Chapter 9 Miner's Life: "Four Stones Hold One Meat"

In the early spring, it is warm and cold. The sun on the top of my head seemed to be hit by the frost after the "March 9th", lying weakly in the western sky. After a heavy snowfall for many days, the land, mountains and rivers returned to their former style, and the white snow was still quietly Hide on the back of the leaves on the branches. In a crevice of rocks at the foot of the mountain, workers are sweating profusely. This is a world of stones, an ocean of stones. The stone here is extremely hard, requiring workers to use the most primitive steel chisels and hammers. What the construction workers have to do is to dig a "big hole" 3 meters wide and 2 meters high on the stone wall according to the requirements of the coal boss.

Walking into the stone cave about ten meters deep and without a pit around it, the eyes are full of stones with bared teeth. A kind of fear from the heart arises spontaneously, which makes people feel palpitations and suffocation. Why do coal miners dig rocks if they don't dig coal? It turns out that anyone with coal mining experience knows that this is the only way to enter the coal seam.In other words, this is the daily work content of coal miners. This process is called "Guolong" locally. On the local mountain, if a new coal storage seam is found, the local "old man" who specializes in "watching the mountain" can roughly judge the location of the coal seam and the coal reserves inside according to the direction of the mountain and the rock structure of the mountain. Other better coal seams can be found by jumping over the stone layer of several meters or tens of meters.

In the mountain system in the coal-producing area of ​​Shanxi, coal seams and stone layers appear alternately, that is, "you are sandwiched between me", or "I am squeezed in your arms". When a layer of coal is dug out, it is necessary to find a new coal source, and the upper or lower layer of coal seam is the ideal target. This will go through the rock layer between the coal seam and the coal seam to find a new coal seam. It means "passing ridge". Among all the types of work in the local coal mines, the "hardness" and "dangerousness" of this work are the highest.

First of all, because the stone between the coal seams is very hard, workers can only construct manually. At this time, blasting in the pit comes in handy. During the specific operation, the workers first have to lift the old-fashioned rock drilling machine weighing hundreds of catties. Once the old-fashioned equipment is powered on, the powerful vibration waves of the machine will make the operator feel heart-rending. At this time, it must not Let go, or the rock drilling project will be wasted. Today, the coal mines that are now in good condition have used imported goods that are light and efficient.

During the specific operation, according to the principles of blasting mechanics and construction experience, the workers need to drill holes and fill the explosives from different angles. The miners vividly call these strange styles "heart-cutting guns", "heaven-earth guns", "child-mother guns", "Cauliflower Cannon", "Sorghum Cannon", "Mountain Cutting Cannon"... In this way, although blasting in the stone layer is helpful to the construction workers, it has little effect in some special areas, especially considering the impact of blasting on the surrounding geological structure. After considering the factors of the collapse and weighing the pros and cons, the workers still chose manual construction.

According to the current "Long Crossing Regulations", although workers are working in the pit, rockfall and landslide accidents often occur, but there is no need for pit wooden supports in the cave.This is because the rock structure in the middle of the coal seam is very complicated. During the construction process, if there are "situations", such as landslides, "roof fall", etc., the pit logs will not play any role at all, and the workers at this time can only Can resign to fate. Of course, during the construction process, due to the influence of external forces on the rocks, such as repeated hammering by steel chisels and hammers, and the blasting in the pit, the rocks in the pit will loosen and slide, and the blasting under the pit will produce shock waves, so it is often Something unexpected happened.

In the local coal mines, this type of work is an extremely ordinary and ordinary "ordinary job", which shows the "dangerousness" and "hard work" that miners face.In the words of a miner, it is "four stones with one piece of meat". This work is often done in general coal mines.That is to say, "Guolong" has been integrated into the daily life of coal miners.Although this work is dangerous, because the coal boss asks for a high price, there must be a brave man under the so-called heavy reward. In order to earn more money, there are always workers willing to do it.

When the landslide struck, he swung an ax and chopped off his buried left leg... Sun Defu, an old man in his early sixties, was dragging a broken leg, sitting on his kang, looking at the scenery outside the window with infinite melancholy. Old man Sun has worked as a "safety worker" in the mine all his life, and is recognized as a "first-class and first-class" "kiln watcher" in the nearly 100 coal mines near the village and in the "mining industry". This is good, he has always been desperate for face, not to mention missing the opportunity to make money, and even got a leg. What is even more sad is that his "brand" of "first-class one" has completely collapsed.

The scene of the roof fall accident occurred under the pit a month ago is still vivid in his memory, which made him more depressed than he was terrified. In the local area, there are two types of coal mining methods: shaft type and slope type. The coal mine that old man Sun works in uses a "long slope" coal pit mouth with a distance of nearly one thousand meters. That day, as usual, he squatted down at the mouth of the pit before going down the well, smoked a bag of dry tobacco, then pinned the small hatchet in his waist, which he never left his hand, and walked down the pit with his legs raised.

Entering the coal mining area, he first checked the condition of the brackets under the pit yesterday, and then determined the position of the brackets at the mining site. Determine the size of the pit log that needs to be cut. Immediately afterwards, he took out his axe, put it beside the long log, spit thick phlegm on his hand, rubbed his hands together, and then swung the ax to chop at the pit log. With only three axes, the pit log as thick as the mouth of the bowl was "headed" different place". Then he cut another small piece of wood, and after a while, a pile of wooden wedges appeared nearby as if by magic.

The next process is "shelf". When propping up the pit logs, he intentionally cut off the pit logs by two inches to make it easier to stand up the shorter and smaller pit logs, and then inserted wooden wedges between the pit logs and the roof to expand the force-bearing area. The second is to facilitate the pit wood to focus on. In fact, for old man Sun, doing this line of work is simply "knowledge of the road". Years of hard work have trained his extraordinary arm strength and hearing.Under the pit, as long as he pricks up his ears to listen, he will know where there is a "flaw"; as long as he swings the hatchet, a pair of strong brackets will be erected at the "fault". The coal mine where old man Sun works is a small and medium-sized coal mine with private capital in the local area. In Shanxi, the safety measures of large state-owned coal mines and private small coal mines are different. The former is made of steel pillars for the support under the pit, and the roof is lifted by mechanical hydraulic pressure. In this way, the "national name" coal mine pit The lower safety factor is very high.As for the latter, due to the inherent deficiencies in capital, technology, and equipment, some coal bosses often implement the principle of "saving money first", that is, try to "zero investment" in all constructions.In the words of the coal boss, it means, "Do as much as you can, and try not to support the places that can be supported or not. If it is not possible, use human power to prop up a few pieces of pit logs." This is the probability of accidents in small and medium-sized coal mines. Because of the state-owned coal mines. Old man Sun has been working in this coal mine for dozens of years. Although the coal mine workers come and go again and again, with his good popularity and rich experience in safety in the pit, he can always take care of them. The distance between himself and the young workers grew closer.For the workers, being with Old Man Sun under the pit meant being with Ping An, because in this way they had confidence in their hearts, and Old Man Sun seemed to be a "symbol" of safety.So the young pullers and diggers in the pit are willing to be with him. Of course, there is another reason why young workers are willing to be with him, that is, he has a string of local slang and jingles when he opens his mouth, which adds a rare joy to the workers after heavy labor.And the old man Sun will not let everyone down. His personality charm, life experience and experience in pit support, every process, every decision and choice are just right.Working with him is a kind of pleasant enjoyment, this is the art of work. Of course, the calmness and ability of the old grandson are inseparable from his years of working experience in the pit.He has experienced too many thrilling scenes, those who were smashed, buried, and drowned; the images of those living, dead, and disabled workers often linger in his mind, and too many life-and-death decisions made him choose together. Instantly feel the joys and sorrows of yin and yang. While passing through the excavation tunnel, a small stone fell and caught his attention.Based on his many years of experience in the pit, he judged that this place was going to have an "accident". Sure enough, a few seconds later, fist-sized stones fell down one after another. When he looked up again, the blue stone top plate had slowly cracked. not good! He realized the seriousness of the situation, and when he was about to turn around and run away, the coal that fell from the side suddenly crushed his left leg tightly. At this time, there was the sound of a huge boulder collapsing in the distance, and the pit wooden support with a thick bowl mouth in front of it was torn apart, and the stone above the head was still falling. The old grandson tried his best to escape again, but all this was in vain. The desire and belief in escape reminded him of the "Lizard Tail Docking Survival Technique" taught by the old security worker. He quickly pulled out the axe, slashed at his left leg, and then dragged his bleeding left leg to crawl towards the mouth of the pit. go……