Siheyuan: Starting from a Truck Driver

After driving around a bend, Li Aiguo finally couldn't help but ask: "What did I do wrong?" Maybe he was too nervous, he said by mistake: "Did I do something wrong?" Hearing his words, the body of the Type 50 warrior beside him tensed slightly.

The other party asked in confusion: "Did you make a mistake? How could you not report such a thing?"

Li Aiguo hurriedly clarified: "No, absolutely not! My ancestors were born in poverty for eight generations. I was born under the sunshine of New China, grew up in a big family, and received many years of teachings from the Party. How could I make a mistake!" His explanation was a little hasty.

The Type 50 soldier flipped through the documents, looked at Li Aiguo silently, and said with a slightly sarcastic tone: "The country has only been established for seven years, and you are not even eighteen yet. How could you have been born under the red flag? Where did you play in math class?"

After a moment of silence, Li Aiguo smiled and said, "It's just a joke, don't take it seriously." He felt relaxed at this moment.

Because he had identified the direction of the jeep, which was the Qianmen Locomotive Depot. As a train driver, the only possibility for being sent here was that he was waiting to drive.

However, why was such a big operation like today assigning him such a train mission?

Is it an express train designed to serve certain people?

Thinking of this, Li Aiguo felt inexplicably excited.

There were very few vehicles in Beijing at that time, so traffic jams were almost non-existent. The journey from the courtyard to the Qianmen Locomotive Depot took more than ten minutes, and in the blink of an eye, the jeep had already stopped steadily outside the office building.

"Come in, the leader is waiting for you in the conference room."

As for more details, they can only be revealed with the next meeting. Li Aiguo is looking forward to that moment.

The group got out of the car.

I walked into the conference room immediately. The room was filled with wisps of smoke. In the dim yellow light, the flames of the lit cigarette butts were slightly jumping, appearing particularly abrupt and eye-catching.

The landline phone on the table rang, and the "ding-ling-ling" sound continued.

Several staff members dressed in office uniforms from the 1950s were concentrating on answering the phone. Their conversations were light and low, and only professional terms such as "ALS" and "cave" could be vaguely heard.

"Leader, Comrade Li Aiguo has been brought here!"

The two men in fifties work clothes approached a middle-aged man wearing glasses and greeted him politely.

The middle-aged man was originally talking to the team leader Xing Liuzhu. He turned his gaze to Li Aiguo, motioned for him to sit down, and then whispered a few words to him.

There was a look of worry on everyone's face.

It feels like a bad omen is coming!

Seeing this, Li Aiguo took a deep breath. In this era of sparse train schedules and few train drivers, they would accept special missions. For example, transporting troops or special items often happened.

In the past, his father would often disappear for several days, and would always keep his movements during those days mysterious and never mention anything.

An incredible thought suddenly flashed through my mind - perhaps, this was a special transport train.

However, he quickly rejected this idea because Minister Niu of the Armament Department also appeared. The man who married a beautiful wife.

Special trains do not require military support from the railway locomotive depot.

When Minister Niu was about to say hello, Captain Xing Liuzhu saw that everyone was present, so he stood up and tapped the table lightly.

"Dear colleagues, I woke you up late at night because our superiors have assigned us a difficult and significant task."

"Can we, with the responsibility and courage of railway workers, perform this mission brilliantly?"

No matter what the task is, just shout out inspiring slogans. Li Aiguo stood up with the team and gave a loud response.

Xing Liuzhu nodded approvingly:

"The situation is serious at the moment, so we can't drag our feet any longer. Now, please allow Engineer Zhang from the Exploration Team of Frontier Oil Company of the Ministry of Petroleum Industry to explain the content of the rescue mission in detail."

As soon as he heard the name of Frontier Oil Company, Li Aiguo immediately understood the seriousness of the situation.

The Frontier Oil Company originated from the early Sino-Mao Petroleum Joint Company. It was established by Chinese local enterprises and foreign partners with the main goal of developing oil and mineral resources in border areas. It is one of the earliest Sino-foreign joint ventures in China.

We provide manpower and technology, while foreign parties provide equipment and knowledge support. For a long time, the exploration results were not as good as expected, and the situation there seemed to have changed.

After the Sino-Mauritian Petroleum Company's operations ended and its personnel evacuated, only a few experts remained here.

This is quite interesting.

Within two years of succeeding the Sino-Mao Petroleum Company, Frontier Petroleum Company discovered an oil well in the border area - the Kara Ant Dushanzi Oilfield.

I heard that after hearing the good news, the head of the oil extraction department cried as if he had drunk a bottle of vodka.

At that time, they invested huge amounts of manpower and material resources to conduct a comprehensive search in the Junggar Basin, but found nothing.

Engineer Zhang, the top leader of the search and rescue team, showed up at the aircraft repair factory late at night, which obviously indicated that something went wrong with the exploration team.

Unsurprisingly.

He outlined what had happened in an urgent tone.

It turns out that since the first well in the Kara Ant Dushanzi Oilfield produced oil.

In order to find more oil fields, the Ministry of Petroleum Industry implemented a "wide net to catch fish" exploration strategy.

In this area, which covers from Kara Ant to Urho, with a length of 160 kilometers and a width of 30 kilometers, ten drilling blocks have been set up, and special investigations have been carried out to conduct comprehensive analysis and expand the scope of exploration.

At one time, hundreds of geological survey teams rushed to the border and launched a massive battle.

The accident involved a rock properties exploration team.

The team includes five geological experts and a dozen exploration personnel.

The main responsibility is to collect rock samples from the Paleozoic and Cenozoic eras, study their physical properties, and provide a basis for analytical data for geophysical exploration methods.

Simply put, it is to predict possible large oil fields through geological clues.

This meant they had to travel a long way to collect samples.

The tragedy occurred when the rock properties team was taking samples in the Aletau Mountains.

When the team entered an ancient cave for a collection mission, the cave suddenly collapsed.

Five geologists and seven expedition members were buried in a hole about twenty meters deep.

The exploration team members who remained on the scene immediately reported to the exploration team and asked for help, because they were facing a life-and-death situation.

Faced with the lives of many comrades, the Exploration Corps could not take it lightly and immediately assembled elite forces to form a rescue team code-named "Aletao".

When the Aletau rescue team arrived at the accident site, they saw that the entire cave had collapsed and the entrance was blocked by rocks. If they wanted to save people, they had to dig a passage first.

They began to dispatch personnel to carry out excavation work, but the rock layer on the top of the cave began to loosen due to lack of support, indicating that continuing the work might cause a secondary collapse.

Without a 100% chance of saving the lives, the rescue team decided, after careful consideration, to ask for help from the capital.

The Beijing Petroleum Industry Department, which had exchanged a set of underground rescue excavation equipment from the other side, had this capability.

However, this excavation equipment is a heavy machine, nearly the size of a Jiefang truck and weighs more than ten tons.

The distance from the capital to Aleta is more than 3,000 kilometers.

During this era, my country was still developing its first transport aircraft, the Y-5, and the An-2 helicopter obtained through foreign channels had a maximum load capacity of only two tons.

Under the complex and changeable ground transportation environment, using Jiefang trucks to transport rescue drilling equipment to the border seemed too procrastinating.

Zhang Gong is here because he hopes to use the railway department to transport rescue equipment by train. Due to the sensitivity of this rock property detection mission, it has been kept highly confidential.

The rescue operation had to be carried out in secret, so it was decided to send a Type 50 truck at night to pick up the team members involved in the operation to the train.

After Zhang Gong explained the details, Section Chief Xing Liuzhu took over the topic with a serious look:

"When the rock sample properties research team entered the cave, they brought a certain amount of food and water, which is expected to last about ten days. Two days have passed since the cave collapsed, which means we need to deliver the rescue equipment to Alatau within two days."

"This transport mission is related to the success or failure of the rescue operation. We must win and cannot afford to lose!"

Turning around and pointing to the railway map of China on the wall, he emphasized loudly:

"Our rescue train starts from Beijing, passes through the Beijing-Guangzhou Line, transfers to the Longhai Line, and finally reaches the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Line, and goes directly to Alashankou."

When they heard the mention of the Lanxin Line, the expressions of all the train drivers suddenly became serious.

Cao Wenzhi took a deep puff of his cigarette, extinguished it and stood up: "Section Chief, the Lanxin Line is still under construction, and many sections are not open to traffic yet. We can't expect the train to fly over!"

Li Aiguo's eyes flickered as he recalled the relevant information about the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway. Construction of this railway began in 1952. The line runs westward from Lanzhou across the Yellow River, over the 3,000-meter-high Wushaoling Mountains and into the Hexi Corridor at the foot of the Qilian Mountains. Along the way, it passes through Wuwei, Zhangye, and Jiuquan, ending the journey at the western end of the Great Wall at Jiayuguan (JYG), crossing the Yumen Pass and Shule River on the eastern slope of Mazong Mountain, and heading west to the border area, just like traveling through difficult and dangerous situations.

Although some sections of the road have been opened to traffic after the engineering team's hard work day and night, there is still a large section that is struggling to move forward.

Liu Qingquan and others agreed with Cao Wenzhi's analysis. Although the railway workers were very capable, trains could not run unimpeded in the absence of tracks with human support.

Xing Liuzhu seemed to have anticipated this problem and did not rush to offer a solution. He took out a half-full and flattened Zhonghua cigarette from his pocket, distributed one to each of the drivers, lit one for himself, and then took a leisurely puff:

“Although the track from TLF to Alashankou has not been fully built, there is actually a track that reaches a hundred miles away from Alashankou. From there to the collapsed cave in Alatau, the distance is less than 20 kilometers. The local emergency rescue team will be there to welcome you.”

"Even if the track reaches Alashankou, it remains to be seen whether the trains can run," said Cao Wenzhi worriedly.