"Everyone is here, stand at attention! Count!"

The count of 1, 2, 3, 4 sounded. After a while, the team leader ran to He Rui and loudly replied: "Report to the Superintendent. The city government team planned to have 109 people on duty, but actually 109 people were present. Report completed!"

He Rui shouted loudly: "Return to the team!" He then took a few steps forward and walked to the front of the queue. Tong Bokang saw that He Rui was dressed in the same clothes as a civilian, and his confident temperament was not affected by the clothes. He moved as if he was commanding thousands of troops.

Ma, I can't help but be surprised.

"Comrades, the water shortage problem in Siping is already very serious. And Siping is still developing. Whether it is for citizens' domestic water use, industry or agriculture, more and more water will be needed every day. This is the first thing we do in Siping.

This is a large-scale water conservancy project. Do comrades have the confidence to complete the work?"

"Have confidence!" Hundreds of people replied in unison. The unanimous shouts stimulated Tong Bokang's heartbeat to speed up, and he even felt a little puzzled for a moment. Could it be that these people are not ordinary people or government workers, but the military?

"Everyone is here, turn right! Let's go!" He Rui gave the order, and the team of hundreds of people lined up in neat rows of four and turned right.

On the street, the people of Siping saw the procession approaching and gave way one after another. Their expressions could not help but express joy rather than displeasure.

Soon, other teams joined the ranks leaving the city, and several teams were still flying flags: 'Siping Taxation Bureau Water Conservancy Commando Team', 'Siping Rural Cadre Study Class Water Conservancy Commando Team', 'Siping Workers Study Class Water Conservancy Commando Team'.

They were all four in a row, heading toward the southeast of Siping like a long dragon.

Tong Bokang regretted not bringing a camera with him, and he hesitated and slowed down. He Rui next to him smiled and said: "Don't worry, there are plenty of opportunities to take pictures. If the child reporters experience our work, they will know what kind of work we staff undertake."

.With practical experience, you will be able to write very good news reports.”

Several more teams joined along the way, wearing the same clothes as the people in the team. At the tea stall set up on the roadside, the team stopped to drink water and rest. Tong Bokang drank two sips of hot tea, and then asked: "This aqueduct

how long?"

"About 40 miles."

I don’t know if he was tired from the march or was shocked by this number. Tong Bokang was a little thirsty. Shanghai is known as the Ten Mile Foreign Market and is an extremely prosperous place. In the remote Siping County, an aqueduct needs to be built 40 miles long.

How big must the reservoir be to provide enough water for an aqueduct of this length?

It was already dark when we arrived at our destination, and Tong Bokang could only see the faint outline of the mountain in the night. After walking 40 miles in one day, Tong Bokang was really exhausted. In the villagers' homes and woodsheds, there were paved floors on the ground.

Sorghum stalks and corn stalks were spread with mattresses on top, and several people crowded on top and covered themselves with a quilt to sleep. Even in such conditions, Tong Bokang felt a bit like a Shanghai hotel bed, and he fell asleep in a short while.

When Tong Bokang woke up, he saw that there was no one around him. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly remembered yesterday's experience. He quickly got up and lifted the mattress, and saw that the imported backpack he bought for ten yuan in Shanghai was still under his head.

On the pillow position. Open it and check. The imported gold pen worth five oceans is firmly inserted in the leather case where the pen is placed. The notebook and ink are also there.

Only then did Tong Bokang feel relieved and drove out a few miles to the construction site. He saw that he was surrounded by mountains and there were many mountains. The busy people gathered in a mountain col. The ground was overgrown with weeds and quite damp, giving it the appearance of a barren mountain.

.As for the lake water, there is no sign at all.

It was hard to find He Rui. Because he had overslept, he came up a little embarrassed and saw He Rui talking to the drawings with a man with a red sleeve band on his arm. When he saw Tong Bokang coming, He Rui just said hello briefly.

, continue to discuss with Hongxihuan on the drawing.

On the drawing, the exit of the open space surrounded by mountains on three sides was cut off at the narrowest point by a dam. Hongxiuhuan said in a southern Beijing accent: "Warlord, there is only so much earthwork now. I really didn't expect that the Warlord could mobilize nearly 100,000 people."

Thousands of people. This year’s work should be completed on schedule.”

"Don't worry, the cement factory will definitely start production next year. At that time, we will cooperate with the quarry to repair the slopes on both sides of the dam."

Hearing that Hongxiuhuan's words were quite professional, Tong Bokang waited for the two to finish talking about work, then stepped forward and said: "I am Tong Bokang, the reporting reporter. What is my name for this brother?"

"So you are the reporter Tong, and I am Lu Daoming, deputy director of the Siping Water Conservancy Bureau." Hongxiuhuan said, shaking hands with Tong Bokang.

"Director Lu... Could it be Mr. Daoming Lu who graduated from Tsinghua University and studied at MIT in the United States? I heard Mo Yang talking about you." Tong Bokang said excitedly.

Lu Daoming replied elegantly: "That's right."

Tong Bokang didn't know what to say next, so he could only look Lu Daoming up and down. He saw that Lu Daoming's hands were rough, his face was tanned, he was dressed in the same clothes as a common man, and his leather boots were full of mud. He looked dirty.

He didn't look like his original color, but he looked as energetic as those officials of the Siping government, and he seemed to be happy with the treatment he was receiving at this time.

Seeing that Tong Bokang was silent, Lu Daoming said: "Brother He, I'll go to other engineering teams. If we have anything to do, we'll talk in the evening."

Tong Bokang watched Lu Daoming leave, and could only think about how to interview the deputy director of the Siping Water Conservancy Bureau at night. However, after dinner, Tong Bokang felt extremely tired, and he fell on the bunk with others and fell asleep. When he woke up again

, it was already bright again.

Tong Bokang has no understanding of water conservancy construction. He will be 30 years old this year. As far back as he can remember, he has never heard of water conservancy construction in China, let alone construction of reservoirs.

I thought that building a dam was a technical job, so Tong Bokang worked with He Rui's team. There were only four tasks: digging soil, transporting soil, filling soil, and compacting soil.

Although tens of thousands of people participated in the project, the sound of whistles on the construction site, the shouts of allocating routes, and the shouts of the command to lift up the rammed earth piles and pound them heavily on the ground were heard one after another, making the entire construction site seem to be boiling. Tong Bokang is used to it.

The hand holding the pen has long been worn out, and every muscle and joint in my body is extremely sore. I can only do the job of pulling the rope in front of the earth-moving trolley.

Four days later, the engineering team finally had a day off. Tong Bokang held the pen with his still swollen fingers and began the interview at a high place on the construction site sheltered from the wind.

"Excuse me, Director Lu, how big is this reservoir?"

"According to the plan, the reservoir storage capacity can reach more than 22 million cubic meters. If the water level reaches the expected target, it will supply 7 million cubic meters of water every year."

Tong Bokang's hand stopped. Ten million and million-level units were completely beyond Tong Bokang's imagination. He turned to look down the hillside, and saw a rammed earth embankment nearly two miles long, dozens of meters wide, and nearly three meters high.

It has been formed. In the direction of the embankment near the reservoir area, a small embankment more than one meter high and several meters wide has also been completed.

Turning back, Tong Bokang suppressed the urge to question and chose more elegant words, "Did Director Lu personally measure the capacity of this reservoir area?"

"Yes."

"Director Lu, you graduated from MIT, why do you come to Siping to do such hard work?"

Looking at Tong Bokang's expression, Lu Daoming smiled and said: "I studied water conservancy engineering. When I entered school, my instructor told me that water conservancy engineering is such a hard work. After I return to China, except for Siping,

There is absolutely no water conservancy project construction work in other places. Where else can I go but here? Otherwise, the years of college would have been in vain."

After interviewing Lu Daoming, Tong Bokang became more interested and interviewed several ordinary villagers one after another. The villagers described themselves and the village in different ways. When talking about how they got here, they all said that the village chief and militia captain selected everyone to come to participate.

The work of building a dam.

When asked about their views on the dam, the villagers' answers were exactly the same as what Lu Daoming, the director of water conservancy, said. After the dam is repaired, the water shortage problem in the Siping area can be solved, and all villages and towns passing through the aqueduct can get a large amount of clean drinking water.

The project commander-in-chief and the civilian workers actually had the same understanding of the purpose of the same project. Tong Bokang was even more curious and couldn't help but use the words he learned from European and American interviewing techniques at St. John's University to the villagers, "If you don't come to participate,

, won’t it be possible to get water?”

The villagers didn't understand it at first. When Tong Bokang changed the words and sentences that the villagers could understand, he asked again. The expression of the big man outside the customs suddenly changed. One of them stood up, approached Tong Bokang, and said angrily: "What are you doing?

mean?"

Although the accent outside Guanwai is very different from that in Shanghai, Tong Bokang's demeanor and actions made him fully understand that the other party was likely to use violence. Just when he didn't know how to resolve it, the staff member wearing red sleeve bands stopped the big man and said with a smile in Tianjin dialect: "Southerners

His words are different from those of us in the north. He didn’t mean that.”

"Then what does he mean?" The big man still asked reluctantly.

"He wanted to know if everyone was forced to build the dam."

The big man's face improved a little, but he still shouted with anger: "The governor divided the fields for us, and built a dam to divert water to the village. Do you have any shame if you divide the water if you don't do anything?

?”

Tong Bokang quickly replied with a smile: "I misunderstood, I misunderstood!" and then left with the cadres.

When they were far away, the cadre suddenly stopped and said to Tong Bokang with a straight face: "Tong reporter, why don't you imitate the foreign reporters? Do you think it's smart to ask this question?"

The amount of information contained in these words shocked Tong Bokang even more than being threatened by a big man outside the customs. After looking at this young man in tattered work clothes, he saw that he seemed to be less than twenty years old, and his resolute look showed a bit of the sensitivity of a scholar.

Tong Bokang asked: "Brother, please tell me your name and which school you graduated from."

"My name is Zhu Guangyou, I graduated from Tianjin Stephen Church School."

Tong Bokang was really shocked. Even an unknown cadre had such an academic qualification, let alone the core people around He Rui. Such a group of people were engaged in such hard work with the villagers in the countryside, with nothing but a sleeve band.
Chapter completed!