Chapter 15 Miners "go to work": "Before they die, they 'go into the soil'"

In rural Shanxi, people are usually buried in the ground after death.In life, everyone taboos the word "death", and uses the phrase "no (mo)" to represent it.Or in daily life, when people encounter the word "death" when speaking, they often use the word "enter the soil" to make a few turns to replace this meaning. The coal seams of the coal mines in Yaojiazhuang are all in the sand and gravel layer under the loess. If the coal boss wants to organize workers to dig coal, he must first "scrape" the loess layer and cross the "stone ridge" before getting the coal.When the miners were about to go into the mine to dig coal, people joked, "Did you go into the soil?"

The sun has grown to a height of one foot, and the sparrows on the tree fly to the window edge to peck the food from time to time. Gao Fucheng, who is in his early thirties, is still sleeping with his head covered in a cave dwelling on the west side. A pair of big black feet were exposed outside the quilt, and the slime brought back from the pit was draped between the fingers of the big feet intact.At the foot of the Kang wall, two tired and heavy rain boots were lying in disorder. For a month, the coal boss of Dongfeng Coal Mine arranged for the miners in the pit to start "back mining".

For a coal mine, it means "end of life". Generally, after decades of normal mining in a coal mine, the coal reserves in a certain layer under the pit are almost exhausted, and its mining value is close to zero.At this time, according to the normal mine production law, it is necessary to select some experienced miners with a lot of money to implement "recovery" under the pit. "In our line of work in coal mines, accidents often occur at the site of coal digging under the pit, so casualties are always inevitable. It just depends on whose luck is good." Li Laisheng, an old miner, said.

He is a "fried dough stick" miner who has done finishing "recovery" work in three coal mines. "I have been working in the mine for a long time, and I don't think about anything. I just want to dig more coal and earn more money." Li Laisheng's "colleague" Li Shengmin said. In the past few days, Gao Fucheng has been working overtime. At 5 o'clock in the morning, after he came back from get off work, he was exhausted and fell asleep without washing his face and feet. At noon, he woke up. Unkempt and unkempt, he looked out the window, not far in front of him was his family's Akita, and the yellow and emaciated corn swayed listlessly in the midday sun.

If God has a good eye and when the weather is good and the weather is good, if he is more diligent, Gao Fucheng's cornfield can generate more than 1,000 yuan for him this year.But when he thought that the top of his head was unshielded outside, he was a little timid when he was enduring the "baking" of the heat wave on the ground and also being exposed to the poisonous sun. "I can earn 2,000 yuan a month in a coal mine, and when I encounter 'fat jobs' such as 'passing ridges' and 'recovering', it is of course that digging coal in the mine and underground can make money faster than farming."

Who is not afraid of death?In fact, workers are also afraid of death, but no matter how risky it is to "recover" underground, as long as it can be exchanged for money to support their families, they will not hesitate.Of course, you have to listen to the boss whether you want to work or not.Besides, underground accidents are common. In fact, they still understand this account. Among the coal diggers in some coal-producing mountainous areas, there is such a bitter "buzzword" popular, saying that "the mine will be mined for three days, and it will catch up with the field for one day".

Sometimes, this person is also strange. People often say, "Whatever people do, their sex follows." An old miner who rolled 8 coal mines and dug coal under the pits for decades said that he was used to the work of "digging into the soil" under the pits, so he no longer wanted to do "ground" farm work. This is the case with Gao Fucheng. He has been "aging" in the coal mine pit for more than ten years. He has long been used to sweating and worrying under the pit for several hours a day.After all, the time of suffering both physically and mentally is short, no matter how hard or tired, it will pass as soon as you bite your teeth and kick your legs.

What's more, one day of "buying" in the coal mine is more than a month's income on the ground. In their words, "If you have money, what do you want to eat? Are you afraid that you won't be able to buy it?"