Saihanba autumn scenery, Saihanba spirit.

In the blue sky, white clouds hung low, a refreshing cool breeze blew, and the golden birch forest rustled.

The mountains are undulating, and the grassland has been yellowed by the autumn wind, and a bleak but heroic feeling arises spontaneously. In the distance, the huge white windmill slowly rotates on the top of the mountain, as if stirring time and slowing everything down.

Several cows are lazily eating grass and sleeping by the lake, and so are horses. They are in no hurry to run to the new pasture. The fat grass under their feet is enough to satisfy their hunger. "The sound of flapping their edges. .....................................................................................................................

Here, it is Saihanba in autumn.

It starts from Beijing, passes through The Journey to the West on the Beijing-Shaxian line, crosses the plains and valleys in the middle of Yanshan Mountains, and travels nearly 400 kilometers to reach Saihanba.

Bashang Plateau is the transition from the flat North China Plain to Inner Mongolia Plateau. Many people think that Bashang Plateau is a "step" for the plain to climb the plateau, but it is actually more like a "threshold". The elevation of Bashang Plateau is 1, 200- 1, 500m, and most parts of Inner Mongolia Plateau are around 1, 000m m..

Bashang Plateau covers a vast area, and the famous Zhangbei Grassland and Fengning Bashang are all within its scope, and Saihanba is the most northeastern part. In administrative division, Saihanba has not been separated from Hebei Province, but it is actually far from Beijing. If you go west at the same distance, you can almost reach Hohhot.

Saihanba is called SaiKanda Bahan in Mongolian, but this is not its name, but the meaning of "Beautiful (Saikan) Gaoling (Dabahan)". In the minds of Mongols, Saihanba is a sacred mountain and cannot be called by its first name. Later, in Chinese, this title was homophonic with Saihanba.

Accustomed to Saihanba, people seem to forget its original name "Xing 'an Daling and Hailakan Mountain", Xing 'an Daling? Does it have anything to do with Daxinganling? Yes, Saihanba is geographically regarded as the remnant vein of Daxing 'anling. It has the characteristics of northern grassland and Daxinganling sea: terraced grassland dotted with dense artificial forests and trees. This situation has completely refreshed people's understanding of Hebei Province.

A few years ago, a public service advertisement featuring forest farm workers made the whole country know about Saihanba, but in fact, as early as about 15 years ago, it has become a secret place for some photographers-they often stay here for a whole autumn or winter.

In these "good photographers" photos, Saihanba is as beautiful as an oil painting: under the sunrise, golden forests and grasslands set each other off, and the picture is three-dimensional and vivid, and horses and cattle are looming in the hazy mist, like a fairyland on earth. It can be said that these beautiful photos entered people's field of vision earlier than the name Saihanba.

The beauty of autumn scenery in Saihanba is attributed not only to the undulating terrain and the imposing manner of Ma Benteng, but also to the climate and vegetation here.

Saihanba is sandwiched between Yinshan Mountain and Daxinganling Mountains. It is a natural tuyere and also located on the north slope of the platform. It is hit head-on by the dry and cold wind in the northwest all the year round, but it lacks the nourishment of the warm and humid airflow in the southeast. Cold has become the daily theme here. It's almost autumn after beginning of spring, and the temperature is comparable to Harbin, and sometimes it's even about 20 degrees colder than Beijing, 400 kilometers south.

Autumn leaves are beautiful when the weather is cool and the temperature difference between day and night is large. In mid-September, Saihanba is sunny during the day, and the temperature can reach 10 degrees Celsius. It frosts directly at night, and cars are covered with ice during the day. This climate makes Saihanba fall early.

The trees in Saihanba are mainly Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica. Mongolian oak, spruce, larch and birch. The scenery of birch forest is the most outstanding, but in fact, autumn scenery of larch is not far behind.

Larch is not as evergreen as other pine trees. After the cold wind, its pine needles are as golden as beeswax. When these pine needles fall, they will spread a golden carpet on the ground, reflecting the blue sky.

For the autumn of Saihanba, there are also small blue bubbles. Bubbles refer to small lakes in low-lying areas, which are often formed by groundwater seepage or rainwater collection, and there is no obvious outlet or inlet. For photographers, Qixing Lake, Princess Lake and Jiangjunpao are the best shooting places.

The beautiful scenery of Saihanba has aroused people's enthusiasm for the whole dam, and Fengning Dam and Zhangbei Grassland have gradually warmed up. The grassland highway that crosses the dam and is known as "China Line 66" will inevitably become "grassland blocking road" on weekends.

Our generation still remembers the sandstorms in the north in the 1990s, but in fact, in the 1950s, Beijing was attacked by sandstorms, which originated from the Hunshandake sandy land north of Saihanba.

Saihanba, known as Mulan paddock in Qing Dynasty, used to be Royal Hunt Garden, with rich vegetation and various kinds of wild animals. However, after the Emperor Tongzhi, it was gradually taken back by the local militia privately. At that time, the militia had no awareness of environmental protection, and in the process of reclamation, trees and grasslands were destroyed. By the early days of the founding of New China, people had walked on the Saihanba for several days without even seeing a tree.

Without the forest on Saihanba, the dust on the plateau is like blowing sand into the courtyard of the roof and raging in the North China Plain.

1962, the team planting trees entered the barren hills of Saihanba and established the now famous mechanical forest farm. Planting trees in Saihanba is like opening the difficulty of hell in the game. There are many stones and mountains here, and the soil layer is as thin as a layer of skin. It is short of water, windy and extremely cold, and there is only human harmony. This is the spirit of Saihanba that is still touching today.

1962 and 1963, 6400 mu of trees were planted in two years, but the survival rate was less than 8%. Saihanba people themselves improved their seedling raising methods, found a good place surrounded by mountains on three sides and rivers on one side, and started fighting. That year, the survival rate of saplings increased to 90%.

The sapling is alive, just the beginning. In Saihanba, the growth of trees is extremely slow, and spruce will take 10 years to grow to waist height. It is almost unimaginable for modern "fast and unbreakable" business elites to maintain day after day and wait patiently for ten years.

If this day falls on the people of Sri Lanka, it will hurt their aspirations. On that day, the great task entrusted to Saihanba people was really round after round.

During the period of 1977, Saihanba Forest Farm suffered a rare snowstorm (the trees did not fall off when the rain was frozen at low temperature, commonly known as freezing rain), and 200,000 mu of trees were bent overnight, and more than half of the achievements in more than ten years were lost. 1980, once again, the forest farm suffered from the drought that never happened in a hundred years.120,000 mu of larch died because of the drought, and everything had to start all over again.

In the face of devastating natural disasters, Saihanba people said: Then start again!

Today, Saihanba has1/kloc-0.2 million mu of forest and 480 million trees, making it the largest artificial forest in the world. Obviously, forests have improved the environment. The average annual precipitation here has increased from 4 16mm in the initial stage of construction to 460 mm, the frost-free period has increased from 52 days to 64 days, and the windy day has decreased from 83 days to 53 days. In 20 17, the United Nations awarded the "Incentive and Action Award" in the "Guardian of the Earth Award" to Saihanba people.

Autumn scenery in Saihanba is a rare treasure. Without the selfless dedication of Saihanba people in the past 58 years, we can only eat a mouthful of yellow sand.

-End-

Zhang Wenyi Chen Yu

Cover Map | vision china

The photos in this paper are taken from Wulanbu series on the north side of Saihanba, and no specific distinction is made.