From the vast plains to the mountains, the scenery in front of him felt like it was a lifetime ago. Everything was so novel.
He finally saw the mountains, the rocks, the stream between the mountains, the river at the foot of the mountain, and the trees and wildflowers all over the mountain.
The copper mine that his father worked for was located at the foot of the Jiuling Mountain Range in northern Jiangxi Province, in a place called " Zhoutian." Zhoutian was just a symbol on the map. It was not a town, nor could it be called a village, because there were only two families in the area. The existing shops, hotels, barbershops, bus stations, primary schools, cultural centers, cinemas, and hospitals were all newly built.
At that time, Zhoutian was the administrative center of three provincial units (there was also a military communications unit, so there was no need to talk about it). The copper mine (referred to as the Ministry of Mines) belonged to the Provincial Department of Metals. Reclamation Field (referred to as Field Department) belonged to the Reclamation Department. University of Communism and Labor (Short for: School Department) belongs to the provincial general school.
The three provincial units were all established during the Great Leap Forward. The farm had jurisdiction over 400 square kilometers, the copper mine occupied about 5 square kilometers, and the university occupied about 10 square kilometers. In fact, the university and the copper mine were both in the farm's territory. The field department located in Zhoutian was the administrative command center of the farm. The three units were independent of each other and integrated with each other. The farm took over the education, health, culture and other public utility functions and obligations in Zhoutian.
At that time, due to the presence of provincial units in the Zhoutian area, the industry, education, agriculture, forest, science and technology, transportation, and the lifestyle that only city dwellers had were all brought into the mountainous area. This caused the mountainous area, which originally had natural beauty, to suddenly enter a civilized era from a primitive state overnight.
From Dafutun in the northwest of Lu to Zhoutian in the new mountainous area of northern Jiangxi, my living environment has changed.
The terrain of Zhoutian was high in the west and low in the east. It was narrow from north to south, with towering mountains in the west and hills in the east. In the middle, it formed a depression that ran from north to south. National Road 105 (highway) passed through Zhoutian Pass from north to south. 15 kilometers to the north was Qiujing Town, and 10 kilometers to the south was Tanxi Town.
The headquarters of the three units were distributed in an isosceles-triangle at Zhoutian Pass. The slightly longer base was close to the mountain, the school headquarters occupied the south corner, the mining department occupied the north corner, and the field headquarters was at the east corner. The straight-line distance between them was about 1,000 to 1,500 meters. Zhoutian Pass was 200 meters east of the field headquarters, close to the eastern hills and slopes. The main road and small road connected the school department, field department, mine department and Zhou Tiankou.
The natural scenery of the Zhoutian area was lush and full of vitality. There were no traces of famine, and it felt as beautiful as heaven. Looking up into the distance, the mountain gave people an insurmountable sense of majesty. The towering gray-green mountain was covered with black rocks, and there seemed to be streams flowing on the rocks. Under the sunlight, the reflection of the dazzling light was far away. There was a snow-white waterfall in the valley, flowing down like white dragons. The aura was soul-stirring and refreshing.
The small yard of the mining department was built on the hillside. Looking out from the window on the north side of the office of the mining department, one could see the paddy field of Dayuan Village. Looking further away, one could see Dayuan Bridge. A road was built from the west side of the small courtyard of the mining department to the small auditorium of the copper mine. The west end of the auditorium building extended to the north in the shape of an "L" and became a canteen. The small auditorium was actually the dining hall of the canteen. On the north side of the cafeteria, along a small hill, there was a narrow path leading to a row of brick houses in the copper laboratory. The laboratory was backed by an isolated and steep hill. On the north side was a small slope. There was a pond dug at the bottom of the slope, and the pond was surrounded by a springboard made of strip square wood.
The water flowed into the pond along the canal, then through the pond under the springboard, into the ditch beside the paddy field, and then back into the river at the foot of the mountain along the ditch.
From time to time, someone would come to wash the vegetables, wash the clothes, and fetch water by the pool. There were some crushed leaves and white flowers floating by the pool.
The canal flowed from the north of the mountain. The canal was dug halfway up the mountain, seven or eight meters higher than the river at the foot of the mountain. A pedestrian path was built along the side of the canal, which went all the way to the river behind the mountain. The workers built a weir on the river to raise the water level of the river and let the water flow into the canal.
The upstream of the weir formed a water bay that was more than one meter deep, seven to eight meters wide, and more than twenty meters long. The water in the bay was calm, clear, and transparent. There were pebbles of various colors in the water, black, white, yellow, green, big, small, and so on. There were also some huge round stones standing in the middle of the river. Occasionally, birds would fly and land on the stones. Groups of unknown small fish swam back and forth at the bottom of the water, as if they had lost something precious and were frantically searching for it.
All kinds of aquatic plants grew from the water to the shore. The grass under the water was in a variety of poses, revealing a charming tender green, which reminded me of the stream in front of my grandmother's door in winter.
The two sides of the river were surrounded by dense bushes, mixed with large and small camphor trees and cedar trees, as well as many unknown broad-leaved trees. There were small black fruits that looked like grapes growing on the Camphor tree. They emitted a strong smell of Camphor. People who were not used to it would feel dizzy.
There were many kinds of poisonous snakes hidden in the bushes and water grass by the water, including golden ring snakes, silver ring snakes, vipers, bamboo green snakes, vipers, chessboard snakes, etc. Standing by the river and carefully identifying them, they soon found that the snakes were on the branches above your head or in the leaves under your feet.
The upper reaches of the river turned into the mountain, and about seven or eight hundred meters downstream, it reached Dayuan Bridge. This was a bridge on the national highway north of the mining department, and the village beside the bridge was called Dayuan Village.
The small river at the foot of the mountain flowed back and forth to the Dayuan Bridge, forming a deeper water bay near the bridge. There were a few ancient trees growing on the edge of the river bay. The huge trunk and branches were entangled by countless old vines that looked like pythons and stretched into the sky. The trunk of the tree had long been hollow, and the large holes revealed the black carbon charred by lightning. It proved that these ancient trees had experienced countless electric shocks and lightning strikes in their life.
Large pythons lived in the hollow trunks of the Originator's bridgehead. They often crawled out and wrapped their tails around the trees. Their bodies were in the air. If one did not look closely, one would think that they were old vines wrapped around the trees.
The intertwined tree crowns were like a green dragon that covered the river. The reflection in the water deepened the dark green color of the water. It emitted a dark light that made people feel uneasy. The small river passed under the bridge and meandered east before turning to the hills in the north and flowing toward Xiaoyuan Village.
Walking along the main road west of the canteen of the Ministry of Mines, they walked 500 meters to the side of the mountain and entered the valley. The mechanical and electrical workshop where his father worked was here. Looking in from the window, there were all kinds of machine tools inside. The walls were covered with wires. During the day, the bright lights were turned on. The workshop was busy and noisy.
After passing the mechanical and electrical workshop, the road began to spiral up the mountain. About 200 meters up, there was a square on the mountainside that was artificially opened. A few cars were parked on the square, and the generator room of the mine was also built in a corner of the square.
On the side of the square that was close to the back of the mountain, along the back of the mountain, there was a 150-meter-high stepped workshop. It was the ore processing workshop.
On the top of the mineral processing workshop, there were two railway tracks winding around the mountain ridge and extending to the deep mountain mining area five kilometers away. The ore was loaded into the mine cart (pushed by people) from here and sent to the ball mill room of the mineral processing workshop along the railway.
The part that was being mined was an open-air deposit. The clanging sound of the sledgehammer hitting the steel drill echoed day and night in the mountains. The mining area would be blasted three times a day (morning, noon, and evening). Every time it was time for the blast, thousands of cannons would be fired at the same time. The raging roars shook the sky and earth as if they were going to shatter the entire mountain.
This earth-shattering cannon sound seemed to shake off the sandstorm in the doctor's village. The famine was everywhere. Primitive ignorance and poverty added to my childhood suffering. I hoped that in this beautiful mountain area like heaven, I could get rid of the suffering of hunger.
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