Papaya River's Butterfly Transformation
Author: Yu Guihui
This year, I took advantage of the May Day holiday, and went to my hometown in the countryside more than 100 miles away from the county town. One came back and forth to accompany my old mother, and the other went to experience the pastoral scenery and relax.
It took more than an hour to drive. When I returned to my hometown, my mother had already prepared delicious meals for me. During the meal, my mother said, "You can come back more in the future. The tray opposite the door is repaired and easy to walk." I felt a little embarrassed when I heard my mother say this, because I usually told my mother that although my hometown is good, it is not a good place to take a walk, especially at night, except for the lights in the place where there is a house, it is pitch black and terriblely quiet. The implication is that I think my hometown is too deserted and don’t want to go back too much. My mother also knew what I mean, so today she said, "It's easy to walk." "Okay, mom, with such a good place to take a walk, I will go home to accompany you more in the future." Mother smiled happily.
After having lunch, after a while, I walked alone to the newly built river bank. The scene in front of me completely overturned my previous imagination. The river bank was really satisfactory to repair, at least satisfying me, a little nitpicking person. The dilapidated mud and sand embankment, which was previously covered with weeds, trees and bamboo , was gone at all. Instead, it was replaced by two high long walls built of yellow mud, sand and stone and concrete. The hexagonal concrete bricks are stuck from the base of the river bank to half of the river bank, as if they are scales on the dragon's body. The section above the "scales" is a green grass slope, and the side connecting the river bank and the fields is also a green grass slope. The green grass is shining green and shiny under the warm sunshine, making people want to kiss it. There is a wide cement road above the river bank, and two small cars can be driven side by side. There is a milky white street lamp pole near the field, which is like a row of soldiers, overlooking the river water and guarding the river embankment. The clear river water slowly flows happily in the arms of these two long dragon-like river embankments, and small fish can be seen swimming around in the river water. Outside the banks of the river embankment are green farmland. The early rice seedlings in the fields are as high as the foot and grows happily. When the breeze passes, the seedlings bow their heads and bend down, forming waves, which instantly pass through the other side. Looking at the waves formed by the green seedlings, my thoughts also spread to the past years like that wave...
This river is a tributary of the Miluo River . Because it flows through the territory of the Papaya Township, it is called Papaya River. It originated from the Tianjing Mountain in Ping'an Village, Daping Township, Pingjiang. After flowing to Shangzhong Village, Mujin Township, the riverbed became wider. The river water seemed to be greedy for the beautiful scenery on both sides of the straits, and the pace became slower and slower. It gave the crystal clear sand it carried to the riverbed here. The riverbed became taller and taller, almost the same as the fields on both sides of the straits. The river water is shallow, the shimmering light is shining, the beach is silver-white, clean and soft. This place has become a paradise for friends to swim, play and catch fish. The ignorant boy rolled on the soft beach with his bare butt, buried his body in the sand and basked in the sun. He suddenly had a whim in his mind: How great would it be if these sands could turn into gold! At that time, who didn’t say that this was a young man’s delusion?
Beautiful hope is for the youth, but nature does not have a good weather because of the youth's beautiful hope. Every year around the Dragon Boat Festival, there is a period of frequent mountain torrents. Floods overflow the short river bank and rush towards the rice fields on both sides, flooding the rice. The rice is filling the grout and swelling. Once the flood is soaked for two or three days, the food for the life-saving people of the family was soaked in this way. What was even more annoying was that the fierce flood tore a large gap in the loose mud and sand embankment, and the flood carried sand and stone to turn a large area of farmland into a sandbank. This has caused trouble to my fellow villagers. Just after the flood, they had to drag their weak bodies, dig sand and stones, carry their shoulders and carry them to block the gaps, restore the arable land, and pray that God will be merciful in the coming year, and do not cause heavy water and eat.
"Papaya River, Papaya River, ten bays and many waters are everywhere. The seedlings are planted every year, and there is no sickle to cut the grain."This is the folk song that my grandmother taught me to sing when I was a child, but when I was a child, I didn't know the bitterness of this folk song. Instead, I thought the big water was fun and hoped that the big water would rise every year. Because every time the big water rose, I could go to watch the fun and feast my eyes. Born and raised here, I will never forget the scene of big water here. When the mountain flood broke out, the surging river water suddenly overflowed the river embankment, flooding all the farmland on both sides. Soon after, the river water and the farmland water formed a vast sea. In less than half a day, the flood covered the heads of the big camphor tree on the river embankment. The turbid flood was surging like a million heroes roaring, and rolling forward like yellow sand dunes, with thunder and overturning seas. "The chaos is chaotic, like a galloping horse. The gangster's voice sounded like thunder. "Han Dynasty html cycling the verses describing the flood in "7-fast " are not exaggerated at all. Wood, farm tools, snakes, rats, birds and beasts are floating from time to time in the flood that is rushing down from time to time, and even cattle, sheep and pigs are even cows, sheep and pigs. But who dares to catch these fleeting things? But some people are not afraid of death. He used a long bamboo pole to tie an iron hook on the head of the pole. If something approaches the shore, but the bamboo pole still cannot reach it, he jumped into the flood and hooked valuable things such as cattle, sheep, pigs and other places to ashore. This is a dangerous behavior that everyone is frightened when they see it. It is more dangerous than taking chestnuts from fire and licking blood at the tip of a knife. How many people dare to do such a business ? My grandmother said that he is a ferry master (diving master), and we are here who specializes in ferrying. He often deals with water. Of course he has this ability.
The land duck standing on the shore is just watching the fun most of the time, but there are times when he picks up the vacancy. A black arrow-haired fox suddenly floated in the flood. It can be seen that this fox is still alive. The desire to survive makes it strive to flow from it to the shore. It cannot care about many people watching the fun standing on the shore and prepare to go ashore from people's feet. At this time, people are excited, some are holding sticks and some are holding hoes, and work together to catch the fox. Because the fox is in the flood Once it was soaked, it was half dead. Everyone quickly killed the fox, and then everyone got a share of the pie.
There is a flood pool under the cliff by the river. It is said that two baskets tied bricks cannot sink to the bottom. Because there are several hills of paddy fields between the pond and the river, it is only connected to the river when the water rises. It is a pool of stagnant water. Therefore, the water in the pond is turbid all year round, and no one knows how deep it is. I heard that there is a big snake spirit inside. If it appears, it will definitely rise. One year, the flood came out. Old man Yang, who lived in Weng's house, got up early and saw a black root of several feet long in the vast water. The slim thing was exposed to the water. At first, he thought it was a ridge that had not been immersed in water, and he felt a little suspicious, so he looked elsewhere and saw a vast white area with nothing. Then he looked at the "field ridge" and saw the "field ridge" slowly moving forward and disappeared in a while. At this time, he suddenly realized: Oh my God! That's not a ridge, it's the big snake spirit in the flood pool! There is also a mysterious story: In the evening, a villager went to the bamboo forest beside the flood pool to lead the cow home. The bamboo forest was gloomy and dark, and it was hard to see clearly. He approached the cow and saw the cow lying on the ground, so he walked up to him and whipped the cow and cursed: "Lag, why don't you get up quickly! "Who knew that when the whip was down, it was not a cow, but a big strange snake, which scared him to run home. So people believed that there was a snake spirit in the flood pool. I always hoped to see the snake spirit when it was flooded, but it was not as good as I wish.
However, the huge flood in 1975 completely changed my childish idea. Three days before the Dragon Boat Festival, heavy rain Keep going down, the door became a real water town. On the morning of Dragon Boat Festival, my father got up and saw that the water had risen to the floor in front of my house, and it was only a few feet away to soak into the house. My father shouted us to get up and quickly move things. Fortunately, there was an elementary school in the back mountain of my house, so we moved the important things such as food, clothes, quilts and other important things there to temporarily store them. My grandmother and mother were so scared that they begged God to pray for blessings and subside the flood.Fortunately, God has eyes, the rain finally stopped, the flood gradually subsided, and my mud brick house was saved. From then on, I hope that the river in front of the door will never rise or fall again.
After the reform and opening up , rural roads were opened here, and a reinforced concrete flat bridge spanned both sides of the river embankment, changing the history of Shangzhong Village and Zhonghe Village facing each other across the river and not connecting to the road. Many years later, the national engineering construction and real estate industry flourished. The delusion of the boys basking in the sun on the beach really became a reality: three battlefields mine sand day and night, machines roared in the river, sand trucks lined up on the road, and trucks of river sand were sold to Liuyang and all over the county. The white sand and stones in the river turned into real money, and the battlefield boss made a fortune. But when greedy capital was never satisfied, because sand was short and prices soared, sand mining became even more crazy. Almost all the sand and stones in the river were dug up, the riverbed was getting lower and lower, and the mud and sand embankments on both sides could not withstand the washing of floods, and several places began to collapse...
"Ding—Ding—" The sound of a car's horn pulled my thoughts back from the past. When I looked up, I had arrived at the river bank in front of the village-level activity center. A tall steel frame arch stands in front of you, with words such as "Mujin Township Shangzhong Village Papaya River Comprehensive Management Project". There is a project notice board next to it, with a diagram of the project effect and a text description. According to insiders, this is a people's livelihood project that truly benefits all villagers. In 2018, the government closed all three sand mining sites and bid to introduce them to Hunan xx Construction Co., Ltd. The company spent three years to manage the remaining river sand resources as part of the funding source for the construction of the Shangzhong Village Papaya River Comprehensive Management Project. This is a win-win solution: it not only curates the chaos of crazy sand mining, but also saves expenses for the government to build water conservancy projects. Now, after the three-year period has expired, the project has been basically completed. Two high flood control embankments as strong as steel lock the wild horse-like river water. Even once-in-a-century flood will not harm both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The ancient Papaya River, which was once flooded every year, has become a multifunctional river integrating flood control and irrigation, ecological conservation, tourism, leisure and pleasure, truly realizing the beautiful vision of " green water and green mountains are gold and silver mountains ". The former flood pool was also filled with soil, and peanuts were planted on it, and the "snake spirit" was gone. The river embankment is replaced with a new outfit, and the green water sings the glorious chapter. The purple clouds shine on the water in the sunset, and the egrets cross Qingjiang . People will never let down the mountains and rivers, but mountains and rivers will never let down the people. The mountains and rivers are affectionate and the people are fortunate, and we have entered a new era.
Author profile
Yu Guihui, Pingjiang County Vocational and Technical School High Chinese teacher, literary writing enthusiast. Many articles have been published in publications such as " Yueyang Evening News " and "Pingjiang Literature".
