Crossing the QinLing Mountains

The Qinling Mountain, in the eyes of geographers, is the dividing line between the north and the south of China. At the top of the mountain stands a stone wall with two arrows carved on it, one arrow to the north: Yellow River Basin; one arrow to the south: Yangtze River Basin.

The Qinling Mountain, in the eyes of zoologists, is a paradise for birds and animals. What pandas, golden monkeys, money leopards, ibis, antelopes, etc., all see their shadows in the dense forest. They play in the old forest gullies and grow freely.

This mountain, Qinling, is a paradise for flowers and trees in the eyes of botanists. The unique climatic conditions of this mountain, due to its location at the junction of the subtropical and warm temperate zones, have given birth to 3,839 species of plants. Among them are 1,943 species of Chinese endemic plants, many of which are also protected at the national and second level.

This mountain, the Qinling Mountains, is a must-see in my eyes, but in my life. For most of my life, I have climbed up and down, walked in and out of this mountain range, and have been going back and forth. It is the mountain of my dreams, the mountain of my career, the mountain of my life.

In the early sixties of the last century, I first saw this reckless mountain range. I was 5 years old when the government called on cadres to leave the city and go to the countryside because the country was experiencing a difficult period of natural disasters. My father, a unit leader, took the lead in responding, so my mother, carrying my younger sister, who was less than a week old, and my family of four, took a bus to return to their place of origin in southern Shaanxi. I remember that it was a big truck, loaded with furniture and luggage, with people crammed into the cab. There was no straight road from Xi'an to Ankang, so we had to go to Baoji, then over the mountain to Yangpingguan, then to Hanzhong, and around to Ankang via the Hanbai Highway. The old car broke the road, and the whole week was spent driving on the road, with slope after slope and curve after curve in the mountains, with no end in sight. In my feeling, the world is made up of big mountains. The bumps were dizzy, day and night, and then when I saw the green Han River, my father said, "I am almost home.

When I walked into my ancestral house built of earth, it was raining, and relatives came to gather around. They wore bucket hats, ticker tape and straw shoes, which opened my eyes. After that, I became a country doll, going to school and working in the mud and water, and more than ten years passed.

In the mid-1970s, I went to Xi'an to attend university and saw the treacherous Qinling Mountains again. At that time, the Xiwan Highway had been completed, so instead of spending a week going around in circles, I could go straight over the Qinling Mountains, but it took two full days. At dawn on the first day, when it was still dark, I rushed to the An Yunshi station with my simple clothes and squeezed into the coach. The seats were cramped and the aisles were full of stuff. The road was uneven and the bus speed was slow, starting from the Han River valley, going gently uphill to the north, passing through Hanyin, reaching Shiquan, and arriving at Ningxia County in the Qinling Mountains in the dark of the day. There is a small hotel outside the bus station, only a few houses, the house is a long bunk, men sleep in one, women sleep in one, body next to each other, snorting each other, dim lighting, smell mixed. Someone farted, the whole house laughing; someone snoring, listening to thunder everywhere. The day dawned in a haze, so I got up and got in the car. The next day's drive was even tougher, going over the three peaks of Pingheliang, Yueheliang and Qinlingliang. The road was like a twist, twisting and turning, with dozens of big turns. The road was also like a slide, climbing up to the top of the slope, and then sliding down to the bottom of the ditch, half of the car people were faint and vomited. There is snow at the top of the mountain, the wheels skid, the car roared, not into the back. Salt was sprinkled on the road, cotton clothes were padded under the wheels, and passengers came down to push the car, finally over the last hill. After leaving the Fengyu Pass and seeing the Guanzhong Plain, the whole car was back to normal and relaxed.

When I graduated from college, the Yangan Railway had already been repaired, so I didn't have to take the car over the three dangerous peaks in the Qinling Mountains, but the railroad still went around, via Baoji, Yangpingguan, Hanzhong to Ankang, 17 hours each way, clanging for a day and a half.

Armed with books and knowledge, I returned to my hometown to work and began my career as a literary writer. During my ten years in Ankang, I traveled all over the villages and cottages on the southern slope of the Qinling Mountains, and published four books, including "Mountain Dreams and Water Dreams", "Mountain Rhymes and Water Rhymes", "Mountain Kisses and Water Kisses" and "This Happy Land", and joined the Chinese Writers' Association.

In 1991, due to job changes, I left my homeland and was transferred to Xi'an, and then out of the Qinling Mountains. At this time, the Xikang railway line had been opened to traffic, and the green train went through more than ninety tunnels and arrived at the provincial capital in more than four hours. But my parents are still in Ankang, I have to go back several times a year to visit the elderly.

In the summer of 2009, the Xikang Expressway was opened to traffic. It took about an hour by bus from Xi'an to the 18,020-meter-long Qinling Mountains Terminal Tunnel, the first longest tunnel in China and the second longest tunnel in the world. This side of the north entrance loess sky, clouds, driving in the mountain belly for ten minutes out of the south enclosure, green lush, mountain flowers. A tunnel connecting the two places, the rift valley into a thoroughfare, about three hours will arrive in Ankang.

I heard that the high-speed railroad from Xi'an to Ankang has already started, and soon, it will only take an hour to cross the Qinling Mountains and return home.

Now, I often stand on the ground and look at the green peaks of the Qinling Mountains. My mind, along the narrow door-like valley, along the thin rope-like road, into the mountains, climbing slopes, washing their hands in the waterfalls under the cliffs, rolling between the grass on the peaks, picking wild fruits from the trees on the roadside, smashing walnuts in the small yard of the farmhouse ...... Qinling is steep, the road is difficult, but the scenery is beautiful, the wild flowers in spring, the summer The cool breeze in the spring, the red leaves in the fall, and the snowy scenery in the winter are a delight to the eyes and mind.

The hardships and sufferings of crossing the Qinling Mountains many times over the past half century are unforgettable. Those scenery, those folklore and let people a little bit to stay. My emotions about the Qinling Mountains are very complicated.

But I think, walk through the Qinling people, can know the motherland landscape of the vast and profound, majestic and magnificent; walk through the Qinling people, more clear home face of the rapid development, rapid change; walk through the Qinling people, will be suffering and happiness, thanksgiving and cherish hidden in the heart.

The Qinling mountain, I will continue to cross, to know, to close, to write, because it is my hometown mountain, the mountain of literature, the mountain of life.