Chapter 54 Blizzard Huajialing

The "Zeland Highway" was still known as the "Rotten Highway" in 1938.The current (1940) automobile road of more than 700 kilometers, to be fair, is really good.This is the "virtuous government" of the Northwest Highway Bureau.Today, this is called the Lancey Highway. On this highway, countless passenger cars, trucks, military vehicles, and more rubber-wheeled mule and horse carts pass by every day.Old-style wooden carts are not allowed to walk on the road, and there are notices everywhere.This is to protect the road surface.The so-called mule-horse carts with rubber wheels used the waste tires of luxury carts and loaded them on old-fashioned carts. They were pulled by three animals. The animals included mules and horses, and there were also mules and horses for mixed use, or even two mules and one cow.Gasoline is like blood in Northwest China today. If you have money, you can’t buy it anywhere;The mule and horse carts with rubber wheels have become the pride of the road.Rice, wheat flour, cloth, salt...and other daily necessities depend on them for transshipment.It is said that such a rubber-wheeled cart now costs more than two thousand yuan a ride, and a pair of old tires alone costs eight or nine hundred.It takes at least a month to go back and forth on the road, and the feed for the livestock alone costs one yuan per head per day.If according to the "logic" of general adjutants in Dihua, a cart with five horses can carry a load of 5,000 jin, then a mule-horse cart on the Lanxi Highway should carry a load of 3,000 jin.Three large carts are equivalent to one truck. If the animal feed is calculated at 300 yuan for a round trip, plus the driver’s board, lodging and wages, the total is about 700 yuan. It costs almost 1,000 yuan to transport three tons of goods. It was six times cheaper to transport it back and forth on the Lancey Highway than by car.

But the coachman doesn't like these mules and horses and carts very much, because they often block the road, especially when crossing the high and steep Liupan Mountain, if you encounter such a long line of mules, horses and carts on the winding road , It is indeed a "brain-wrenching" thing.Perhaps because most of the mules and horses are "bumps" who just came from the fields, they are frightened when they see a car, and it takes a lot of effort to control it. Liupan Mountain is indeed steep, but it is not necessarily troublesome; the roadbed is good, and the entire section is paved with gravel.A well-behaved chauffeur, who doesn't gamble, don't prostitute, or drinks at night, sleeps well, and pays more attention to it, can always pass safely; but Huajialing is a bit annoying.There are no twists and turns here, and the road surface is flat and wide. Although the roadbed is made of loess, it seems to be solid. There are slopes, but they are neither on the curve nor steep; Lingyuan is not difficult, but because the weather is not always sunny, it becomes a problem.The weather on Huajialing is often bad.This is a hill on a plateau, five or six thousand feet above sea level. People wear jackets when they set off from Lanzhou, but they have to wear cotton clothes here—no, they have to wear clothes.In June and July, it often snows here. Sometimes, the sun is still good in the morning, and it suddenly rains and snows in the afternoon. After the snow falls, the loess-based road will show you the color. Slippery is a trivial matter, the most difficult thing What to deal with is "sinking", - the rear wheel sinks and becomes a groove, when the "head gear" is turned on, the engine is humming - groaning in pain, needless to say, it wastes fuel, but the rear wheel cannot be cut The ground is only flying in the air.At this time, there is only one way out: a dilemma.

In mid-May of 1940, on a sunny morning, the weather was quite hot, and people were all wearing unlined clothing. Five passenger cars drove out from Lanzhou Station, one of which was a new caravan, which the station staff called a "special car"; Although it is driven for a certain "professional" person, the passenger in the car is not enough for the "professional" person.The conditions were excellent, and as expected, we arrived at Huajialing Station at 3:00 pm.At this time, the mountains were covered with clouds, the wind was biting cold, and it was raining sparsely.Because this is not an ordinary bus, passengers in the car can choose whether to go or stay.But differences of opinion arose: Those who advocated hurrying were afraid of the weather changing—from rain to snow; those who advocated staying overnight were because it was raining and the road might be troublesome, but Huajialing was a "suspension" after all. stand".As a result, stay.The rain that day was really heavy at dusk, and the eaves slipped away.

Before dark, the other four buses also arrived one after another and stopped.Five cars and more than a hundred guests crowded a "Huajialing Guest House" to the brim. That night, there was a famine. There was not enough food, rice, or even water, and it was almost impossible to cook.But when I saw it early the next day, it was terrible, a silver-white world, the snow was half a foot thick, and I was still shivering in leather clothes.The passengers panicked, because as usual, when it snowed in Huajialing, it was uncertain whether they would be able to leave in three to five days or seven or eight days. The problem was not whether they could leave, but whether they had food or drink.The Huajialing station and guest house are located on a solitary mountain, more than 20 miles away from the nearest small village. Firewood, rice, and vegetables are usually bought 30 miles away, and even water for drinking needs to be bought. After walking more than ten miles, I picked it in the valley under the mountain.The guest house has already announced that it may not be open for lunch today, the people who bought firewood, rice and vegetables set off early in the morning, and the destination is the nearest small village, but they are not sure when they will come back, and whether they will have anything when they come back.

The snow had stopped early, and there was wind, but not so much.The purchaser didn't come back empty-handed, and dinner was served around one o'clock.At two o'clock, someone went out to explore the road. It was said that half of the snow had disappeared, and the road was not so bad, so the "specialists" of the "special car" proposed to start: "What if it snows again tomorrow?" The weather in Jialing is unpredictable.The driver had no choice but to "agree", and the car left the station around three o'clock. After climbing a slope, it snowed again. "What should I do?" "Let's hurry! The new car, the machine is good, don't be afraid!" So he left.But the wheels spun.Park the car, put on the chain, and it will take half an hour.During this period, the snow fell heavily, and the already mottled road surface was completely white again at this time.However, I still hope to break out of this range of wind and snow, because it is said that there is often a misty wind and snow on the mountain, but the scorching sun below the mountain.However, the wheel with the chain still slipped and "sinked" again.The snow is getting heavier and heavier, and it is already half past four; the car looks like a drunk, and there are still a few slopes ahead.The driver announced: "I can't go, I have to go back." Looking at the milestones on the roadside, it turned out that I had only traveled more than ten kilometers.Go back in time for dinner.

However, when the car was turning around, it slipped somehow, and a pair of rear wheels were stranded in the ditch, unable to move any more, so the rescue procedures began one by one: first, all the passengers got out of the car and put on the "head gear" The "platoon" tried to be self-reliant, but it was unsuccessful; the "front gear" was still on, the passengers helped to push, the engine hummed, and the rear wheels were moving, but the soaked loess was stirred into two ditches, and the wheels were completely suspended. The air came, and the car didn't move at all.There was a pile of gravel on the side of the road to be used for rebuilding the roadbed, so everyone grabbed the gravel and took it under the car in an attempt to fill up the two ditches caused by the rear wheels. Some people borrowed it from the homes of ordinary people two miles away. Take two shovels, one shovel from the rear steel plate to dig wet soil, so that the rear wheels can touch the ground;Both the driver and the assistant (he was a high school graduate) lay on the ground, struggling through the mud.The tourists were covered with snow, which was thick after being patted off, but it was getting dark gradually, and everyone was cold and hungry.Finally, the assistant and two passengers set off and rushed back to the station to call for help, while the rest of the passengers boarded the train again, preparing to spend the night in the train in case the relief vehicle did not come.

At this time, the surrounding fields were vast, without a human figure, only goose-feather-like snowflakes flying all over the sky.Huajialing is so powerful, it can be regarded as having experienced it.Twenty-eight people in the car, from the driver to the passengers, yelled, ran, pushed, and shoveled since it ran aground.But there is one more thing that no one thought of; it turns out that there is a master who is a quasi-"living Buddha" in the car. I don't know if the stubborn nature and machinery will listen to his command of magic power.The master has been sitting there silently pinching the number beads, with a calm and wonderful attitude.

The rescue vehicle finally arrived. There were engineers and workers on the vehicle, a veritable new force.More voices rose from the highway, and work began.Shovel the soil, line the boards, bring the wire cable, turn on the engine fully, pull, push, but the soaked loess is tenacious and resilient, and there is still nothing to do.As a last resort, people and luggage were loaded into the rescue vehicle and returned to the guest house.The assistant brought the bedding, and he stayed overnight in the stranded passenger car. The heavy snow did not stop until the next morning. The station received information that there were no less than forty or fifty vehicles accumulated on the east and west roads because of the snowstorm in Huajialing. The guests in Jingning were also anxious. , Jingning Station kept calling Huajialing Station: "How is the road on your side? Is it easy to leave tomorrow?...Ah, has the snow stopped yet?..." Experienced passengers estimate that the snow will not stop. It will stop immediately, and it will take at least a week to be trapped in Huajialing.People asked the staff in the guest house: "Is there enough rice? Is there enough firewood? You have to do it quickly!" Some female guests found materials from the corners of the boxes to sew children's blouses.

But that afternoon the snow stopped and the sun came out. "Can I leave tomorrow?" The impatient passenger asked the driver.The driver shook his head coldly: "The snow is melting! It's even worse!" But the experienced passenger said in relief: "As long as the wind blows, the road will be dry after a day of wind." Sure enough, the sky followed people's wishes. The next morning, there was sun and wind. At ten o'clock, someone went to explore the road, and came back and said, "it's okay to look at this side, but I don't know about that side." The "special car" on the side of the road actually came back, and the sound of departure in the afternoon reverberated in every corner of the guest house.Around two o'clock, they set off again.Someone took a deep breath and said: "This time I only stayed for three days, how strange!"

Along the way, I saw mottled spots on both sides of the road, and the remaining snow remained; some shady places were still pure white.After driving for an hour, the people in the car took off their leather jackets, and after another hour, it seemed that they couldn't even wear the cotton ones anymore.