I was on a drinking spree, so I agreed. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that, but I'm sure I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm sure I'll be able to do it. But I thought I had agreed to do it, and if I said no, we'd all be out of there, and it would be a bummer. I don't want to be a spoilsport, so I put off other things and finally made this trip happen.
On July 30th, my friends left together. The plane at 6:00 in the morning, first fly to Harbin, and then transfer to Mohe. During the epidemic, flights were reduced, and there were no more direct flights from Beijing to Mohe. The transfer to the Harbin airport to stay more than two hours, to the Mohe has been more than one in the afternoon, all the way to seven hours of tossing.
But I don't feel tired, I read and write things on the way. On the route from Harbin to Mohe, all the way to look down is a continuous green, endless. Rivers and lakes are dotted in between, a look of everything growing and vibrant. I knew that under the wing was the Daxingan Mountains, the endless green and life, the place where the people of Northeast China live and breathe. In today's sky, white clouds float beneath the wings like beautiful cotton wool drifting away into the sky. Above the clouds is the deep blue sky, below is the lime green land, the combination of blue, white and green, beautiful to the heart.
When the plane landed, I saw the nine bends of the Amur River. I knew it was an attraction, having seen it described in a book. I was looking down on the Amur River, which bends so elegantly and beautifully in the greenery, as if the skirt of the flying sky is fluttering. Have not stepped on the land of Mohe, see the scenery has mesmerized me.
Baidu introduction, Mohe is one of the domestic pollution-free natural clean land, is the national ecological security important guarantee area, Heilongjiang Province, ecological function of the protected area, the number of days of good air throughout the year amounted to more than 350 days, the air per cubic centimeter of anion amounted to 50,000, the annual average value of fine particulate matter for the following 10 micrograms, is the only one in China domestic to be able to observe the Northern Lights, to experience the polar day and polar night place. It is the only place in China where you can observe the Northern Lights and experience the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Nights.
As soon as I got off the plane, I felt the freshness of the air. It was spotless and transparent, and the sun shone on the body and made it hurt. The whiteness of the white clouds, the turquoise of the blue sky, and the green of the rolling hills were close at hand. There's no need to look for viewpoints here, because any spot you stand at seems to have the best view.
The Arctic Village, the biggest attraction in Mohe, is a 5A level scenic spot. Under the arrangement of my friend, we took a car directly into the Arctic Village. People come to Mohe, the main thing is to come to the Arctic Village, very few people will live in the city. Mohe city is still 70 kilometers away from the Arctic Village, and these 70 kilometers are lined with green trees and pines. Yellow and pink wildflowers bloom and flourish on both sides of the road. The land here is so vast that it is often hundreds of kilometers from one point to another, and drivers are used to a hundred kilometers as soon as they step on the gas.
Arctic Village, the northernmost village in China. Now it is not a village, but a huge tourist area, covering dozens of square kilometers. The Arctic Village was not called the Arctic Village, it was called Mohe Village. It is indeed the northernmost village in China. The northernmost point of China is actually not in the Arctic Village, but in the Ussuri Shoal, about 100 kilometers away from the Arctic Village, but there is no village in that place. Not far from the Ussuri Shoal is the big bend of the Heilongjiang River, where two consecutive S shapes join together to form a very spectacular scene. Two S, half belong to China, half belong to Russia.
You need to buy a ticket to enter the Arctic Village scenic area. In the scenic area, you need to take a car to get from one point to another. Your own car can be driven into the scenic area. The core of the scenic area is the Arctic town by the Heilongjiang River. Since the development of tourism, the town used to be very brilliant. But since the eight regulations have begun to depression, this year by the impact of the epidemic is even more depressed. The original visitors to the town, 80% of the government departments to vacation and meetings, now because of the regulations can not come. Now the tourists are all casual visitors or tour groups. With the decrease in the number of tourists, many of the facilities have been abandoned. We drove around the entire Arctic Village scenic area and found resorts and villas of various sizes scattered in the wilderness, looking sparse and basically without much business. Some of them looked like they were no longer managed, overgrown with weeds and peeling siding. The area, clearly overdeveloped.
I finally saw the Heilongjiang River. Big rivers always stir up some kind of waves in my heart, and the Heilongjiang River is even more so. Once China's third-largest inland river, the Heilongjiang has been the border between most of China and Russia since the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, when the land north of the river was ceded to Russia, and in the 1990s, China and Russia finally agreed to use the centerline of the main channel of the Heilong Jiang and the Ussuri River as the border between the two countries, which is more than 3,000 kilometers in length.
After the treaty was signed, the Russians set about clearing the territory of the Chinese. They drove the Chinese across the river and down the river whether the river was cold or not, freezing and drowning countless people. If they did not go down the river they were beaten to death. They would rather give up their land to wild animals than let the Chinese continue to live and prosper in the land of their ancestors. As time went by, this painful memory was deliberately erased because China had a period of mutual goodwill with the Soviet Union. But history can not be erased, it is in the depth of human memory, at the right time will echo.
The upper reaches of Heilongjiang are the Erguna River, which is also the border river between China and Russia. The Erguna River was originally an inland river in China, and Emperor Kangxi signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk with Russia in 1689, which assigned the west side of the Erguna River to Russia, and from then on, the Erguna River became the boundary river between China and Russia. Writer Chi Zijian wrote a book called "The Right Bank of the Erguna River". The reason why it is called the right bank is that the left bank no longer belongs to China. The right bank is the original forest of the Daxinganling, is the book Oroqen tribe living and reproducing place.
I did not expect the water of Heilongjiang is so clear. Although there is a little bit of blackening, which is caused by corrosive substances upstream, overall it is one of the clearest of the big rivers I have seen. This shows that soil erosion along the Heilongjiang River is not very serious. The Yangtze, Yellow, Pearl, and Qiantang Rivers are already largely muddy currents, especially more so during the rainy season. It's now the rainy season in the Northeast as well, but the water of the Heilongjiang River is indeed clear. I even cupped my hand and took a sip.
In the following two days, I often hesitated at the edge of the Heilongjiang River, with a sense of reluctance to leave the river. In the sunshine, I walked along the river; in the moonlight, I stood by the river; in the wine, I sang along the river; in the rain, I listened to the sound of rain with an umbrella by the river; in the early morning mist, I walked along the river towards the town's morning market. In the face of the river that rushes and flows around the clock in this summer, I can't imagine what kind of heavenly silence it will be after the whole river is frozen in winter. In the winter when it is frozen, it is said that tanks can rumble over it. The common people could ride on snow plows and come and go on the river to visit their relatives. Chinese citizens on this side of the river, and the Russians on the other side of the river, often come and go with each other to have all kinds of exchanges.
The first time I saw the river, I fell in love with it, perhaps because of the wide and clear river, perhaps because of the two sides of the green mountains, and the green mountains on the sky of the high clean. Although every time you see the opposite side of the green mountain scenery, there will always be a little hidden pain in the heart, because a national boundary completely separated the two sides. But the river can not be divided, the two sides of the mountains can not be divided, they are a whole, is the same life. The sand gulls and falcons flying on the river are truly free souls. They do not need to consider this side is China, that side is Russia, they can freely fly from this bank to the other bank, and from the other bank back to this bank. In their eyes, the two sides of the river are one and the same, and they are the same as the existence of the whole life.
There are only one or two small Russian villages on the other side of the river, and I don't think there are many people living in them. Looking through the binoculars, most of the houses there are flat wooden houses, and some of them have cars, but most of them seem to be living an ordinary life. They are firmly planted on this land, backed by the vastness of Siberia, and probably thousands of kilometers from the nearest city. It is not clear whether they settled here voluntarily, or whether it was a state-enforced migration. In their minds, it is clear that this land is already theirs, and they are at peace with it. You can see the Russian posts in the bushes, echoing the Chinese posts here, all guarding their homes in their minds.
The river is rich in fish, and many of the Chinese people on this side of the river have been fishing for generations. The fish in the Heilongjiang River are all cold water fish, the meat is delicate and tender, very tasty. I have eaten carp, fine-scaled fish, and a variety of small fish, are more delicious than the fish produced in the south, almost melt in your mouth. The deep-fried small fish, crispy and fluffy, is a perfect accompaniment to wine. Due to the development of tourism here, the amount of fish used has increased, the price of fish has increased, and the fishermen's motivation to fish has never been higher. The Russian and Chinese have the same rule that fishermen cannot cross the center line. However, some fishermen would take the risk and would be caught by the Russians, and once caught, they might have to be imprisoned for more than half a year. The Russian side is said to follow the rules much better and rarely cross the line. But they also rarely catch fish and don't seem to be interested in eating them. Fish also seem to have a spirit, and since they are always caught over here, more of them will live over in Russian waters. Also, there is more wildlife over there than over here. A lot of the land over here has been developed and the deep forests have been cut down, so there is not much land for animals to live. Animals prefer the undisturbed world over there. It is said that every winter there are Northeast tigers coming from Siberia, but they usually go back to Siberia before the thawing of the Heilongjiang River.
I woke up early and walked along the river alone to the morning market. I didn't realize there was a morning market this far north. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to get a good deal on a new product or not. The main thing is to sell fish, all kinds of fish, most of them are caught from the Heilongjiang River. In addition to fish, there were also various vegetables and fruits, which were also grown by their own families, and the quantity was not much. There doesn't seem to be any wholesale in large quantities. The people who come to buy things are more local people, there are also restaurants and hotels to purchase. Not many foreign tourists, three or two, will buy a little something on the spur of the moment. It is said that the original morning market is very lively, this year's epidemic fewer tourists, so a lot of clean, the villagers' income also suffered a lot of impact. Around the morning market, are some relatively old houses, the old village style to do a little retention. One of the supply and marketing agency, is the house in 1977, the counter inside are left at that time, above the posters, all maintain the color of the old times. Inside, a middle-aged couple was running the business, and most of the things were daily necessities, sold to the villagers. Because of its age, this place has also become one of the places patronized by tourists.
The next day, we drove to Logu Village. It was a village in the upper Heilongjiang River, about 100 kilometers from the Arctic Village, where the Heilongjiang River and the Erguna River meet. The houses in this village were even older and more dilapidated than those in the Arctic Village. Most of the houses in Arctic Village have been converted into modernized houses, and there are very few wooden houses or houses with boarded up roofs. However, most of the houses in Logu Village are boarded houses, commonly known locally as boards sandwiched between mud, which means that the inside is a mud wall, but the outside is surrounded by a circle of boards, and the roofs are all covered with boards. This is the traditional northeastern people's architecture. Here the reason why the villagers did not remodeling, one is the tourism development here than the Arctic Village late, fewer people, the villagers are not so rich; the second is the local government realized the tourism value of the old house, and now do not let the people casually demolished. This gave me an opportunity to see how the primitive village of the mountain people in the northeast is probably. In the square at the head of the village, there is a stone with the word "source" written on it to indicate that this is the source of the Heilongjiang River.
About eight kilometers upstream from here, the Ergun River joins the Shilka River in Russia, and the Heilongjiang River begins here. But the Heilongjiang River is called the Amur River in Russia. Amur also means black. The Shilka River is also a very long river, and the Erguna River is like the two outstretched hands of the Heilongjiang River, going upstream in a half-circle, both reaching the Mongolian plateau where it originates. Before the Treaty of Nerchinsk, both rivers belonged to China. Nerchinsk is the name of a place in the middle reaches of the Shilka River. Now, all of the Shilka belongs to Russia, and the other three rivers have become the boundary rivers between China and Russia. From the Erguna River to the Heilongjiang River to the Ussuri River, it encloses the upper part of Inner Mongolia and the whole northern and eastern part of Heilongjiang Province.
We took a boat up the Chinese side of the river. The current was swift and the boat traveled at a slow pace. The scenery on both sides of the river is beautiful, and the boat is like a painting. The scenery of this section of the river is more primitive and peaceful than that of the Arctic Village, with mountains full of green trees on both sides. China side, has been in the tourism development, there are resorts towering riverside; Russia side, still maintains the rustic rural scenery, green trees from the cover of a few houses, a few cows in the river on the beach leisurely drinking water and eating grass. The water on the river is fast flowing, but the river looks very calm, the white clouds in the sky are reflected in the river water, the river and the sky are colorless. Continue upstream, the Chinese side of the mountains are also no more people, the two sides of the river and mountains relative out, full of the magnificent beauty of the old days. The five kilometers of navigation against the water, took more than an hour, along the way just for us to see the scenery on both sides.
Finally, our boat stopped at a place close to the confluence of the Erguna River and the Shilka River, which is called the source of the Heilongjiang River. In fact, the Erguna River and the Heilongjiang River are the same river, only the segments are called by different names. I wanted to ask the captain to drive a little further into the Erguna River to have a look, but felt that such a request was a bit too much, and did not say it when I reached the edge of my mouth. Continuing up the river, you enter the grassland area, to the famous Hulunbeier Prairie. In the heart of the steppe nomads, the Erguna River is a very important river, providing the steppe land with a constant flow of water nourishment, and its many tributaries, like a blood vein, connecting the steppe and the people tightly. If you have heard the song "Hulunbeier Prairie", you will remember the lyrics in the middle: "My heart is in the bay of the river, the Erguna River through that prairie, the grassland mother I love you, deep river deep wishes."
Summer in Daxinganling, the weather said change. Just now the weather is still blue sky and white clouds, a moment on the clouds piled up, black clouds, lightning struck the river, thunder rumbled and rolled. Misty in the distance, heavy rainstorms to the mountains and rivers color suddenly shielded. Our boat turned around and went downstream, and the one-hour trip up took only fifteen minutes back. The moment we disembarked, a heavy rainstorm arrived as expected, drenching almost everyone. The rain here is clean, so clean that it is transparent, so clean that when it hits you, there is no trace of pollution except a refreshing coolness. Raise your head, you can let the rain flow freely on your face, you can directly open your mouth, let the refreshingly sweet rain moisturize your parched throat, this is a kind of harmony with nature **** born, a kind of integration into the nourishment of heaven and earth.
In Mohe, there is a Guanyin Mountain, which is located 30 kilometers on the road from Arctic Village to Luogu Village. Originally it was a gold mining site since the Qing Dynasty. Now gold panning is strictly prohibited, because the damage to the ecology is too serious, but also because the country for the protection of mineral deposits. Mohe relevant departments to go to Hainan, the South China Sea Guanyin to invite back, so that Guanyin to guard the northern border of the motherland, blessing people's happiness and well-being. This Goddess of Mercy and the South China Sea Goddess of Mercy towering over the sea at the end of the world, is exactly the same, is also a three-sided Goddess of Mercy, only the proportion of a lot smaller. The Guanyin here is only about 10 meters high, while the one on Hainan Island is 100 meters high. They erected the Guanyin on a hill and built a Guanyin temple at the same time, which became a scenic spot in Mohe.
But the important thing about coming to Guanyin Mountain is not to see Guanyin. Next to Guanyin Mountain is the famous Laogou gold mining site. This place is also called rouge ditch. When the output of gold here was offered to the Empress Dowager Cixi, she said with joy in her heart, after she had money to buy rouge, so this place was renamed Rouge Gully. Empress Dowager saw the gold, did not think of the rich country and strong soldiers, thought of buying rouge, the Qing Dynasty does not decline, is almost heavenly.
When the gold was first discovered here, many Russians crossed the border to come over to steal and dig. The Qing government knew, decided to jurisdiction here, so sent Li Jinyong over. Li Jinyong is Jiangsu Wuxi, is considered my hometown. When the conditions were so hard, a southerner arrived in no one, beasts everywhere, cold to the bone in the far north of China, I do not know how he adapted to the environment here. But he never went out of this place again. A few years later, he died here because of tuberculosis. Now there is a Li Jinyong shrine here, a kind of memorial to him to protect the peace of the motherland border, the development of gold mine.
Li Jinyong here to manage the gold rush, the introduction of trade, curb the Russian interference, and ultimately formed a popularity in Mohe, laid the foundation for the development of Mohe. The most lively time of the gold mine, it is said that there are tens of thousands of people working together here, and the prostitutes alone are nearly 10,000 people, making a ditch. Before liberation, there was a long period of indiscriminate private mining here, and the damage to the environment was quite serious. After liberation, the state took over the place and continued to mine gold until the end of the last century. Later, mining was stopped to protect the environment and the mining area was strictly protected. Nowadays, around the gold mine site, there are still scattered cottages and buildings from the gold mining at that time, which are in a state of disrepair and have become historical relics. It is said that there are also graves of prostitutes not far away. Many of the prostitutes, both domestic and Russian, never returned to their home towns, and died here in poverty and sickness.
In addition to the story of the gold rush, this land has existed in a pristine manner since time immemorial. Every tree on the Daxing'anling, almost a thousand years a hundred years of life, a variety of beasts wandering in the primitive forest, living hundreds of millions of years always the same life. There were few traces of human beings until the liberation. People of Oroqen and other ethnic groups would roam the forest depending on the season. The few who did settle down lived a life of near-ruin and blood.
After the liberation, the great development of the motherland began, the northeast became the centralized supply of resources needed by the motherland. Just like a mother who feeds her children with milk, the resources of the Northeast fed the new China. Countless forest farms were built in the Daxingan Mountains, and logging was done for decades, resulting in all the virgin forests being shaved like a head. We drove all the way from Mohe to Gagdachi, then to Qiqihar, across the entire Daxinganling region, and almost never saw a decent tree again. The oldest trees now growing on the rolling hills are probably a couple decades old, and most are a dozen years old. From a distance the whole forest is still lush and green, but up close they are mostly small trees. This was still the result of these ten years of protecting the forest and absolutely banning logging. The ecology of the forest, to really recover, may take hundreds of years.
DaXingAnLing's tree species, mainly camphor pine and larch, to grow to the diameter of 50 centimeters above, generally need more than 200 years. A former logger told me that the original in the Daxinganling, two people simply can not hold over the trees abound. In some cases, it takes six or seven people to hold them together. I hope that a hundred years from now, our children and grandchildren will be able to see the original forests of the Daxinganling. Humans need and nature **** survival, first of all, we must fear nature, can not ask too much from nature. Nature doesn't really need humans, but humans need nature.
At the end of the trip to Desert River, we went to Daqing and visited the Wang Jinxi Memorial Hall. Wang Jinxi's Ironman spirit has inspired generations of people to work hard for the construction and development of the motherland. The Daqing oil war solved the difficulties of China in the special period and laid the foundation for China's development towards modernization. Today's China, in addition to retaining the spirit of the Iron Man, needs to design and treat the long-term development of the motherland with rationality and long-term vision. Eternal prosperity for generations, cultural prosperity, national prosperity and peace of mind, and respect for nature are the right path for us to take. On this right path, we can always use the spirit of the Iron Man to encourage ourselves to move forward.