Chapter 11 A scoop of the Yellow River

The van finally stopped on the dam, and everyone jumped out of the car one after another.Before he could see the flow of the river clearly, his face suddenly felt slightly tingling, and the wind and sand had already brushed over.The unshakable long wind carried the fine sand, like a small-scale sandstorm, blowing across the North China Plain. It was not cold, but it was quite bullying and made my chest tight.Wocun and Youshan both wrapped themselves up tightly, and the fiery red windbreaker touched the desolate river scene.I also wear a fedora and zip up my fleece jacket all the way to my throat.A group of eight or nine people followed Yongbo, Jianhui and Zhou Hui to the river bank below the dam.

This is the morning before leaving Jinan, Shandong University arranged for us to see the Yellow River.The car was driving along the East Second Ring Road. The host saw that I was eager and kept asking questions. He didn't want to disappoint the guests, and didn't want to indulge my expectations. He just answered plainly and added at the end: "Shui Se It's a little muddy, but the water is not too small. But last year, the flow was cut off for more than 100 days, so it won't be too spectacular." I have also heard these words, and I am prepared in my heart.Now you know it on the spot, and if you give a warning again, it is like hearing a neighbor tell you that your mother has been sick and thin over the years, and you are almost unrecognizable. It is still uncomfortable.

The sky is high and the ground is far away, the river view is completely open, empty and lonely, almost nothing.The surface of the river is not very wide, maybe five hundred meters at most, but the sandy land on both sides is very wide and flat, and the plane extends even further, and it seems that it can no longer reach the edge.At the joint between Haotian and Flood, a line of greenery looks like a wheat field, and the back looks like a new poplar forest.In addition, apart from the deserted sky, the bottom is a boundless and helpless low-key khaki. Light yellow or whitish withered grass. "Why is the river irregular?" I turned to Jianhui.

"The Yellow River comes from the west," Jianhui said, "and turns north here." Only then did we see that the yellow waves were surging, and the distant dragon twisted its waist and turned a sharp angle, and the opposite bank turned into a peninsula, with the tip of the island facing us.Looking back at the embankment on this bank, it has fallen in the distance, like a long section of city wall in tile gray.Farther away, behind a gleam of greenery on the opposite bank, a mountain shadow rises, shaped like a crushed English capital letter M, or the back of an elephant half floating on the water.I recognized the shape at a glance, and I didn't need to ask my host to confirm it.I pointed it out to me.

"Are you sure it's Queshan?" I was dubious. "Of course it is," I said with a smile, "it is the magpie mountain on the left in Zhao Mengfu's famous painting "Magpie Blossoms in Autumn". Principal Zeng Fanren took us to Zibo. Not long after we left Jinan, Huashan Mountain first appeared on the right side of the expressway. It looks like an emerald green pyramid, and then Queshan appears again. One firm and one soft, rising from the flat ground for no reason, it is unforgettable. After returning from Zibo, it appeared on the left again, but it is a pity that we can’t stop and take a closer look.”

Zhou Hui came over and confirmed my identification. "Xu Zhimo's plane crashed that year," I said again, "the plane was called Jinan, and it happened near Jinan. It's too coincidental. But it wasn't Taishan, it was Kaishan, in Dangjiazhuang. Do you know where it is?" "I don't know." Jianhui said. I pointed to Que Mountain in the distance and said, "It's just behind Que Mountain." Then I turned to Jianhui and said, "This place is still too far away from the river, can you get closer? I want to touch the river." So Yongbo and Jianhui led the way, along a large field of wheat seedlings, leading the people on the narrow muddy ridge, one foot high and one foot low, to the lowest place near the water.It was finally low enough and close enough, but the sand was squishier.I stepped on floating soil and dead grass, and I leaned over to touch the water, and everyone shouted to be careful behind my back.Precarious and winged, my hand finally half-stretched into the Yellow River.

In an instant, my hot blood touched the body temperature of the Yellow River, which was cool and exciting.The ancient Yellow River, 4,600 miles from the Xingxiu Sea, which has been lost in the prehistoric prehistoric floods, circles the Hetao, hits the Dragon Gate, and passes through Tongguan where heroes come and go all the way to Shandong. How many times have you drank the blood of heroes and the tears of refugees, how many times have you changed your path?How many times have you seen peace in the world, let the river finally clear up?You have been running around for hundreds of millions of years, and I can only touch your pulse in such a long life.You'll break free from my fist no matter how tight I hold it.Even so, I have been waiting for more than seventy years for this moment, and it is definitely worth it.If you don't get to the Yellow River, your heart will never die, so what if you get to the Yellow River?so what?At least my fingers once flowed through the Yellow River.

At least I have paid homage to the Yellow River, and the Yellow River has finally recognized me personally.In the poems and texts, I shouted and called him many times. When I gave a speech at Shanda University, I recited the "Folk Song". After the second time, the five hundred audience came to me in unison: hear I yelled "wind", and the vital capacity of the five hundred mouths suddenly exploded, and I responded with "also heard".I called out "Sha" again, and the five hundred pipe throats responded with "I also heard".The audience ended in a passionate echo.

The feelings of Chinese descendants for the Yellow River are as indelible as a birthmark.Liushahe wrote to me and told me that he took the train across the Yellow River and read my poem "Yellow River".In fact, it was brought from the womb. From Liu E to Liu E, which sentence did not come from the milk of the Yellow River?If the Yellow River ceases to flow, China will be weaned.Xu Xianming, vice president of Shanda University, expressed his national sentiments during the meeting, saying that he could not help crying every time he crossed the Yellow River Bridge.There is something generous about that, and I fully appreciate it.Didn't Gong Zizhen also say in "Miscellaneous Poems of Ji Hai":

His lover Lingxiao was afraid that Gong Zizhen would indulge in his children's love, so he even used the Yellow River to motivate him: Thinking of this, I took out my own business card from my pocket, bowed my head and prayed silently for a while facing the rolling east of the Yellow River, raised my right hand, and the snow-white business card fluttered, and was picked up by the undulating waves.Everyone looked at me together, as if they didn't think there was anything wrong with this presumptuous shot, and instead applauded and laughed indulgently.Wocun and Youshan also came to the water to look for the baptism of the Yellow River.Seeing my daughter seriously stretching her hand into the river, thinking of her being so old that a father would have the opportunity to take her to recognize the river, and thinking that the father who bid farewell to this piece of backland was only half her age today, my eyes got wet.

Back in the car, everyone was busy wiping off the wet mud on the soles of their shoes.I was silent, I just couldn't bear it.The next morning, my friends from Shanda University went to the airport to see me off, and I boarded the plane wearing mud shoes.After returning to Kaohsiung, I scraped off all the dry soil and kept it in a business card case.From then on, every night, there was a faint sound of water in the study.