Chapter 110 Send the Little Reader Newsletter Twenty

Dear children: Recently, I visited Hubei Province and saw the grand industrial and agricultural achievements of a province, as well as the great achievements in other fields, which greatly moved and educated me.I want to talk to the children about the Hanjiang Danjiangkou Water Conservancy Project. This great project is carried out at a high speed, and the enthusiasm of tens of millions of migrant workers on the construction site. Anyone who sees it will be amazed and admired! The dam site of the pivotal project - Danjiangkou, is 30 kilometers north of Guanghua County, Hubei Province.The Dan River is a tributary of the Han River, which flows from Henan and joins the Han River here.

The Han River is one of the largest tributaries of the Yangtze River. It originates from the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi, reaches Hankou, joins the Yangtze River, and flows eastward into the sea.Hankou City is named after the mouth of the Han River. This "Three Thousand Li Han River", its vast basin occupies the first place in the Yangtze River basin.The agricultural products and underground resources on both sides of the strait are extremely rich.Especially the Jianghan Plain in the middle and lower reaches is the richest land of fish and rice.But the three thousand miles of the Han River have been a major disaster that people on both sides of the strait fear and resent for thousands of years.The reason is that the flow of the upper reaches of the Han River is very large, and the rainfall is concentrated between July and October every year. The continuous torrential rain gathers in the upper and middle reaches of the Han River and rushes down, causing incalculable losses of life and property to people on both sides of the river.The people of the Han River once sang such a folk song tragically: Nine out of ten years were flooded; Who cares about the lives of the people who freeze to death and starve to death, and their wives and children?The industrious and brave people on both sides of the Han River had to live in fear.Their strong desire to control the flood for thousands of years has never been realized.Until ten years ago, after the liberation of the whole country, our dear party led the people on both sides of the Han River, and began to carry out the work of flood diversion and embankment repair of the Han River.In September 1958, under the brilliance of the party, the Hanjiang Danjiangkou water conservancy project finally broke ground and started!

Workers from 117 people's communes in 17 counties in Henan and Hubei, and dozens of support units from all over the country participated in the Danjiangkou dam construction project.There is a folk song that vividly sang their enthusiasm and energy: Thousands of troops and horses march in front of the red flag of the party. How fast is the province? Construct the Han River, the earth and the ocean together. Be resourceful. Every second counts. Build a dam to make the floods bow forever. The ravines will become happiness. To know where these migrant workers are so motivated, only from the 1,880 members of the "Three Divisions and Three Regiments" in the 100,000-strong army, there are 1,143 family members. From the fact that they were drowned by the flood in three or five years, we can understand that they worked so hard in the wind and rain.

Standing on the tall cofferdam, I saw mountains on both sides of the bank, and a slow-flowing river squeezed aside; on a construction site in front of the dam foundation, I saw a sea of ​​people, carrying loads and pushing carts, flying up and down. , thunderous cheers.The Danjiangkou dam project was launched by local methods.When they built this cofferdam, they did not use 2,100-ton steel sheet piles, nor did they use 3,000 cubic meters of wood sheet piles, ten meters long, and thirty meters wide. These conditions were not available at the time.But the wisdom of the crowd finally broke through this great difficulty.They adopted the local method of "using soil to catch water". In the severe winter weather, in just 50 days, one hundred thousand troops used their hands and shoulders to lift up two loads of high mountains and turn them into plains. The earth moved mountains and seas, pushing more than one million square meters of earth, sand, and stone into the raging river.On January 26, 1959, in the last three hours and ten minutes, the cofferdam was completely closed.The Han River, which has been harmed for thousands of years, has been tied up at the waist since then, and will serve the people tamely forever!

Now the construction of this dam is in full swing, and all the projects will be basically completed within this year.The dam is 3,109 meters long. After the flood is blocked, the reservoir covers an area of ​​1,020 square kilometers and a depth of 100 meters. It is smaller than the Xiaofengman Reservoir in Northeast my country, which is known as the largest in East Asia. Also several times larger.It not only undertakes the task of irrigating 16 million acres of land on both sides of the Strait, but also generates 4.33 billion kWh of electricity to support the industrial construction of hundreds of miles around.In terms of power generation, it is also No. 1 in East Asia.In addition, it also facilitates the navigation of boats and ships and the smooth flow of supplies.At the same time, the reservoir can also raise 100 million catties of fish to feed 500,000 people (200 catties per person per year) for a year!

Children, when talking about the prospects of my country's water conservancy construction, there is also the "South-to-North Water Diversion", which means transferring water from the south to the north for use.The Danjiangkou Water Conservancy Project is just the beginning.We first diverted the Han River to the Huaihe River, and later diverted the Han River to the Yellow River, so that the vast plains of North China and the water-scarce areas of the Huaihe River Basin (60 million mu of land) grew verdant rice seedlings.After the completion of the Three Gorges Reservoir on the Yangtze River, the waters of the Yangtze River, Huaihe River, Yellow River, and Han River will all be connected in one vein.At that time, the east, west, south, and north of the motherland were really beautiful and beautiful rivers and mountains!Children, do you think this prospect is beautiful?

It's too long to write, stop here.I wish you every day upward like the trees in spring.Bing Xin March 27, 1960. (This article was originally published in "Children's Age" No. 9, 1960.)