"What to eat today?".”
Lamb!"The meat is stewed in the pot, the small kitchen is full of aroma, and outside the house is the newly delivered domestic water, two large buckets full. Four or five years ago, the border guards of "No. 42" could not have dreamed of such a scenario.
"No. 42" is a border guard duty room in Tuoyun Ranch, Tumshuk City, the Third Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Toyun Ranch is located at the northern end of the Karakoram Mountains, at the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, and borders the Kyrgyz Republic. As the only regimental field of the 3rd Division of the Corps with a border line, guarding the 72-kilometer-long border line of the motherland in the regimental field has become the tacit responsibility of the people of Tuoyun Ranch.
The average altitude of Tuoyun Ranch is 3,200 meters, and there are 4 border protection duty rooms, of which the highest terrain is the "No. 42" of a company, with an altitude of 3,800 meters.
What does it mean to be 3800 meters above sea level?The average annual temperature is minus 10 degrees Celsius, and the coldest reaches minus 30 degrees. When the sun is shining, it snows without warning, which is considered "good weather" in the mouth of the border guards.
Border guards patrol. Photo by People's Daily reporter Li Haoyang.
The wind and red flags are not overturned. And the gale of "No. 42" can tear the frozen red flag apart. Hu Yueming, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy head of the Tuoyun Ranch of the Third Division, said that about every other week, the national flag in front of the duty room must be replaced. Hu Yueming described the severe cold of "No. 42" like this: he put on all the cotton clothes and pants at night, lit a charcoal fire, and his whole body was still frozen.
Two dormitories, a kitchen, a toilet, that's all there is to "No. 42". But when it comes to such conditions, everyone says that they are much better than they were a few years ago. In November 2019, Hu Yueming came to Tuoyun Ranch due to a job transfer. Regular duty on the "42nd" for half a month is one of his most important tasks. Hu Yueming remembers very clearly that when he first came, there was only one room in "No. 42", where he cooked and slept together. "The house was muddy, and I slept in a bunk. ”
There is no kitchen, and the edge guards bring some simple vegetables from home and fry them with naan;There was no signal, and before each visit, they had to say hello to their family in advance and say "I can't get in touch for two weeks";There is no toilet, and the thought of going to the toilet makes Hu Yueming "retreat in his heart".
In the environment of lacking everything, in the middle of the night, Hu Yueming felt that he was hot all over, his limbs were stiff, and he couldn't move. When the border guards on the same shift looked at him, they saw that his face was red and his lips were purple. "There's a feeling that you're about to get through it. Hu Yueming said that such symptoms may be caused by low temperature and lack of oxygen, "The plateau air is already thin, and it has to compete with charcoal fires for oxygen." ”
Hu Yueming thought about many possibilities, but he didn't think about going down the mountain. "I was thinking that I was going to die here. He took a deep breath and choked up to finish the sentence, pointing firmly to the land of "No. 42" under his feet.
Love the motherland, selfless dedication, hard work, pioneering spirit. The spirit of the Corps is shown in the border guards of Tuoyun Ranch, which is deep and introverted, but it is also incisive. Today, many second- or even third-generation border guards have taken over the flagpole and joined this team to protect the motherland: there are volunteers who responded to the country's call to participate in the western plan;There are college students who have just graduated and devoted themselves to border protection;There is also a "Mulan" that does not let the eyebrows go.
In the mouths of the three generations of old, middle-aged and young border guards, the most commonly heard words are "lack of oxygen and spirit".