—The Iron Boots of Tibet
On the grassy slope,
There are countless flocks of sheep,
But my precious lamb,
How come I can't see you?
—The Love Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama,
Tsangyang Gyatso
At the Zero Kilometer Marker of the Twentieth Century, Sun Yat-Sen Looks Toward Tawang
Yin Fatang's motorcade across Kunlun had already gone far, melting into the blood-colored early morning revealed by the first rays of dawn. The pure white snow of the Kunlun mountain range seemed as if it was set on fire by the sun, and, like a large silk cloth in the blaze, linked together with the red poplars, which had been washed with the ice and snow of the Gobi desert, reflecting each other with light, in contrast with the heavenly road which gradually swelled into the Qinghai-Tibetan hinterland.
I stood for a long time on the Kunlun Highway in Gelmud City, the weather was a little cold, and in the distance, I saw a motorcade deep in the fog of morning, and the spinning police lights were just like the red tassels on a heavenly horse, crossing wild Kunlun, slowly heading south. At that time, the loud, long whistle of a train awakened me from the dusty dreams of wild fields—it was obviously the noise of a Gelmud train bound for the interior. The train headed west was a romantic symbol and sign that had already awakened fifty years of revolutionary memories, my mysterious thoughts board the train, and continued at fast pace, going through the tunnels of history, and I gradually unfurled the scrolls of the historical and poetic paintings of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The first time I heard the words "Qinghai-Tibet Railway" was in Yin Fatang's house.
In the early morning of a spring in the 1990s, Yin Fatang gave me a phonecall to invite me to a residence in the Daguaibang hutong, I'd just sat down when he pulled out a prescription and said, "I'm old, and those excellent years are all in my memory now. Chairman Mao Zedong rose abruptly as a great military strategist, and he left colorful brushstrokes on the scroll of Chinese history, and he was cautious only in respect of the governance of Tibet, attending to everything personally, like treading on thin ice, and Deng Xiaoping is precisely the person who was able to propose a Tibetan strategy, as well as being its frontline executor. The Central Government and the Gaxia Government of Tibet signed their famous seventeen co-operations, of which ten were personally written by Deng when the 18th army entered Tibet in that year."
The elderly Yin Fatang sat on the sofa, his gaze calm and compassionate, the wrinkles on his forehead like the geological folds of Tibet, at the time, when he was serving as auxiliary political commissar of the 18th army's 52nd division under the command of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, who directed the army from Leshan in Sichuan into Tibet, facing the hidden knife which the Gaxia Government wished to use to prevent the People's Liberation Army from entering the Jinsha riverbank, our army had no choice but to begin the Chamdo Campaign. With the division chief of staff, he led a powerful troop from Denke across the river, to the Tibetan Chamdo District, then defeating Yushu, leading the cavalry, then later heading southwestward, through Nangqen County, directly pressing on Riwoqe County, and at Enda, they blocked the Tibetan army's parth of retreat. In the ten years immediately after, He became the prefectual party committee secretary of Gyangze, in 1962, he again went out into battle, conducting the codename 419 group division to strike back in self-defense at the Sino-Indian border, the first battle was at Kejielang, and the Indian army's World War II trump card 7th route was annihilated, and the surviving brigadier general Da Erwei became a famous name. In Beijing, he was received by Mao Zedong, and other leaders of the Central Government. Soon after, he became the head of the Tibet military district political division, deputy director of the Fuzhou military district political division, and then its head; head of the Jinan military district political division and then its deputy political commissar, in 1980, he again entered Tibet, to take office as the first secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, simultaneously holding posts as deputy political commissar of Chengdu and first political commissar of Tibet. At this time, he was stripped of key positions in the army in China's strategic units, and he had begun his days of unemployment in his home, however, there was never an idle moment, as the years in Tibet had already precipitated in his heart, influencing and covering the later years of his life.
Evidently the elderly man had already assigned me to the writing of this section of the essay, therefore, as a writer, I was most concerned with Yin's close contact with Deng, what did Deng think was the biggest issue in Tibet in his later years? I began a string of questions.
"The Qinghai-Tibet Railway." The elderly man sighed, "Comrade Deng Xiaoping instructed us in person!"
"Is that so? Why then, was the commencement of work delayed?" I asked, quite interested.
"It's a long story!" the elderly man looked far away, and it appeared that his thoughts had gone to faraway Tibet, "the best engineers in the world, and a century of dreams, three great people of this century: Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong, and Deng Xiaoping, all wanted to leave a historical mark on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Qinghai-Tibet rail experienced three steps forward and three steps back, but it still calls to us today, and we can now see, it's a glorious work which was for a later generation."
"Dr. Sun Yat-sen had also wanted to construct a railway into Tibet?" This was the first time I had heard this news.
"Of course, it was already written in the first premier's (i.e. Dr. Sun Yat-sen's) strategy for nation building, haven't you read it?"
I shook my head: "This is the first time I've heard of it!"
