Yin Yuzhen is a 19 year old desert bride and a 15 year sand queen

Mondo Social Updated on 2024-03-07

A verdant field stretches endlessly, reflecting the turquoise sky, and is full of life. In this vast field, tall sand willows and low shrubs intertwine to form a lush forest.

Occasionally, cows, sheep or hares weave through it, adding to the liveliness and vibrancy of the wilderness. This is China's Mu Us Desert.

The Mu Us Desert used to be a wind-swept and deserted place, but after twenty or thirty years, it has become green and covered with lush vegetation, and is even known as the Mu Us Forest.

This astonishing transformation is all due to an ordinary name - Yin Yuzhen.

Yin Yuzhen, a girl from Jingbian, Shaanxi Province, was born in a poor small village. In that era of scarcity of materials and poverty of everyone, she had no chance to go to school, so she could only start helping her family early.

In 1985, when Yin Yuzhen reached the marriageable age, her father arranged a marriage for her, and she married Bai Wanxiang. Bai Wanxiang's father is surnamed Bai, and during the drought in 1969, Bai's father fled with his family to the Mu Us Desert, where he settled down.

Yin Yuzhen and her husband Bai Wanxiang's marriage originated from the friendship between their fathers. Their wedding was simple, but full of genuine feelings. In the vast desert, they walked side by side, only with each other.

Although the material conditions were difficult, their love was deepened because of it. Their story tells us that true love does not need to be flamboyant, as long as you have a heart, you can live happily ever after.

In the depths of the Mu Us Desert, in a place called Beitang, lives Yin Yuzhen Bai Wanxiang's family. Before she went, she still had a beautiful vision for the future, but when she actually arrived here, she only felt extremely hopeless.

The black mud house, like a dark cloud floating in the wind and sand, was pitifully low, and the roof was covered with a few planks and thatch, more like an entrance than a real house.

She and her father followed Bai Wanxiang closely, cautiously entering the cellar through the entrance. However, there was not the slightest warmth and comfort in the cellar, the light was dim, the space was cramped, not to mention the sheets and bedding, and the sleeping place was just a few layers of thatch on a small earthen platform.

Yin Yuzhen found in the Bai family's kitchen that in the dim space, pots and pans, and stoves were covered with yellow sand. Her face showed disappointment and fear, and her father could only bow his head guiltily and hurried away, without saying a word to prevent her from marrying.

Her heart was filled with frustration, powerlessness, and loss, but she was still strong enough to spend the night in the cellar with Bai Wanxiang. However, the next morning, she couldn't wait to go out and get some fresh air, but found that the door was blocked by the wind and sand, and she couldn't open it, so she had to open the door a little bit with great strength.

The wind and sand from outside kept pouring into the house.

Yin Yuzhen's tenacity was completely broken, and her emotions collapsed instantly, hiding her face and crying. Bai Wanxiang is the kind of honest and wooden person, he saw Yin Yuzhen crying so sadly, he was at a loss for a while, so he could only stand quietly on the side.

This crying was seven days and seven nights, during which Yin Yuzhen's heart was so painful that she couldn't even eat, and she barely drank a few sips of water. Her hatred for her father grew deeper and deeper, hating why he had sent herself to this deserted place.

But when she thought of the faces of her mother and brother, she was reluctant. She also thought about running away from home, but Bai Wanxiang knew that the conditions of her family were poor, so she didn't stop Yin Yuzhen's decision, but just followed her silently, worried about her safety.

Yin Yuzhen looked at the simple man behind her, remembering that Bai Wanxiang's father had died not long ago, and if she left, then he would be the only one left in this boundless desert.

She sighed helplessly, gave up the idea of leaving, and chose to stay. When she returned to that humble home again and saw the empty walls, her heart was still full of sadness.

Unconsciously, she saw a weed in the corner of the wall, squeezed into the crack of the wall, but it was able to break through the soil tenaciously and stretch its waist and green leaves to its heart's content. At that moment, she seemed to be inspired, stunned for a moment, and thought to herself: Xiaocao can break through the soil despite the obstruction of the mud wall, so why can't I?

If you can't leave this environment anyway, why can't you change it?

Yin Yuzhen: I decided to stay! I'm going to fight the sand, I'm going to turn the desert into an oasis! Faced with the plight of raging sand and lack of water, I would rather die of exhaustion for sand control than be bullied to death by yellow sand!

My husband and I used the money we earned from our part-time jobs to buy more than 600 saplings, all of which were planted around our houses. Every morning, I would get up to water the saplings, and after doing farm work, I would run to the saplings and watch them grow.

Even if the road to desertification control is full of hardships, I will persevere, because I want to use my own strength to turn this desert into a green ocean!

Yin Yuzhen's dream was for the saplings to grow into towering trees in the desert, but the following summer, less than 10 of the more than 600 saplings survived, leaving them feeling very lost.

However, they didn't give up because of that. Yin Yuzhen and his wife realized that although it is very difficult to plant trees in the desert, it is not impossible. So, they decided to plant more trees in spring and autumn to increase the number of surviving saplings.

In order to achieve this goal, they go out early and return late every day and work hard. They dug pits, buried saplings, watered them, and when they were tired, they lay down on the sand to rest, and when they were hungry, they ate the dry food they had brought with them.

Despite the hardships of the road, they persevered until their dreams came true.

In the blazing desert sun during the day, the surface temperature can reach fifty or sixty degrees Celsius, ** is so hot and painful that if you step on the ground barefoot, you will quickly grind out blisters.

However, Yin Yuzhen and Bai Wanxiang didn't care about this, and let their ** and clothes be soaked with sweat, until the sun set and the stars and moon rose, they were satisfied with carrying buckets and shovels home.

Planting trees requires funds, and when Yin Yuzhen is short of funds, she and her husband will go to work for others, such as raising pigs, raising sheep, digging manure, and building houses.

The money they earn from their labor is used to buy saplings, except for basic living needs.

Yin Yuzhen firmly believes that in order to plant trees, it is worth paying more. So, she and her husband used shovels, shovels and other rudimentary tools to dig more than 4,000 meters of canals in more than three months.

However, despite the great efforts, the sudden attack of the sandstorm made Yin Yuzhen's efforts come to naught. Despite this, Yin Yuzhen insisted on planting 50,000 trees around the canal, hoping that they would survive in the desert.

On a night when the wind and sand were raging, Yin Yuzhen and Bai Wanxiang found dust and smoke billowing in the distance when they were planting trees, and the sky was dark. They immediately stopped what they were doing and rushed home.

The wind was blowing so hard and the sky was so dark that they had to hold each other and walk cautiously, until they finally arrived home safely under the guidance of their own dogs.

That night, Yin Yuzhen lay in bed, listening to the howling wind outside, tossing and turning and couldn't sleep, her mind was full of the fate of those trees in the sand, worried that they would be blown away by the wind.

At four or five o'clock in the morning of the next day, the storm gradually weakened, and Yin Yuzhen anxiously rushed to the canal. She looked around with a flashlight, only to see that the original canal had been completely covered by the yellow sand, and almost all the trees planted around her had been uprooted by the strong wind, and she didn't know where it was blowing.

Yin Yuzhen's thoughts were entangled like a mess, and her heart was full of pain and helplessness. She sat down deep on the ground and tried to speak, but her throat was dry and she couldn't make any sound.

The body is exhausted and weak, and even the strength to cry is exhausted. It wasn't until her husband crouched down and hugged her hard that her tears poured out like a flood and she finally cried into a tearful person.

Yin Yuzhen fell ill, with a high fever and a splitting headache for several days, and she couldn't even get out of bed. During this time, she began to reflect on her own approach to tree planting, what are the problems?

What can be done to improve the survival rate of trees? The more she thought about it, the more she thought about it, and she felt that maybe she needed to improve her cultivation methods. So, when she recovered a little, she went to the field for a field trip.

After a long period of observation and practice, Yin Yuzhen came to the conclusion that the best way to protect trees from the wind is to set up wind barriers first, and plant shrubs to block the wind and sand, maintain water sources, and protect the river embankment.

She turned this idea into practical action, and together with her husband, she planted salix, sunflower stalks and firewood to protect against wind and sand. Then, they also planted shrubs on the ground to stabilize the flowing sand.

Such measures are set up layer by layer, and each next tree stabilizes a piece of land and gradually expands the green area. In order to check whether the land is suitable for planting trees and further improve the survival rate of plants, Yin Yuzhen also creatively invented the "artificial simulated flying" method.

The most successful method of planting seedlings lies in their meticulous observation and preparation. Before deciding to plant a sapling, they plant a large area of psammophytes to observe their growth.

The better the growth of psammophytes, the better the moisture, stability and fertility of the land, and the survival rate of the seedlings planted on such land will be greatly improved, thus effectively reducing plant waste.

Through continuous experiments and improvements, Yin Yuzhen and his wife have successfully summarized their experience into scientific laws and improved the survival rate of saplings. Their past failures, such as the fact that less than 10% of the seedlings survived when they were first planted, are a thing of the past.

Now, the trees are growing, the wind and sand are reduced, the ecological environment has been improved, and various small animals such as sparrows and rabbits have returned, and the woods are full of life.

The once barren Mu Us Desert, under the careful cultivation of Yin Yuzhen, has now become a vibrant oasis with birds and flowers, and the scenery is picturesque. Yin Yuzhen looked at the forest she planted with her own hands, and her face was always filled with a happy smile.

The verdant scenery and gentle wind not only bring vitality, but also make her extremely proud of her efforts. After the field survey of the Shaanxi Provincial Forestry Department, Yin Yuzhen has been unremittingly planting trees for more than 10 years, and the land area directly managed has reached 30,000 mu, and the positive impact on the environment is immeasurable.

After this situation was reported by the relevant state departments, in 2002, after careful deliberation, the state awarded Yin Yuzhen the honorary title of "National Top Ten Heroines" in recognition of her contributions to improving the ecological environment in the past 15 years.

In 2022, Yin Yuzhen has spent 37 spring and autumn seasons on the road of sand control. Together with her husband Bai Wanxiang, she used 70,000 acres of land to prove that she is a veritable "queen of sand control".

Not only that, Yin Yuzhen also became the first woman in the history of our country to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because of her outstanding contribution to improving the natural environment. Yin Yuzhen's story tells us that only people like her, who are not willing to accept the harshness of the natural environment and persistently improve the natural environment, can make a large desert like the Mu Us Desert change.

Today, the Mu Us Desert is mostly covered by vegetation and can no longer be called a desert, but rather the Mu Us Forest. That's because these people who are committed to protecting the biodiversity of the ecosystem have transformed this once desert into an important part of the ecological diversity.

Yin Yuzhen, a woman who adheres to the belief that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", with the help of **, she not only successfully controlled sand and afforestation, but also mined "gold" in the sand.

The Inner Mongolia Oasis Desert Control and Afforestation she created has established a "Yuzhen Desert Oasis Ecological Park" of thousands of square meters, and based on this, the development of ecological tourism has been developed.

With her own actions, she fully proved the correctness of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets".

Under the inspiration of Yin Yuzhen, many residents living in the Mu Us Desert area have devoted themselves to the action of planting trees and becoming rich through ecological industry. The northwest desert has become a plug in the south of the Yangtze River, and Yin Yuzhen has made great contributions.

Those tenacious and tenacious trees growing on the sand, and the continuous green Great Wall, are not only the greatest affirmation of her, but also a true portrayal of her perseverance and perseverance.

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