It is impossible to verify when the original road appeared here, nor can we ascertain how many people have poured their youth and energy, joy and tears into this place.
Only one thing does not need verification: there are indeed many paths here that stretch from the heart to eternity. They are symbols etched into the plateau, poems written in the snowy land of life.
Here, the contest between man and nature unfolds endlessly—glaciers, mudslides, earthquakes, landslides, avalanches... The soulful roads dance like countless golden snakes among the mountains, with the roar of nature rising and falling.
Yet the roads have never disappeared. Whether it is a newly opened road for vehicles or an ancient path for pack animals, they repeatedly teach people the heavy weight of life.
Since the dawn when humans hunted wild yaks, a thread of life’s final echoes has sorrowfully fallen on the ancient paths of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau—
In the sixth year of the Yuan Ding era of Emperor Wu of Han, General Li Xi faced off against the Qiang people. The Qiang were defeated and retreated along the ancient Qiang central road to the southwest of Qinghai Lake. Overnight, more than 5,000 men and horses froze to death on their way back.
In the early 4th century, the Liaodong Xianbei Tuju tribe moved their herds to Qinghai, and half of their men and horses suddenly perished.
In 472 AD, a merchant convoy of over 300 from the Southern Dynasties headed to Persia, but vanished without a trace while passing through Qinghai, becoming a mystery of the ages.
In 641 AD, Princess Wencheng crossed Qinghai to enter Tibet for marriage, and due to continuous deaths among her entourage and livestock, she had to abandon the supplies she carried along the way.
In 1206 AD, tens of thousands of expeditionary troops known as the "Mongolian whirlwind" mysteriously perished while crossing the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
In the late 19th century, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck the Himalayas, affecting most of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, obliterating roads, and countless pack trains and travelers perished along the way...
Faced with roads marked by records of death, not only humans fighting for survival, but one batch after another, with the white bones stretching endlessly in the wilderness as their guide, plunged into this road without hesitation.
On April 8, 1951, the People's Liberation Army marched in four directions, embarking on a long journey to the world's summit.
On September 9, the advance troops of the 18th Army entered Lhasa. Thus, the unification of the motherland was declared complete.
However, on the mountain roads leading to the heart of Tibet, the music of steel drills and hammers still echoed. The earth-shaking "rumble" and "hey yo" sounds were gradually peeling away the tightly folded and hard, desolate chest of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau...
At that time, my mother gave birth to me in Xikang, entrusted me to an 18-year-old nanny, and then recklessly rushed to Lhasa from the Kangzang line (now the Sichuan-Tibet line). From then on, my parents, in my memory and imagination, would come to me every three years, bumping along the Kangzang line, adding a bit of memory and imagination to me. Finally, there was an accident; my father's left shoulder collarbone was fractured, and his left arm could no longer move freely. But he still rushed around tirelessly. It is not hard to understand that he measured the daunting 2416 kilometers with his own feet, step by step.
More than 20 years later, my father, worn out from labor, left Tibet. I saw him occasionally reveal his nostalgia for that place. His head was like a shining silver mountain, making me feel eternal surprise and awe. My father loved to stick his fingers in his silver hair, feeling the harmonious flow of warm snow with complex emotions. Yes, warm snow. I tried several times to stick my fingers in his hair, to experience his feelings. However, I could not fulfill my wish. I did not dare. One day, I noticed that his hair had suddenly thinned. He himself also noticed.
The snow on top of a sacred mountain is silently melting away, tranquil and serene.
It is May, when flowers bloom all over the fields.
I noticed that at the moment he left this world, he still maintained the posture of his fingers in his hair, silently shedding tears towards a vast expanse of sacred mountains crowned with ice and snow.
I truly felt the chill of the vast snowy land and heard the call of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for a long time.
In Lhasa, I saw a document. It contained fragments written or recounted from memory by some "old Tibetans" who had marched into Tibet. These scattered fragments were strung together by a series of Arabic numerals—
110,000 road construction soldiers and Tibetan and Han laborers on the Kangzang line, along with 800 experts and engineering technicians, cut through the 14 steep snow-capped mountains, including Erlang Mountain, Zheduo Mountain, Que'er Mountain, Aila, Xueqila, Zongla Post, Jiapila, Damala, Nianla, Langla, Chuchila, Seqila, and Minla. Except for Erlang Mountain, which has an altitude of 3,200 meters, the rest are all above 4,000 meters. They also crossed more than 10 roaring rivers, including the Dadu River, Yalong River, Jinsha River, Lancang River, Nu River, Bolong Zangbu River, Ba River, Niyang River, and Lhasa River. Along the way, the road construction army blocked the overwhelming quicksand, crossed the roaring glaciers, passed through the dark primeval forests, and filled in the difficult marshes...
After 4 years and 9 months of hard fighting, the earth and stone excavated for the roadbed was equivalent to digging a grand canal over 1,300 miles long, 15 meters wide, and 3 meters deep, with rocks that could pile up a stone dam 4 meters high and 1 meter thick on both sides of this canal. Blood-stained pickaxes and shattered shovel heads were scattered everywhere...
Heroic soldiers, who in the moment of a sudden landslide, fell into the abyss with the sliding mountain mass, leaving only a symbolic false tomb and gravestone. Frequent earthquakes and seasonal mountain floods destroyed the roads left behind, even sweeping them away. The roadbed collapsed, and when people turned back to dig, the road surface was washed away, and when they turned around to pave it...
With each step forward, the supply line extended a bit. Most of the units had run out of food, and many soldiers fainted from hunger; how many strong comrades fell off the cliffs in a flash; how many lively comrades lay down and never got up again. Nearly 4,000 officers and soldiers sacrificed their lives, and it would be more than enough to erect a tombstone for each kilometer of the road. The number of injured and disabled is incalculable; after the road opened, more than 9,000 injured and sick waited for rescue in Changdu...
Simple Tibetan people led more than 200,000 yaks to form a transport team. On the long road, they always protected the yaks from the front and back, never easily whipping the animals; whenever they encountered an uphill, they would bend down, exposing their bare feet, stepping on the solid mountain stone road, helping the yaks carry goods up the mountain. Beads of sweat, like beans, rolled down their red-black cheeks, drop by drop onto the ground. When feed was insufficient, they silently fed the yaks with their saved rations...
Gradually, many yaks could not withstand the continuous heavy loads and collapsed in the snow, their hooves worn to the point of bleeding. Tens of thousands of yaks died, and tens of thousands of horses and mules perished. Tibetan laborers, who cherished yaks as life, cut meat from the yaks and stuffed it into the hands of the soldiers. Tears welled in their eyes as they sang that Tibetan folk song for the road construction soldiers over and over:
The great eagle has flown in
The great eagle's wings cannot spread
The great eagle wants to soar high, the cliffs quickly move aside
The great eagle wants to fly low, the river waters quickly move aside...
Although what I read were just some scattered memories, I can imagine the earth-shattering scenes of road construction, the difficult gatherings, the rough collisions, the gasping breaths... One pair of burning red eyes, one set of bursting lips, one pair of bleeding palms, one frozen and rotten toe, all erupted with unusual sounds, surging and crashing... Groups of yaks braved the fierce wind, their hooves deeply sinking into the snow, like snow-covered rocks slowly moving, those that fell still gasping and struggling in agony, the copper bells around their necks playing the most glorious yet tragic final echoes of yak life...
A granite monument solidified this scene.
In September 1985, on the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the "Sichuan-Tibet Qinghai-Tibet Highway Monument" was completed. The towering monument by the Lhasa River reminds people: whoever walks on these two roads should remember that history that should be recognized as the "Tibet Road Construction Era."
The road construction heroes from over 30 years ago completed their mission and walked into history with a clear conscience, deserving of the eternal remembrance of the Tibetan people. Later generations came, dusty and weary, continuing to open up perilous roads, extending an inexpressible emotion.
Since the Sichuan-Tibet Qinghai-Tibet Highway officially opened on December 25, 1954, there are still 23% of districts and 36% of townships in Tibet that have not been connected by road, and even the county towns have not reached 100% connectivity. The engineering troops stationed in Tibet have never put down their steel drills and hammers. I met the engineering regiment leader, Dang Zhimin, at a road construction site; he has spent a full twenty years of his life building roads on the Tibetan Plateau. When talking about the roads here, the eyes of this iron-willed man turned red. He cannot forget his comrades buried by the roadside, nor the general sheltered on this road under construction...