In the flooded Jiujiang River in 1998, reporters handed the microphone to General Dong Wanrui, who was commanding the flood control on the front line, and asked: "I heard that you haven't rested for two days and two nights?" ”
General Dong Wanrui's voice was hoarse but firm and replied: "Our soldiers have not rested, how can we rest?" "This is a battlefield without gunpowder, but it is also a battlefield where victory will be won.
It is often said that "manpower is sometimes exhausted", but the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army must "win the day" in this battle. Because behind them, there is a family and a country and countless people.
Tears of the General: In 1998, China suffered the largest flood in history, involving the Yangtze River, Nenjiang River, Pearl River, Minjiang River, Songhua River and other river basins.
There is an emergency in various places, especially in the Yangtze River basin, where heavy rain and heavy rain continue to fall in the Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake areas, and the flow of the Yangtze River waters has increased sharply. When General Dong Wanrui bid farewell to the flood fighters, he shed tears on the spot, leaving a classic**.
In the past few months, the Yangtze River basin has been hit by eight consecutive flood peaks, which has equaled the number of severe floods in the entire basin in 1954. On the afternoon of August 7, the No. 4 to No. 5 gates of Xunyang West Road in Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province were washed open by floodwaters, and the Yangtze River embankment was instantly torn open.
Floodwaters poured in from all directions, rapidly widening the opening to 40 or 60 meters, and seemed unstoppable.
The Jiujiang section of the Yangtze River is facing an unprecedented flood threat, and the Jiujiang section of the Yangtze River has the potential to break through the embankments higher than nearby towns due to its unique "above-ground river" topography, forming a flood level difference of up to four meters, bringing huge flood impact and posing a huge threat to the safety of people's lives and property.
In order to protect the tranquility of the city, countless warriors held on to the length of 17 from Ushi Rock to Cyberjaya LakeOn the 46-kilometer embankment, an average of two fighters are guarded every meter.
At lunchtime, Hu Weijun, an instructor of the anti-tank company of the artillery regiment, discovered an unusual situation when he was routinely inspecting Gate No. 4: A bubble appeared two meters east of Gate No. 4, and the water was turbid.
Company commander He Dehua immediately led 13 soldiers to rush into the three-meter-deep water to find a water source and try to plug the loophole. But humans can't be as pervasive as water, they can't find the location of the hole at the bottom of the sludge-filled water.
Therefore, plugging the loopholes became a top priority, and the soldiers of the whole company gritted their teeth, spread their quilts under the water, pressed them with sandbags, and covered a large area.
At the critical moment when the soldiers were about to repair the hole in the bubble spring, a column of water with a diameter of about one meter suddenly erupted from the waist of the embankment, and the pipe gushed suddenly! Without hesitation, the six fighters jumped into the pipe and fought the flood with their bodies.
However, their strength was still not enough to resist, and a few minutes later, six fighters were swept out of the rapids, and the embankment began to collapse in its entirety, with a breach in diameter of five meters.
In their last ditch, the fighters tried to block the breach with a truck. But the truck tumbled in the flood and disappeared.
When the Jiujiang section of the Yangtze River embankment burst and the flood frantically rushed to Jiujiang City, the state and the People's Liberation Army did not give up, and Lieutenant General Dong Wanrui, deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region, was ordered to become the commander-in-chief of the flood control of the Jiujiang section and urgently flew to the front line of the Jiujiang flood fight.
Just two hours later, the PLA again rushed to the breach in the face of the floodwaters. General Dong Wanrui's words were shocking: "Swear to live and die with the embankment, and the people are in the embankment!" ”
The fighters tried to stop the breach by filling the rocks with trucks, but the effect of the trucks adding rocks was not significant, and they were swept away by the floodwaters. In the end, only a more extreme measure could be taken - the shipwreck.
A stone ship attempted to wreck, but was unsuccessful due to insufficient tonnage. Fortunately, not far downstream, there is a 75-meter-long Barge A21025 loaded with 1,600 tons of coal at its disposal.
In accordance with the National Flood Control Law and the Mayor's Order, I am going to requisition your boat. The questioner was Hong Yongsheng, the head of the flood fighting and rescue force. "Okay, but my boat is out of power and needs to be towed. ”
The soldiers dragged the coal ship hard, and finally at 16:45, it successfully sank into the breach. Then, seven more ships sank in the breach, one after the other, in front of and behind it.
In the end, most of the breach was blocked, and Jiujiang City was able to keep half of the city.
However, the boat could barely block the gap, but could not completely seal it, and the current still rushed out of the gap. When the amount of water remains the same or even increases, the outlet area decreases and the water flow out accelerates.
Therefore, the fighters in the Jiujiang section needed to quickly build an arc-shaped cofferdam. It was a difficult task, with 200 cubic meters per second of flood water constantly battering, and the sandbags and straw bags that the fighters began to throw were washed away.
Dong Wanrui and the former commanders took immediate action, on the one hand, to transfer materials, and on the other hand, to formulate a new rescue and plugging plan. Eventually, they decided to reinforce it with steel bars first, and then pile them up with sandbags and straw bags.
Led by the regiment's commander, Wang Hongli, ten warriors formed a death squad, who tied ropes around their waists and dived into the rushing floodwaters, where they struggled to lay steel stakes under the water in the face of the threat of being swept away at any moment.
The warriors then filled the stakes with sandbags, and after 24 hours of struggle, they finally built a curved cofferdam. Although the successful construction of the curved cofferdam is a temporary relief, it does not mean that the entire flood relief operation has been victorious.
Dong Wanrui knew that there was no respite in the struggle against floods, and he immediately issued an order to set up a second line of defense in the section of the Longkai River outside Jiujiang City. In just one hour, more than 20,000 emergency repair personnel gathered on the front line of Longkai River.
After 32 hours of arduous struggle, more than 30,000 soldiers and civilians successfully completed the second line of defense composed of more than 30,000 earth and stone piles at 6 p.m. on August 9.
During the flood relief in Jiujiang, Dong Wanrui, deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region, insisted on staying on the front line, and the commanders of the three regiments led the soldiers to rush into the flood, and they soaked in the flood for seven days and seven nights, building a wall of life with tenacious perseverance and courage.
On the front line of flood fighting, Dong Wanrui, the oldest and highest-ranking soldier, held his position and stayed awake for several days, just to block the breach of the Yangtze River embankment in the Jiujiang section. Even though he is 56 years old, he still fights alongside his fighters.
In the end, after 72 hours of hard work, they successfully blocked the breach and created a "miracle in the world".