their bodies to block the broken bricks and rocks, protecting the wounded's safety.

……

Yu Miao was already the company commander of the motor vehicle company of the logistics department of the Second Guard Division. Although he did not steal the stolen goods himself, he was also very busy.

Since there was a first aid station near their company tent, this tent became a temporary "help station".
When there was no transportation mission, Yu Miao took the initiative to assist doctors and nurses in doing work within his ability and tried his best to alleviate the pain of the wounded and sick.

Of course, most of his work is done at the disaster relief site, registering data and organizing transportation.

The horrific earthquake scenes and the many heroic deeds that moved people to tears made Yu Miao deeply feel that the "loveliest people" were right beside him.

Wang Chunfen, a soldier from Dongshan, was the squad leader of the third squad at the time. During the most difficult moments of earthquake relief and disaster relief, regardless of the threat of aftershocks, he led the soldiers of the third motor vehicle squad and always rushed to the front. Later, he was awarded the second-class merit and participated in the commendation meeting for earthquake relief and disaster relief.

During the period of peacebuilding, without fighting as a hard indicator for evaluating merits and awards, the army experienced the phenomenon of "difficulty in evaluating merits".

Jiang Jianguo and his company's officers and soldiers who participated in the disaster relief performed very well. At the end of the disaster relief, one squad of their company was awarded first-class collective merit, two people were awarded first-class merit, four people were awarded second-class merit, and many people were awarded third-class merit.

Surprisingly, although most cadres and soldiers did not receive any awards for their contributions, no one complained.

As an instructor, Jiang Jianguo felt bad for them not receiving any awards, but was also moved by their spirit of treating the honor correctly.

What moved and made Jiang Jianguo and his colleagues even more was the deep friendship formed between the troops and the people in the disaster-stricken areas in the fight against the disaster.

The people of Qiaotou regard the People's Liberation Army as their most trustworthy and reliable relatives. This is a reward more valuable than a "title" and is their supreme honor.

When the troops were about to return home after the earthquake relief work was over, Ge Xiaohu asked soldier Chen Xiaoshan to buy a slightly larger mirror and make a mirror plaque to present to the long-distance bus station.

After accepting the task, Chen Xiaoshan visited almost all major department stores in Qiaotou City, but could not find a large mirror in good condition. At the enthusiastic recommendation of the salesperson, Chen Xiaoshan took a long-distance bus to Zunhua County Department Store and bought the mirror.

On the way back, everyone saw a PLA soldier holding a large mirror. They knew at a glance that Chen Xiaoshan was from the disaster relief team, and they all started chatting with him enthusiastically. Several passengers even took apples out of their bags and stuffed them into Chen Xiaoshan's bag.

As Chen Xiaoshan kept declining, an old man said emotionally, "My lifesaver, please accept it!"

Suddenly, a warm feeling surged into Chen Xiaoshan’s heart: This is the fruit of “the close relationship between the military and the people, and the deep friendship in the epicenter”!
In order not to disturb the local people, the time of the troops' withdrawal from Qiaotou was kept secret.

On the day of departure, the troops chose to set off at 4 a.m., but when the car engine started, the sleeping people still noticed the movement, so they spontaneously lined up to see the People's Liberation Army off.

The two sides of the road were filled with men, women, old and young, crying. They shouted over and over again, "Thank you, dear PLA," "Welcome back to Qiaotou." The officers and soldiers were moved to tears by the scene before them...

People who have not experienced the Qiaotou earthquake may really not be able to understand it.

When the black fog of despair strangles your breath, the belief of "surviving" alone is not enough. In the Qiaotou earthquake, hundreds of thousands of People's Liberation Army, tens of thousands of medical workers, hundreds of thousands of disaster relief workers from all over the country, together with the millions of Qiaotou people, used self-reliance, unity and unswerving faith to tell the world: All disasters are temporary. Disasters will not make the Xia people despair, but will only make the Xia people braver and stronger!

(End of this chapter)