More than 30 years ago, a 19-year-old girl, Yin Yuzhen, was forced to marry in the Mu Us Desert in Jingbian CountyHer wedding room was just a 4-square-meter cellar dug in the sand and covered with felt cloth on topIt was very hard to stay inside.
Yin Yuzhen was forced to become an orphan and widow in the desert, and she tried to escape many times without success, and the years in the desert were long torture and despair for her.
Fifteen years later, Yin Yuzhen, as a rural woman who could not read a single word, was commended at a national award ceremony.
It was only then that the world knew what she had been through in 15 years.
This barren land covered with yellow sand once buried all the hopes of the girl Yin Yuzhen, however, she finally chose to face this terrible desert and reclaim her own world with her hands.
On a summer morning in 1985, the girl Yin Yuzhen pushed open the wooden door of the cellar and was greeted by the pungent smell of sand.
She looked up, her eyes were full of yellow sand, and even the blue sky was hidden in it, this boundless desert was the new home she was promised by her father when she was 19 years old.
Yin Yuzhen is a native of Jingbian County, Shaanxi, the youngest daughter of six brothers and sisters, extremely beautiful, good at singing mountain songs, should have attracted bees and butterflies, but a misunderstanding made her be allowed to marry to this isolated poor widow's house.
She remembered that when she first met Bai Wanxiang, his face was covered with mud and ragged clothes, and he was so far from the polite groom she imagined that she immediately burst into tears.
Daughter, he is your beloved. Father reassured.
Yin Yuzhen cried: "I don't agree! My mother said that my husband must be handsome and dress decently. ”
Child, you're 19 years old and it's time to get married. I made a sworn prayer to Bai Wanxiang's father, and this is your fate. ”
Fate, what a cruel word, it drowned the girl's cry in the whistling wind and sand, and made her petite figure disappear into the depths of this wild desert.
It turned out that Yin Yuzhen's father had always felt guilty, he was lost in the desert a few years ago, and was rescued by Bai Wanxiang's father.
But Bai Wanxiang's family is very poor, only a dry well and more than a dozen acres of sandy land, in order to avoid the wind and sand, they live in a semi-underground cave.
The cave is small and damp, surrounded by spiders and centipedes, and when a sandstorm comes, the door of the kiln is buried, and the couple can only dig sand to escape.
Yin Yuzhen was very desperate, sobbing all day long, she often missed her hometown, where although poor but there was blue sky and clear water.
Yin Yuzhen calculates the route of running away from home, day after day, but the reality of survival makes her desperate - the only food is sand cotton, sand puff seeds and dead livestock, and all she drinks is water filtered out of the sand, and she is exhausted from dealing with wind and sand every day.
One day at dawn, Yin Yuzhen got up and was about to go out, but was blocked tightly by a sand wall, and her husband fought hard until the third pole of the day, and the wooden door was not opened until three poles in the morning, and the fear of being buried alive made her unable to bear it anymore and cried.
She knelt on the sand and drew the word "home" with sand grains, which was originally a lively text, but now it has become a sarcasm.
I've been bought by this desert! She thought desperately.
Just as Yin Yuzhen was preparing to be trapped in the sand sea for the rest of her life, a piece of news shattered her dreams - her father was worried when he heard that his daughter was suffering here, and soon died of illness.
It's all my fault! Yin Yuzhen cried, tears blurred her vision, she could no longer bear the cruel tricks of fate.
In the dead of night, Yin Yuzhen climbed out of the cellar and walked alone in the yellow sand with no way back, she fell again and again, and the sand scratched her delicate **, until she was covered in bruises, she finally gave up escaping and chose to accept her fate.
Yin Yuzhen looked out the window at the endless yellow sand, her heart was full of despair, she knew that if she let the desert swallow her life like this, she, her husband, and her future children were destined to spend a short and painful life in this barren environment.
I'm going to revive this desert, I'm going to plant life in the dead sand! Yin Yuzhen clenched her fists fiercely, and she decided to change the trajectory of her fate.
At first, Yin Yuzhen tried to grow all kinds of vegetables in front of her house, but they were all blown to death by the strong wind without exception, and she realized that growing ordinary crops would not work, and what this barren land needed was vegetation that could resist the erosion of wind and sand - trees.
So, Yin Yuzhen began to try to plant trees in the desert, she searched everywhere for tree species suitable for growing in arid environments, and finally found several drought-tolerant trees such as tamarix and willow.
In the spring of 1986, Yin Yuzhen was reluctant to give up a lame she-goat, but decided to sell it for 600 saplings.
Digging holes in the sand dunes, Yin Yuzhen carefully planted these small trees, and during the day, she carried water between shepherding sheep, and Yin Yuzhen was extremely eager for these saplings to thrive in the desert.
However, the cruel reality soon gave Yin Yuzhen a devastating blow.
After the wind passed, Yin Yuzhen knelt motionless in the sand, watching the 600 saplings that had just been planted all blown away by the wind and sand, her heart was like being slashed hard, the indescribable pain, tears fell in large pieces, wetting the sand.
Yin Yuzhen was almost desperate, in this desert of desolation, she thought she had found a way to change the living environment, but she didn't expect that the wind was still ruthless, and her efforts were still in vain.
However, Yin Yuzhen did not give up, she repeatedly experimented and compared, and finally found several tree species suitable for growing in the desert.
In order to raise money to buy saplings, Yin Yuzhen borrowed money from the west, and even sold the only few sheep in the family, Bai Wanxiang was also looking for work outside, as long as people gave the saplings, he was willing to do any drudgery.
In this way, Yin Yuzhen tried to plant more than 1,000 small trees on the sand dunes, and she protected these small trees like her own children, and finally, 60% of the saplings survived!
When the first batch of saplings grew to a meter high, Yin Yuzhen was ecstatic, this was the result of her watering, and it was the success of her fight with the desert!
Since then, Yin Yuzhen has made up her mind to reclaim this dead sand into an oasis, for this wish, she has shed sweat and tears, and she will no longer allow herself to retreat and give up.
Bai Wanxiang heard outside that someone was idle with many saplings, and immediately begged the boss to give them to him, and the night they got the saplings, Yin Yuzhen and Bai Wanxiang drove home overnight.
Along the way, the wind and sand were blowing, and the saplings were almost lost, but fortunately, Yin Yuzhen grabbed the horse's tail, which saved the lives of these saplings.
It is difficult to survive in the desert, not to mention the distraction of planting trees, Yin Yuzhen has been pregnant twice, but even this still did not make her let go of her determination to change the desert.
Day after day, year after year, Yin Yuzhen took the lead in clearing the wasteland, and Bai Wanxiang worked hard to control this piece of dead sand.
After more than ten years of unremitting efforts, a vigorous tree has begun to take shape in the yellow sand, with green willows and green grass, attracting more and more birds to inhabit here.
Watching the oasis she transformed grow more and more luxuriant, Yin Yuzhen sincerely felt relieved and proud.
She and her husband proved to the world that the flower of life can bloom in the most barren places, which is a great victory of human perseverance and wisdom!
Yin Yuzhen's determination to expand the area of the oasis has never wavered, she wants to make it a paradise with abundant products and spring all year round, and she wants her story to inspire more people to devote themselves to the transformation of nature!
On a winter day in 2002, the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was brightly lit, and at the award ceremony, Yin Yuzhen, an ordinary middle-aged rural woman, came to the stage to accept the honorary title of "Top Ten Outstanding Women in China".
The award speech reads: "Yin Yuzhen, the national 38 red flag bearer, has played an important role in the construction of ecological civilization in the past 36 years with unremitting sand control and afforestation. ”
Yin Yuzhen modestly responded to the praise of a leader on the rostrum: "Hello, I am an ordinary farmer in Inner Mongolia. ”
Yin Yuzhen never thought that she would have such glory, many years ago she was just a young woman who had just married into the desert, and later in order to change this barren environment, she began a 36-year road of tree planting, and finally managed more than 40,000 acres of sandy land.
Today, this once dead sand has begun to take shape, and the green trees are surrounded by an oasis of abundant spring water, and the smell of birds and flowers has begun to emerge.
Looking at the results of her hard work, Yin Yuzhen sincerely felt relieved and proud.
Yin Yuzhen's deeds have been widely publicized, and it has also inspired the surrounding villagers to devote themselves to the cause of sand control, and it is believed that one day, with the efforts of this group of people led by Yin Yuzhen, the desert in the northwest will eventually turn into a flowery Jiangnan.
In this way, a tenacious northern peasant woman opened up an oasis of life with perseverance and wisdom, and she proved to the world that the flower of life can bloom in the most barren places, which is a great victory of human will!