Three Days on the Yangtze River
Liu Baiyu
November 17...
Fog enveloped the river, The weather is severe. At twelve o'clock, the "Jiangjin" sailed down the river. After the Yangtze River merged with the Jialing River, the river surface suddenly opened up and the sky suddenly felt drooping. The thick yellow fog gradually obscured Chongqing. A quarter of an hour later, the boat was sailing on the narrow river between two steep cliffs.
Look at the fast-moving waves rising and falling together, it’s really like “the water flows together, and Qutang competes for one”. But the two or three wooden boats were swaying their two rows of wooden oars in unison, like birds flapping their wings, moving upstream. I think of Li Bai and Du Fu in that distant era, riding a small boat against the waves. How many majestic battles they must have had, and how many magnificent poetic thoughts they would have inspired! ...Soon, the river became more open and vast. The two rivers suddenly met and hugged each other joyfully, stirring up misty clouds and turbulent waves. Now they seemed to have calmed down a little. Where the water and the sky were as far as the eye could see, the gray distant mountains unfolded into a light ink painting.
I don’t know when this wish to go down the Yangtze River took root in my heart. When I was young, I read "The Great River Goes East..." and "The Voice of the Monkeys on Both Sides of the Strait..." and I yearned for it. Later, I heard that the Yangtze River originates from a glacier. The glaciers in spring are covered with strange and beautiful snow lotus, and the Yangtze River is just a clear stream there; but when you see its roaring and roaring, like thousands of waterfalls hanging in the air, bang Wanli, it is inevitable that the "fairy tale world" with a mysterious atmosphere will be coated with another layer of heroic glory. Later, I went to Chongqing twice and climbed Loquat Mountain twice to see the night view on the river. Among the thousands of lights and the brilliant sea of ??stars, I could identify the slowly floating lights on the ship. I wanted to follow the stormy waves straight to Qutang and down to Jingmen. ah. But it was not until this time that I could appreciate the scenery of the Yangtze River in person. Therefore, this time on the "Jiangjin", as I said in a letter written the next day:
"These two companies, I have been in the lounge all day, looking through the Looking at the Three Gorges through the glass window. It was covered in hazy fog all day long, but today it was sunny. The majestic and beautiful Yangtze River was really beautiful. "
At three o'clock in the afternoon, the sky turned bright. . On both sides of the Yangtze River, there are endless layers of majestic mountain peaks. The green pines and green bamboos cover an embroidered curtain. On the steep wall near the shore, trackers with their backs can be clearly seen. If you look forward, the mountains ahead are still shrouded in fog amid the mighty river, but the fog is not as thick and yellow as in the morning, but is milky white. Now is the "dry water season", and a black reef and a yellow shoal suddenly appear in the river. The boat often meanders between the two very narrow navigation marks and sails down the river. The mountains are gathering together more and more, the dusk is gradually lowering, and it is gradually entering dusk. The traffic lights are gradually flashing, and the green mountains are blurred into a gray.
When I was feeling anxious for the night to fall, the Yangtze River in the dark showed another kind of charm to me. At first, there was a light here and a cluster of lights there, as if the Yangtze River was blinking at you. And for a while it was pitch black again, and you could feel the waves rolling and boiling from the slight ripples of the ship's hull. A particularly majestic scene appeared late at night. I walked to the deck alone. At this time, the river was full of wind. It was dark up and down, front and back, and countless strong searchlights shot from the top of the ship to the river. The sky was covered with clouds and mist, lightning flashed, and there was the sound of wind and water. , not only makes people deeply appreciate the majestic momentum of "Thunder Fight in the Rapid Gorges of the High River", but also you feel that you are so close to nature, as if the entire universe is listed in your chest. Water, sky, wind and mist blend into one, as if you are not a boat but yourself fighting against the current of the river. "The dawn is ahead, we should work hard." At this time, a solemn and beautiful emotion filled my heart. I felt that the great era I had experienced was suddenly reflected in the rushing Yangtze River. Yes, isn’t this how our entire life is fought, sailed, and walked through the night toward dawn? Now, everyone on the ship is sleeping soundly, the whole world is sleeping peacefully, and a peaceful light appears on the bridge. Think about it, holding the steering wheel, using the flashing lightning torch, to find a way forward through the stormy waves, what a heroic life it is! Our philosophy is the philosophy of revolution, and our poetry is the poetry of fighting. Because of this, our life is the most beautiful life. Lenin had a great saying: "Go forward! How wonderful this is! This is life!"... The "Jiangjin" sailed forward with its whistle high and deep, sounding vigorously and deeply.
November 18
In the letter, I said this: "On this day, I feel like I am flying in a majestic and magnificent symphony. I am sailing on the ocean. I have flown in the sky before, but for the first time on our mother river, the Yangtze River, I was attracted by the power of nature. "
I heard the radio broadcast to Fengjie in the dimness. It was already twilight when we anchored. I stood up and took a look. The peaks and mountains had just emerged from the dark night as a gray outline. After continuing our journey, I came to the rest room and saw two cliffs in front of me, and a narrow river in the middle, which had entered the Qutang Gorge. The river turned along the wall, and a patch of golden sunlight appeared in the sky in front of it, like a golden belt running across it. The rest of the sky was still filled with seas of clouds. The mouth of Qutang Gorge is the most dangerous place of the Three Gorges. Du Fu's "Kuizhou Song" says: "Bai Di Gao is the town of Three Gorges, and Qutang narrowly passes Bailao Pass."
"An ancient ballad said: "The Yanli is as big as a horse, and you cannot go down to Qutang; the Yanli is as big as a monkey, and you can't swim in Qutang; the Yanli is as big as a turtle, and you can't go back to Qutang; the Yanli is as big as an elephant, and you can't go up to Qutang. "This Yanlidui refers to a pile of black giant reefs. It is aimed at the mouth of the gorge. As soon as the rushing water rushes into the mouth of the gorge, it goes straight to the giant reef. As you can imagine, it is really thunderous and the boat is like leaving the string. The arrow was just a few centimeters away, and it was shattered. Now, this giant reef has been blown up. However, in the Qutang Gorge, the rapids are surging, the waves are like thunder, and countless whirlpools are formed on the river. The boat rushes through the whirlpools, and only sounds are heard. There was a sound of rushing water. After eight kilometers of Qutang Gorge, the dark clouds and mist suddenly disappeared. There was a blue sky on the top of the gorge with a few small golden clouds, and a ray of sunlight fell like lightning on the cliff on the left. A white cloud on the peak on the right shone like silver, but the sun had not yet arrived. At this time, far ahead, above countless mountains, a red mist suddenly appeared among the misty clouds. Look, it turned purple. The mountain peaks set off this fog, which is so beautiful. Just like the flash of red gems reflected upward in the deep valley, it makes people feel like they have entered a mythical realm. At this time, when you look up the river, it is also colorful. : There are two huge rocks with reflections like ink; the middle is twisty and winding, but there is like a shining road with fine waves; the mountains nearby are as green as emeralds. As time passes by, the red mist in front becomes more intense. The red became brighter. As the boat got closer, we gradually saw a tall peak standing in the red mist. It became clear that the red mist turned out to be thousands of strong rays of sunlight. At 8:20, we came to this area. In the clear golden sun.
Looking up, we have arrived at Wushan. The sun is shining down above, and the thick fog is rolling up below. The clouds are rising, which is quite spectacular from a distance. The peak stands at the entrance of Wu Gorge. The mountain is as sharp as an axe. People told me that this is the first peak of the twelve peaks of Wushan. It seems to be greeting the guests coming upstream and saying: "Look, this is Wushan." Wu Gorge. "Jiangjin" stayed close to the foot of the mountain and entered the mouth of the gorge. At this moment, the bright red sunlight shot into the glass hall and shone on my face. In the gorge, the strong sunlight intertwined with the milky white clouds and mist, and after a few steps, There is sunshine on one side and clouds and mist on the other. It is really mysterious. Several wooden boats come up from the downstream, and the sails are illuminated by the sun like transparent white wings. The mountain gorge is getting narrower and narrower, and the two mountains are facing each other in front. It was not even as wide as a door, and outside the door, there was completely white fog.
At 8:50, people on the ship were all looking up. I also ran to the deck and saw it. At the top of the Wanren Peak, there is a small rock standing like a person looking towards the river. It is the Beauty Peak full of magical and ethereal legends. It is said that a fisherman was fishing in the river when he encountered a violent storm and his boat was destroyed. His wife was killed. She hugged the child and looked from the peak, hoping for his return. Day after day, month after month, he never came back, but she still stood there waiting for him regardless of morning and dusk, regardless of wind and rain. She is still waiting there today...
If Qutang Gorge is like a gate, then Wu Gorge is like a winding gallery on the river. The boat turns left and right along with the mountain, and every twist and turn is directed towards you. It unfolds an excellent landscape painting. The mountains on both sides of the Strait are amazing and continuous. There are twelve peaks in Wushan, each with its own posture. People give them high evaluations and names of beauty, which obviously increases our country. Poetry, and poetry is endlessly changing. Suddenly, dark gray rocks drop straight down from the sky and dip into the middle of the river, which reminds people of a huge exclamation point; suddenly, there is a green grass slope, like a piece of music full of emotion; it is particularly beautiful. What's more is the piles of weeds on the hanging rocks that have been dyed red by the autumn frost. They are like a mountain full of cuckoos. The gorge is steep and the river is steep. The surface of the river is covered with large and small whirlpools. The boat can move slowly, like a boat among the mountains. Travelers walking slowly in this space give people from afar enough time to appreciate the majestic beauty of nature on the vast and mighty Yangtze River. The goshawks are circling over the high gorge, and the river waves follow the waves of the mountains and the shadows of the mountains. The shadows of clouds and the light of the sun and the water are intertwined.
At ten o'clock, the river gradually becomes wider and the rapids cross the Wu Gorge. At ten fifteen, we reach Badong and enter Hubei. When we arrived at Niukou at 10:30, the river was surging, pushing the boat forward on the waves. The river had just rushed out of Wu Gorge, but before it had time to breathe, it rushed into the third gorge, Xiling Gorge.
Xiling Gorge is relatively wide, but the river flow becomes particularly fierce at this point, with rapids and dangerous shoals everywhere. The boat rushes like a meteor with the roaring waves, and then floats around the dangerous shoals. The three most famous dangerous shoals are: Xiling. Beach, Qingtan and Kongling Beach. When you first step off the Xietan, you will suddenly feel that the river is spinning violently when you look at the thousands of horses galloping. There are one thousand or ten thousand whirlpools, making the "Jiangjin" shake violently. Although the river is dangerous at this time, there are countless beautiful legends. According to Yuan Song's "Yidu Mountains and Rivers", Xiong Yi was the founder of the country. Later, Qu Yuan was exiled to the Miluo River and died there. According to folklore: On the day of Dr. Qu's death, someone saw him riding a white horse on the bank of the Miluo River. There is another legend: After Qu Yuan died, he was carried back to his sister by a big fish, and finally returned to Chu State from the place of exile. All this sounds too bizarre and bizarre at first, but it reflects the people's infinite nostalgia for Qu Yuan.
There is a large iron-green reef in front of Jigui, standing tall on the river surface. After a long period of rapids, it bypasses the beach. In the most dangerous place, the "Jiangjin" used all its energy, trembling and trembling to move forward.
The rapids had just rolled over when I saw a strange peak protruding in front of me. The river was running along the right side of the mountain peak, but another river appeared on the left side of the mountain peak. It turned out that this was Xiangxi, the birthplace of Wang Zhaojun. It immediately reminded people of Du Fu's poem: "Going to Jingmen with thousands of mountains and valleys, there is still a village of Mingfei." We looked at the Xiangxi River in the distance, and then the boat followed the mountain peaks and entered the Bingshu Baojian Gorge, an extremely steep long gorge. This is a completely narrow alley. When I got to the bow of the boat and looked up, I saw yellow stones and blue rocks as high as the sky. After driving for a while, I reached Qingtan. The river surface drops suddenly, the waves are turbulent, and the waves are splashing. Before you can take a closer look, the boat has been flying down like an arrow. The huge waves split the bow of the boat, swirled around, joined together, and surged away again. The river seemed to be boiling, with foam and waves everywhere. The comrades on the ship pointed to a town on Yanshang and told me: "Many pilots on the Yangtze River ships were born here... If every wooden boat wants to cross Qingtan, it has to ask people here to guide it." At this time, I was watching. A wooden boat going upstream looks very scary at Qingtan, but if people grasp a way forward from the rough waves, they can defeat nature.
At noon, we came to the Mountain Ridge Beach. Everyone on the Yangtze River knows: "The Qingtan Beach is not a beach, the Mountain Ridge is the gate of hell." It can be seen that it is dangerous. Seeing a gray rocky reef covering the water, the "Jiangjin" anchored. It turned out that only one boat could pass through the narrow channel of Kongling Beach. At this time, a river ship was going up, so we had to wait. Unexpectedly, it took so long to wait, which shows how cautious the boat going up was. When we drove down to Kongling Beach, it turned out to be a forest of rocks. It seemed like we were not on the mighty Yangtze River, but on our way to find a path in the vast jungle.
November 19th
In the morning, a patch of red sunlight illuminated the calm river water as brightly as glass. Three days on the Yangtze River, there are many different things. Now it is no longer as foggy and misty as the day before yesterday, nor is it "the Wushan and Wu Gorges are so desolate" yesterday, but now: "The Chu land is vast and boundless, and the vast expanse stretches out". After passing through the Yangtze Gorge, the Yangtze River has now become so peaceful, as peaceful and loving as a young mother who has just given birth to a baby. The skylight and water color are really soft. The river water looked like slightly fluttering silk. Two snow-white gulls flew in slowly parallel to the "Jiangjin". As far as the water and sky could see, a kind of transparent mist condensed into clusters of sails, like Bunches of snow-white flowers sparkle under the blue sky.
On such a day, a very peaceful day on the riverboat, I immersed myself in "Red Rosa" Luxemburg's "Prison Letters".
This was the most steadfast leader of the German proletarian revolution in 1918. From her letter, I felt the light of a great revolutionary’s thoughts and the warmth of his mind, breaking through the shackles of the bars and shining in the world. In the human world, look at this page:
Raindrops fall softly and evenly on the leaves, purple-red lightning shines again and again in the leaden gray, and in the distance, rumbling thunder sounds like surging waves. Waves of waves continued to roll in. In the midst of all this gloom and bleakness, suddenly a nightingale screamed in a maple tree in front of my window! In the rain, lightning, and rumbling thunder, the nightingale cries like a crisp silver bell. It sings like a drunkard. It wants to overwhelm the thunder and sing to brighten the darkness...
Last night, about nine o'clock, I also saw a magnificent scene. From my sofa, I found a rose-colored reflection on the window pane. This surprised me very much, because the sky was completely gray. I ran to the window and stood there fascinated. In the gray sky, a huge rose-colored cloud appeared in the east. It was so beautiful that it was rare in the world. It was separated from everything and floated there alone. It looked like a smile, like it came from a stranger. A greeting from afar. I breathed a sigh of relief and involuntarily stretched out my hands towards this charming picture. With such colors and images, life will be wonderful and valuable, right? I feasted my eyes on this glorious picture, swallowing up every rosy ray of light in this picture, until I suddenly couldn't help laughing to myself. Oh my god, the sky, the clouds, and the beauty of life as a whole do not exist only in Fronke. Do I need to say goodbye to them? No, they will follow me. No matter where I go, as long as I live, the sky, clouds and the beauty of life will be with me.
The "Jiangjin" sailed slowly in the calm waves. As I read the book, a very precious feeling penetrated my whole body. I must write it down immediately, and I am willing to write it down together with the roaring, yet quiet and gentle Yangtze River, because it reminds me of the image I had the day before yesterday of "fighting and sailing through the night towards dawn". In the past, how many people looked forward to a better tomorrow from their arduous battles! And when I endure the bright sunshine and the beautiful scenery like today, I can't help but realize that the fragrant and peaceful breath that our entire earth exudes today, this breath of socialist life, is exactly All over the world, whether in Asia or Europe, America or Africa, the blood of all pioneers unites and emits the freest and most powerful light. After I finished reading "Prison Letters", a setting sun was as round and as big as a bright red coral ball. It enveloped the entire river in a faint red light, and there was like a thin silk curtain in front of me. Scattered down gently.
Finally, let me end the day by copying a paragraph from my own letter:
At night, after nine o'clock, I saw many things in the dark night in front of me. A few tiny lights. People pointed out to me that it was the Yangtze River Bridge, and the "Jiangjin" was steadily approaching Wuhan. Since then, I have been standing on the boat and looking out, and gradually I can see the neat rows of pearls shining brightly. As I looked at it, I felt that on this vast river, this was the crown of pearls we dedicated to our mother river! ...Moving forward, countless blue, white, red, and green lights on the river are floating with long reflections. They are countless ships sailing, and the outline of the bridge drawn by pearls is completely like It's like rising in the clouds, high in the sky, and on the other side of the bridge, the lights are so dense that it looks like a brilliant golden river. What is that? After careful identification, it turned out to be hundreds of millions of lights on both sides of Wuhan.
When our "Jiangjin" sailed loudly and loudly to salute and cheer for Wuhan City, a solemn emotion arose in my heart. Take a look! How splendid the new world we create is! ...
Is this it?