Qi Tongwei at the start: Not relying on Liang Lu, but winning by a single move against Heaven.

Under the cover of night, the Jeep 212 sped across the vast Gobi Desert.

Qi Tongwei looked out the window at the Gobi Desert and remained silent.

Looking at the many green lights in the distance, he couldn't help but feel suspicious.

He frowned slightly and asked the driver:

"What's that place over there? Why are there so many little green lights?"

The driver didn't even turn his head, but smiled and replied:

"County Magistrate, that's not a lamp, it's a wolf."

Qi Tongwei was taken aback.

He remembered what Baimaiti had said about the serious poaching in Leishan, and he understood.

Seeing that Qi Tongwei remained silent, the driver assumed he was frightened and comforted him with a smile:

"Don't worry, wolves generally don't harm people. They can't catch our car either."

Qi Tongwei smiled in response and said nothing more.

......

It was already past midnight when we got back to Leishan.

The county town was quiet and dark, and there wasn't a soul on the streets.

Qi Tongwei neither returned to the guesthouse nor went to the county government.

He instructed the driver to drive upstream along the Leishan River.

As the jeep drew closer to Dongweizi, a slight smile finally appeared on his face.

Under the moonlight, a gray-white embankment stretched out along the riverbank, standing out conspicuously.

In just one day, a flood control dike was built, stretching for ten kilometers.

The jeep stopped at Dongweizi, and Qi Tongwei jumped out of the vehicle.

He carefully examined the dam by the moonlight and found that its height and width both exceeded the design standards.

Qi Tongwei couldn't help but nod inwardly; the Corps was truly reliable when it came to work.

After inspecting the dam, he felt much more at ease.

The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in the western border region truly lives up to its reputation as the stabilizing force of the region.

They are good at farming and defending the border in peacetime and maintaining social stability and development, but they are also capable of fighting tough battles in critical moments.

According to his design, the flood control dike is 55 kilometers long.

Although it wasn't a massive project, it was definitely time-sensitive and demanding.

But Qi Tongwei did not expect that the soldiers of the Corps would finish the job in just seven days.

In just seven days.

The soldiers moved more than 830,000 sandbags.

More than 20,000 cubic meters of sand were dug out of the Gobi Desert.

More than 20,000 cubic meters of sand—what does that mean? Enough to fill twenty basketball courts.

During these seven days, a small incident occurred that left a deep impression on Qi Tongwei.

At first, the people of Leishan County were not clear about the situation.

I wonder what these soldiers are busy doing on the riverbank.

But as the project progressed, the people gradually understood.

These soldiers are helping them repair the flood control dam.

Then, a touching scene unfolded.

The women began bringing milk tea to the soldiers, and the children brought them pilaf.

The able-bodied men joined in piling up sandbags, carrying them alongside the soldiers.

However, Qi Tongwei also noticed a strange phenomenon.

The people who came to help were all Kazakh and Hui.

The work was in full swing in Leishan, and the neighboring counties, feeling the pressure, also sprang into action.

They did move, but the work was done very carelessly, purely to get by.

Heshan is closest to Leishan's flood control canal.

They simply piled up a row of sandbags on their own land and called it a day.

These neighboring counties also had some reservations about Leishan's major actions.

They felt that Leishan was making a mountain out of a molehill and wasting resources and manpower.

Among them, the words of the county magistrate of Santai County are the most representative:

"God is watering our fields, what's there to be afraid of..."

The flooding in the Gobi Desert was, in their eyes, a complete joke.

The Leishan County leadership, headed by Qin Xuefeng, paid no heed to the mockery from neighboring counties.

Qin Xuefeng even made several phone calls to neighboring counties to remind them to pay attention to the flood situation.

It wasn't that Qin Xuefeng repaid evil with kindness, but rather that the Leishan River had already begun to rise.

According to Qi Tongwei's flood control plan, water level monitoring in Leishan is carried out on an hourly basis.

Every hour, the militia would report the latest water level information and snow melting situation to the county government.

Qi Tongwei was not afraid of trouble and reported the situation to the city every half day.

......

At noon on March 22, Qi Tongwei and his team members were having lunch in the small canteen.

We had only eaten half of the meal when we heard the sound of rapid hoofbeats coming from the front yard.

Immediately afterwards, someone shouted loudly in the yard, and it was unclear what had happened.

Confused, the group went to the front yard to check the situation.

As soon as he entered the courtyard, Qi Tongwei recognized the person who had come in—it was Aidar.

Aidar didn't even dismount; upon seeing Qi Tongwei, he immediately shouted:

"Batur, the water's rising! Tengri is crying!"

His voice was still stiff, but there was no sign of panic; instead, it carried a hint of excitement.

Qi Tongwei looked at Qin Xuefeng and said softly:

"Secretary, shall I go to the site and take a look? Should you report to the city?"

Qin Xuefeng nodded slightly and gave a word of advice:

"Be sure to pay attention to safety, and don't try to do everything yourself."

Qi Tongwei nodded, walked to Aidarma, took his hand, and mounted the horse.

The two rode their horses out of the county government compound.

As soon as he stepped onto the street, Qi Tongwei noticed that the atmosphere was different.

The streets of Leishan County were much busier than usual.

The locals gathered around the flood control dike, all looking upstream.

On the noisy street, you can hear the rumbling sound of water, muffled, like thunder.

The two were traveling at high speed when they encountered a flood before they even left Leishan County.

The yellowish-brown torrent rushed down the flood control channel, its roar echoing through the sky.

The water didn't rise slowly; it pushed up like a wall.

The water was filled with mud, sand, and ice fragments, and the air was bitterly cold.

Qi Tongwei stared at the flood peak in the river channel, his brows furrowing slightly.

The flood peak this time was only about 80 centimeters high, just enough to submerge half of the flood control dike.

He hesitated for a moment, then quickly made a judgment.

"Aidaer, go to the county committee."

"Tell Secretary Qin that the first wave of flooding has arrived, and there will be even bigger ones to come."

"Have Secretary Qin request the weather forecast from the city, specifically the temperature prediction for the next few days."

Aidar paused, then asked, "And what about you?"

Qi Tongwei looked towards the distant Tianshan Mountains and said in a deep voice:

"Give me the horse, I'll go check upstream. You run back."

Without further ado, Aidar immediately dismounted and ran towards the county committee.

Qi Tongwei then spurred his horse and galloped along the riverbank toward the Dongweizi grassland.

As he rode his horse at full speed, Qi Tongwei kept his eyes fixed on the torrent in the river.

After the first flood peak passed, the water level began to recede slowly, but the current was still very strong.

He frowned slightly as he watched the torrents gradually calm down.

With such a large flow rate in the first wave of flooding, he wasn't sure if he could withstand the subsequent surges.

Upon arriving at Dongweizi Grassland, Qi Tongwei dismounted.

When the militiamen on duty saw him arrive, they immediately came to greet him.

The young man grinned and spoke with great excitement.

"County Chief Qi, you didn't see it! It was quite a sight just now!"

With a loud crash, a huge chunk of snow fell, and water gushed down immediately!

Qi Tongwei didn't respond.

He walked up to the flood control dike and carefully inspected the condition of the dam.

After walking around the dam, he found that the dam was very sturdy and there wasn't a single place where water could seep in.

He straightened up, looked at the white Tianshan Mountains in the distance, and let out a long sigh of relief.

Leishan has weathered the first flood peak!

Leishan weathered the storm, but Heshan, also upstream, suffered the consequences.

The two layers of sandbags they had piled up were directly washed away by the flood and became floating debris in the torrent.

The floodwaters seemed to have found their way home, rushing straight into the eastern part of Heshan.

Fortunately, the first flood peak was short-lived, dissipating in less than an hour.

But dissipation does not mean there is no loss.

That is, in just one short hour.

Hundreds of adobe houses in Heshan were washed away, two pastures were flooded, and countless livestock were killed or injured...

In an instant, communication, transportation, and power supply in half of Heshan were completely paralyzed!

The only saving grace was that the flood peak occurred during the day and did not cause any deaths.

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For certain reasons, it is inconvenient to describe the extent of the disaster; please use your imagination to fill in the blanks.