Go back to the past to plant trees

After staying in Chengde for a week, Qin Xuemei and her group were notified that they were going to Saihanba. Yu Zhenglai personally led the team to take them to Weichang County.

"Hello everyone, I am Qu He, the director of the Weichang County Forestry Bureau, and also your direct supervisor. If you encounter any difficulties or have any requests in Saihanba in the future, you can come to me, and I will help you solve them."

Qu He was overjoyed to see these eight talented young men. Feng Cheng alone had given him such a pleasant surprise; with so many intellectuals, how much would they achieve in Saihanba?

"Director Qu, I'd like to ask when we're going to Saihanba?" Qin Xuemei looked at Qu He and asked earnestly.

Qu He smiled and said, "There's no rush. You've just arrived, so rest for a couple of days and get used to the environment. As for going to the dam, you can do it a couple of days later."

Qin Xuemei shook her head: "We came here to work, not to rest. We rested when we were in Chengde, and we still need to rest here. Will we need to rest again when we get to the dam? If we keep resting, when will we be able to get back to work? Now is the crucial time for spring planting. We need to make the most of every minute and second, otherwise this year will be wasted."

"this…"

Qu He glanced at Yu Zhenglai beside him. He was pleased that the students were eager to get to work immediately, as it proved that they were passionate and energetic, and such people were well-suited for getting things done.

However, these people were recruited by Yu Zheng, and the regional leaders were also paying attention to these intellectuals, so Qu He was somewhat hesitant about how to use them.

Yu Zhenglai spoke up, “Qin Xuemei, I understand your desire to get to work right away, but Saihanba is not like other forest farms. It’s far away, and it takes four or five hours to drive there. A car can only go up once a day, so you have to go early, because if you go too late, you may not be able to come back.”

“It’s already 3 p.m., so it’s definitely too late to get to the dam now. And getting to the dam isn’t just a matter of people going up. Your supplies, materials, and the lab you mentioned you wanted to set up—all that equipment and materials need to be sent up too. All of these things need to be prepared, and it won’t be done in a day or two. So don’t worry too much. Rest for a couple of days, and once everything is ready, we’ll get to the dam as soon as possible without delay.”

Wu Yansheng also spoke up, "Xuemei, Director Yu is right. We can't just go to the dam unprepared. Besides, didn't you say you wanted to learn about the history of Saihanba? The bureau must have relevant information. You can go and take a look in the next couple of days. Isn't that part of your work?"

Qu He chimed in, “Our bureau’s archives have a lot of information about Saihanba. Comrade Qin Xuemei, you can look at it anytime if you want, or borrow it if you want. I’ll put in a word with the archives.”

"Alright, then I'll wait two days." Having said that, Qin Xuemei could only abandon her idea of ​​going to the dam immediately.

"By the way, Director Qu, I heard that you have successfully tested a method for large-scale tree planting in the Bashang area? Is that true?" Qin Xuemei asked again, recalling what she had learned from the Chengde Forestry Bureau.

"Yes, one of our technicians spent three years in the dam area, enduring the wind and sand, before finally testing a method for large-scale tree planting. However, the specific survival rate is still uncertain because we initially planted only a few hundred trees, which was a small scale. We can't be sure if the survival rate will be as high after a large-scale planting. So this year we planted more than 6,000 trees. If all 6,000 trees survive, that will be the day we officially announce the large-scale tree planting in Saihanba."

Hearing Yu Zheng praise someone like that, Wu Yansheng felt somewhat displeased.

“Planting trees? It’s not that difficult. I don’t think planting trees on Saihanba is that hard. It’s just that the people planting the trees haven’t mastered the methods. Director Qu, give me a batch of saplings, and I guarantee that I will make sure the trees survive. You have to cultivate the saplings on the dam to make them grow. Why make it so complicated?”

Wu Yansheng felt that these people were making planting trees too difficult. They were a bunch of peasants who hadn't undergone systematic training, so they definitely hadn't mastered the methods of planting trees, which was why they couldn't grow any trees. And then they would come up with all sorts of excuses.

When he was at Northeast Forestry College, he also went to the forest farm with his teachers to learn. The workers at those forest farms planted trees haphazardly and did not understand scientific tree planting at all, so the survival rate was very low. However, after the teachers' guidance, the survival rate of the saplings increased dramatically. Wu Yansheng felt that Saihanba needed people like him who had received professional training. As long as he taught the knowledge from the textbooks, Saihanba would definitely be able to grow trees successfully.

Qu He felt a surge of displeasure upon hearing Wu Yansheng's words. The bureau had been working hard in Saihanba for seven or eight years, and Wu Yansheng simply categorized them all as people who didn't know how to plant trees? If these people didn't know how to plant trees, then wasn't he, the one who sent them up, misjudging people?

Qin Xuemei was also somewhat dissatisfied with what Wu Yansheng said, and said, "Wu Yansheng, if you don't understand, don't talk nonsense. The difficulty of planting trees in Saihanba was determined by experts from the Ministry of Forestry. Do you think you are more knowledgeable than the experts from the Forestry Bureau?"

Upon hearing Qin Xuemei's words and seeing Yu Zhenglai and Qu He's serious faces, Wu Yansheng immediately realized he had said the wrong thing and quickly began to try to make amends:

“I’m not saying they don’t know how to plant trees. I’m saying they haven’t found a way to plant trees in Saihanba. That place is different from other places. Foreign countries have already tested methods for planting trees in high-altitude desert areas like Saihanba. I’ve been in contact with them, but the people in our bureau haven’t, so it’s normal that they don’t know how to plant them.”

Upon hearing this, Qu He's expression softened, but his attitude towards Wu Yansheng had already turned somewhat hostile.

"Old Yu, look..."

Qu He looked at Yu Zheng.

"How many saplings can the bureau allocate now?" Yu Zhenglai asked.

Qu He replied, "We'll have to go back and do some statistics to find out. It's currently the spring planting season, and the nursery is producing seedlings continuously. We can't say for sure how many we can distribute."

“Okay,” Yu Zhenglai looked at Wu Yansheng and replied, “I will talk to Director Qu about the situation at the nursery later and try to allocate a batch of saplings for you to experiment with planting trees on the dam. However, this batch of saplings will be delivered later. You can go to the dam first, and I will deliver the saplings to you when they are ready.”

"Row."

After seeing the college students off, Qu He pulled Yu Zheng aside and asked him...

"Old Yu, are you really going to give them saplings? Feng Cheng has already proven that only by cultivating saplings in the dam area, and only by selecting full-sunlight cultivation, can the trees survive. Are we really going to waste saplings on them at this time?"

Qu He was somewhat dissatisfied with Zheng Lai's approach.

Yu Zheng waved his hand, "Don't get so excited. Didn't you just hear that they have foreign tree-planting technology that can grow trees in a high-altitude desert like Saihanba? We should give them a chance to experiment. What if that technology works here?"

"You believe his nonsense? If such technology really existed, wouldn't the ministry have given it to us? Would they have let a college graduate learn it?"

"Give it a try, it can't hurt. At worst, you can't give us much, just give us five thousand or three thousand saplings, okay?"

“Okay, you’re the leader, I’ll listen to you,” Yu Zhenglai had just agreed in front of so many people, how could Qu He possibly refuse him? It’s just three or five thousand saplings, there have been tens of thousands of saplings planted in the past few years, a little more is nothing.