Adoler

Drive southeast from Taining County in northwest Fujian to Jiangle County, with a straight-line distance of only 50-60 kilometers. The road meanders, and the morning light covers everything. The bamboo forests and pine trees on both sides of the highway are stacked like green waves, embracing each other and creating endless vitality on the mountain.
More than 40 minutes later, the car arrived at No. 3 Wenwen Road Courtyard in Shuinan Town, which was the Jiangle County Fire Rescue Brigade. Zhang Qin, a political instructor from the brigade in his early 40s, greeted me at the door. After a brief introduction, he took me straight to Zheng Zhonghua Fire Rescue Station, which is also the first fire rescue station in the country named after a firefighter or martyr.
The first thing that catches the eye is the two rows of honor plaques hanging on the wall, which stand out in the sunlight, including the “Youth Civilization” awarded by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League from 2017 to 2018, the “May Day Pioneer” awarded by the Fujian Provincial Federation of Trade Unions, and the “Sanming Patriotic Education Base” awarded by the Sanming Municipal Committee and Government of the Communist Party of China
Entering the building, on the right side of the staircase is a half body golden bronze statue of Zheng Zhonghua. The hero’s gaze is calm, his face is peaceful, surrounded by green plants, and he is solemn and dignified.
I came to the third floor with Zhang Qin, which is the Zheng Zhonghua Memorial Hall, also known as the “Glory and Honor Room that Will Grow”. We watched a documentary about Zheng Zhonghua here, presenting real, vivid, and precious historical scenes one by one.
That was a scorching summer day 18 years ago. That year, Zheng Zhonghua was only 23 years old.
In the summer of 2004, Jiangle County and surrounding counties and cities were hit by heavy rain, and floods surged in large rivers and small streams. At noon on July 7th, news came that six villagers including Wang Jianbin and Nie Linshun from Sixu Village in Wan’an Town were trapped on the central sandbar of Anfukou Creek, and the situation was critical! The Jiangle County Fire Brigade, which received rescue orders, urgently dispatched 5 firefighting and rescue personnel to rush to the scene, including Zheng Zhonghua.
To rescue the villagers on the sandbar as soon as possible, the stormboat arranged as few rescue personnel as possible. Zheng Zhonghua volunteered to board the ship, accompanied by pilot Fan Qijin from the County Water and Electricity Bureau. The stormboat in the rapids is like a leaf, sinking and floating, but it is difficult to anchor near the rescue point. Zheng Zhonghua remained calm and seized the opportunity for the ship to anchor steadily, quickly assisting six people to board and evacuate. On the way back to shore, the wind was high and the waves were fierce, causing the assault boat to suddenly stall and lose control. Zheng Zhonghua stabilized the emotions of the masses while directing everyone on board to row and dock. Seeing victory in sight, the assault boat struggled to dock several times. Zheng Zhonghua seized the opportunity and forcefully extended the spare bamboo pole, accurately hooking onto a small tree. The moment when the stormboat docked was heart wrenching. Before the boat could stop, six villagers climbed and jumped onto the shore.
Zheng Zhonghua and Fan Qijin were about to go ashore when a peak suddenly hit them. They were instantly engulfed in the rolling and turbid waves of the flood, and the shore was filled with screams of “help!”! Fan Qijin was carried by a rushing current to a distance of 2 kilometers downstream of the dam, and was fortunately rescued by a crowd chasing after him. But Zheng Zhonghua drifted with the waves and never returned
The news of the hero’s rescue and disappearance quickly spread from all directions. Local emergency mobilization, full force search and rescue. After 4 days and 4 nights of searching, on the morning of July 11, 2004, the body of the hero was finally found under the dam of the Liberation Bridge in Anfukou Creek, 5 kilometers away from where Zheng Zhonghua fell into the water.
The news of Zheng Zhonghua’s brave rescue of six villagers and their unfortunate sacrifice spread widely, with major media outlets across the country including People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV reporting on the heroic deeds. In December of the same year, the State Council and the Central Military Commission posthumously awarded Zheng Zhonghua the honorary title of “Emergency Rescue Warrior”. The Ministry of Public Security, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, and the Provincial Party Committee and Government of Fujian Province have successively awarded Zheng Zhonghua honorary titles such as “Revolutionary Martyrs”, “Outstanding Young Guards of China”, and “Outstanding Communist Party Members”.
After watching the documentary, I followed Zhang Qin to the conference room and met Liu Peng, the captain of the Jiangle Brigade, Hu Minqiang, the political instructor of Zheng Zhonghua Fire Rescue Station, and three “veterans” – Ye Zhicheng, the assistant stationmaster at 37 years old, Chen Guokun, the deputy stationmaster at 25 years old, and Huang Shaopeng, a firefighter at 28 years old.
I learned from the conversation that Zheng Zhonghua Fire Brigade was established in December 2012, formerly known as the First Squadron of Jiangle County Fire Brigade. It was renamed Zheng Zhonghua Fire Rescue Station in December 2019. This is a team of heroes. For many years, firefighters entering the station have received education on heroic deeds. They followed the footsteps of heroes, honed their skills, and formed the “Zhonghua Assault Team” and “Zhonghua Service Team” within the team, continuing to inherit and promote the spirit of Zhonghua.
In recent years, Zheng Zhonghua Fire Brigade (Station) has participated in the disposal of many accidents of various sizes, including the 2015 Tenglong Aromatic Hydrocarbon (Zhangzhou) Co., Ltd. “4-6” explosion and fire major accident, the 2016 Taining “5.8” large-scale debris flow disaster, and the 2019 “11.24” Fuyin Expressway Leduan tank truck isobutyric acid leakage and other urgent and dangerous tasks. It has now grown into a sharp force for regional disaster rescue.
On June 14, 2022, the rainstorm in Sanming City, which is located in the west of central Fujian, caused a flood of urban and rural integration. Zheng Zhonghua Fire Rescue Station received instructions to rush to the city center. As an experienced firefighter at the station, Ye Zhicheng volunteered to join the forefront of flood control and rescue efforts. He and his teammates arrived in the downtown area of Sanming and saw that the streets and buildings were all submerged in a vast ocean, causing great anxiety in their hearts. At around 13:00, they arrived at Dong’an Community in a stormboat, where over a hundred people were trapped in the community and their hearts were floating. “Don’t worry, come out one by one in order.” They kept comforting everyone with their horns, “Let those who fainted or were injured go first.” One trip, two trips… One person went up to help, the other person picked up from below, or carried or hugged. After more than three hours of unremitting efforts, they successfully transferred more than 30 trapped people and evacuated more than 200 people. It wasn’t until dinner that Ye Zhicheng felt his arms heavy and he couldn’t even hold his chopsticks firmly.
Chen Guokun grew up in the urban area of Sanming, and his relatives all live in Sanming. He should have had more responsibilities than others, but as a member of the Zhonghua Assault Team, he knows more about the weight of the burden on his shoulders. He arrived at the rescue scene with the pre rescue force of the Fujian Provincial Fire Rescue Brigade. He passed by the doorstep several times, only taking a quick glance. He turned his longing for his family into an infinite force and devoted himself to the front line of emergency rescue.
Not only Sanming City was seriously affected by the flood, but Songxi County of Nanping City and its surrounding areas also suffered from extremely heavy rainstorm. The infrastructure was severely damaged, and water, power, network, food and medicine were cut off. In order to restore water supply as soon as possible, the flood control and disaster relief command center immediately communicated and coordinated with the county water company that came to seek help, and ordered the “Zhonghua Assault Team” to rush to assist in the repair. At this time, Chen Guokun, who had been involved in the rescue for over 32 hours, didn’t have time to eat hot food and took the initiative to go to the water plant with his teammates to carry out repair work as soon as possible. During times of danger on all sides, the Zhonghua Assault Team braved challenges and ensured the safety of people’s lives and property to the greatest extent possible; The Zhonghua Service Team, on a day when there is a need in all directions, does everything in detail and tries every way to help the people solve their problems. A assault team and a service team, like the wings of a bird, flutter and fly, composing one song after another of love for the people in the land of Jiangle.
During the conversation, it was learned that the “Zhonghua Service Team” centurion’s model of safe rural governance is refreshing: the “centurion” is composed of 100 households as the basic unit, with a focus on mountain villages with relatively weak fire safety, to form a safe rural governance group. The “Centurion” is led by firefighters from Zheng Zhonghua Fire Rescue Station, with one person in charge of one team and leading the establishment of a “Hundred Household WeChat Group” to carry out joint prevention and control around the clock, trying to eliminate various accidents, including fire alarms, in their early stages.
Huang Shaopeng’s “remote control” fire extinguishing is an example of the “centurion” playing a role. One morning, Huang Shaopeng received a call from a villager: “My curtains are on fire, what should I do?” The villager lives in Changkou Village, Gaotang, Jiangle County, and it takes more than 20 minutes for a fire truck to arrive. Huang Shaopeng came up with a plan. While calming the villagers’ tense emotions, he guided them to turn on their phone cameras and taught them how to quickly put out the fire: “Standing on one side, he used a clothes drying rod to hang the burning curtains in the open area of the balcony… and then used a basin of water to extinguish the fire.” The village civil later sighed, “If it weren’t for Huang Shaopeng teaching us fire extinguishing methods in time, this ancestral old house would probably not have been able to be preserved.”
At the Zheng Zhonghua Fire Rescue Station, I always hear a series of loving words: respect for the elderly and love for the young, donate funds to aid education, assist in times of need, and help in times of difficulty… Behind these words are the unremitting efforts of the team members to uphold the spirit of Zheng Zhonghua, practice his footsteps, and forge Zheng Zhonghua’s achievements over the years.
In 2000, the leader of the Jiangle Brigade learned from the Longchi Community that students Deng Zhiwen and Ma Yuchun were unable to continue their studies due to financial difficulties. Zheng Zhonghua learned that he donated all the 45 yuan allowance he had just received on the spot. In the following four years, his donations to two students were uninterrupted until their sacrifice. Afterwards, with respect for the martyrs, the “Zhonghua Service Team” resolutely took over the banner of his donation for education. Not only did Deng Zhiwen and Ma Yuchun still receive support from the service team, but students such as Shi Liuchang from Nankou Township and Wu Zhijie from Guyong Town also regained their dream of going to school with the enthusiastic support of the service team. As of 2022, the Jiangle Brigade has issued a total of 19 batches of “Zhonghua Scholarship” with a total amount of 900000 yuan.
Voluntary blood donation is an important part of social welfare. For many years, members of the Zhonghua Service Team have insisted on voluntary blood donation at least once a year. One day, the blood bank in Jiangle County was in urgent need of blood. Upon hearing the news, Li Songgen and 10 other team members immediately rushed to the blood station, rolled up their sleeves, and said, “Take mine.” The medical staff, considering the urgent and dangerous daily work of firefighters, instructed them to act within their capabilities. The team members heard that one person can draw a maximum of 400cc at a time, so they requested a top draw. This time, 10 team members contributed a total of 4000cc. The medical staff present were moved and said, “On behalf of all patients, thank you!” According to statistics, the “Zhonghua Service Team” has donated blood more than 400 times, with a total of 121200cc.
These little things of loving and helping the people are like wild chrysanthemums scattered all over the mountains, beautiful and eye-catching, which move me deeply.
After leaving Jiangle, the route I took, the characters I searched for, and the stories I explored in Jiangle often lingered in my mind; The youthful faces of the fire rescue station, pairs of sparkling eyes, and jumping figures also occasionally sparkle in front of me. They are a team capable of fighting tough battles, as well as elite soldiers who can adapt to new times, new situations, and new tasks.
They are truly the successors of Zheng Zhonghua.
The glory that will grow is honor, call, baptism, witness to the beautiful sun and blue sky, and a tribute from countless people
The bright moon shines for thousands of years, still shining on future generations!