Preface
As a result of a trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge, we decided to explore a past event that happened before we were born. After 4 months and 3,000 kilometers of travel, interviewing many people in China, the United States and India, “1986, Life and Death Drift” became a 16,000-word manuscript with a good response. We found the official of the Sports Commission who was seriously warned by the party, the journalist who accidentally experienced the most dangerous section of the Yangtze River, the cadres who dared not go into the water since then, the father of commercial rafting in China who had a death on his hands, the survivor who was in despair, the coach of the national kayak team, and also the rafters who were full of lies, the little people who lived on the history books, the patriot who was furious and misunderstood as a traitor, and the reporter who was stabbed in the abdomen. Due to the length of the news report, many of these people did not even appear by name. Therefore, we would like to do a series of stories on “thelivings” on Netease, one a week. If you are interested in the people in the story, please feel free to contact us.
This May, we received an email from a 69-year-old American woman named Jane Warren. Warren. She told me that her husband was a household name in China 30 years ago because he was going to be the first person on earth to float the Yangtze River. But now, no one in China knows about it. She wanted to publish her memoirs of the Yangtze River rafting in China, and the publisher wanted her to pay for it herself. She had cancer and wanted to make a final trip to China to retrace her steps on the Yangtze. The Chinese TV station she contacted approached her for sponsorship, but she could not even afford the airfare. She told us, “For 20 years after my husband died, I lived in anger and pain and couldn’t talk about it. Did you know that this is the only expedition that was approved by the “highest executive authority”?
In 1986, with the approval of the Department of State, American explorers Ken Warren and Jane B. Warren went on an expedition to the United States. Warren and Jane Warren. Warren led a team to raft the Yangtze River. In order to compete for the honor of being the first to raft the Yangtze River, more than 10 poorly equipped and unskilled Chinese teams competed with him. In the end, the Chinese barely finished rafting the Yangtze at the cost of 10 lives, and the next year lost 7 more lives on the Yellow River. And Ken? Warren’s team fell into suspicion in front of the water, blaming each other, and finally fell apart, and he returned to China then fell into lawsuits and died of a heart attack in bankruptcy.
The “Yangtze River Rafting”, which cost both sides so much, once ranked with the revitalization of China, the fifth consecutive women’s volleyball championship and the first gold medal of the Los Angeles Olympics, became one of the fastest forgotten patriotic movements of the 80s.
A Fatal Miscalculation
In 1983, Chengdu, an American couple was looking around for someone they had been staying with for a month. In the U.S., a Chinese-American man lied to them and said he could get a permit to float the Yangtze River. To do so, they spent $400,000 and brought a whole team and 9 tons of rafting supplies.
After a few backtracking sessions, the American professional explorer Ken? Warren and his wife, Jane? Warren, was introduced to China Sports Service Company (“Sports Service”), a subsidiary of the National Sports Commission, which offered $800,000, when Sports Service officials were paid only 40 RMB a month. The two sides agreed that Ken Warren would return to China to raise the money. Warren returned to China to raise money and train three Chinese team members to form a joint U.S.-China Yangtze River rafting team (referred to as the “U.S.-China team”), which officially rafted the Yangtze River in August 1985. This was called “the last conquest of the earth by mankind” by USA Today, an American newspaper.
Ken Warren Ken Warren Warren
Before that, there was no rafting in China, but there were rafting enthusiasts. Yao Maoshu, a photographer from Southwest Jiaotong University, learned about Ken Warren’s rafting project by chance. Since 1979, Yao Mao-shu has been trying out rafting in Jinsha River, surveying the water conditions at the source of Yangtze River and Tiger Leaping Gorge. When he returned home, he wrote a letter to the body suit, hoping to join the Chinese American team and go to the United States to receive Ken? Warren’s training. But Body Suit only screened internally, rejected the Meishan, Sichuan enthusiast, and advised him not to float.
Yao Maoshu also rejected Body Suit’s advice and he decided that he wanted to get ahead of Ken? Warren set out before him and became the first person to float the Yangtze River. He told reporters, “The Yangtze River for the Chinese, should be completed by the Chinese first float!”
On June 20, Yao Maoshu launched from the source of the Yangtze River and entered the Tuotuo River. Before leaving, thinking that in case of his own sacrifice, his wife would have difficulty remarrying with the child alone, Yao Maoshu made a sad move: he asked his wife to abort the 4-month-old child in her belly.
On the same day Yao Maoshu went into the water, the three Chinese team members representing the National Sports Commission, Chu Sming, Zhang Jiyue and Xu Jusheng, ended their last day of training on the Rogue River in Oregon, U.S.A. In three months, Ken Warren led them into the water 12 times. Warren led them into the water 12 times and rafted 8 rivers.
In order to raise money, Ken Warren almost lost his family. Warren almost lost his family’s money, he put down his outdoor company business, borrowed money everywhere, choose people, pick equipment, pull sponsorship. The main sponsor was an insurance company, and the condition was to cooperate with ABC TV to make a documentary on Yangtze River rafting. Until the Chinese team finished training and was about to return home, Ken? Warren still hadn’t come up with enough money. He called Sportswear and said he couldn’t raise the $800,000 and requested that the rafting trip scheduled for August 1985 be cancelled and postponed to the following year, to which Sportswear agreed.
On July 24, after drifting for 1270 kilometers, the rubber boat “Dragon’s Heir” was found to be stuck on the rocks of Tongjia Gorge in Jinsha River, and Yao Maoshu was killed at the age of 32.
The Gambler of Oregon
In December 1985, in a letter to his sponsor, former football quarterback and explorer Ken Warren said this about Yao Maoshu and his team. Warren had this to say about Yao Maoshu and his successors.
“If a Chinese team ‘tries’ to raft the Yangtze River, the body suit is likely to charge us a lot less …… Please note that I emphasize ‘tries ‘, because fanatical patriots have absolutely no idea what will happen to them.”
“Before Yao Mao-shu’s crazy personal adventure in June, he told me through Kong Qingwen that he had examined the 800-kilometer Yangtze River. But as I replied to Kong, it made no sense, we had studied the slope of the Yangtze extremely carefully …… Yao Mao-shu capsized about 600 miles downstream of the town along the Tuotuo River, and he drifted to the edge of the Tibetan plateau where the slope is at 9 feet/mile and fell into a drop of 60-100 feet/mile of white water vapor with no bones left .”
“You remember rafting the Hengliu (in 1977) when a Czechoslovakian rafting team set out two weeks ahead of us, resulting in the drowning of two crew members, adding to the difficulty and drama of our expedition.”
“The timing of the Chinese team’s departure was strange. At that time, the water level was extremely low and the Tibetan plateau was trapped by snow, so I’m sure they just wanted to get ahead of us. So we should have been able to pick up the capsized boats for them along the way!”
“All in all, it was pretty much the best thing that could have happened to us.”
At the end of 1985, the Warrens still hadn’t raised enough $800,000 to apply for a price reduction, bringing the body suit down to $300,000. The two sides signed a contract: the joint U.S.-China Yangtze River rafting will begin in early July, floating from the source of the Yangtze all the way to Yibin, with the whole process expected to take 2 1/2 months. After the long drift, Body Suit authorized Ken? Warren Outdoor is the first company to conduct commercial rafting in China.
Ken? Warren’s main weapon to challenge the Yangtze River was seven 5.4-meter-long, 3.6-meter-wide rubber boats that could carry 2 tons of weight. This was the most advanced rafting equipment in the world at the time, and in his words, “almost indestructible”. Each member of the Central American team has hundreds of kinds of equipment, only 40 pieces of clothing, including cold swimsuits, thermal life jackets, thermal waterproof boots and so on, suppliers have Woolrich, North Face, Nike, UGG and more than 100, the total weight of supplies more than 9 tons. Ken? Warren interviewed each team member and assured the team that “all paddlers are carefully selected and of the highest professional standard. At no time will anyone’s life be in danger.”
The Mid-America team, with Ken Warren’s careful preparation of supplies, was able to get to the top. Warren’s careful preparation, supplies were plentiful and progress was orderly The Mid-America team was well prepared by Ken? Warren’s careful preparation, supplies were plentiful and progress was orderly
At the time of the rafting trip down the Yangtze River, Ken Warren was 59 years old. Warren was 59 years old, big, tall and extremely strong. Born in the midst of the Great Depression, he was athletically gifted and received a dual scholarship for football and basketball in college. He was an avid reader, majoring in history in college, and admired Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt. Roosevelt Sr. won the Spanish-American War, became President of the United States, and left office to explore Africa and the Amazon rainforest, while advocating environmental protection and establishing Yellowstone National Park. Ken? Warren often said that he was born a hundred years too late. He identified with the explorers of that era.
In 35 years of thousands of rafting trips, Ken Warren has logged more than 100 miles. Warren’s total rafting miles exceeded 110,000 with no serious injuries or evacuations, and Ken Warren Outfitters is a member of the Northwestern United States. Warren Outdoors is the largest outdoor company in the northwestern United States. He has maintained exercise throughout his life and is extremely physically active. He emphasizes teamwork, respect for the sky and rivers, and believes that rivers nurture all life around them and that man and nature are one. Whenever he travels, Ken Warren carries a garbage bag with him. Warren carries a trash bag with him to pick up his own trash and that of other visitors. Ken Warren does not consider himself to be in a “state of mind”. Warren does not think he is “conquering” the river, rafting is a hobby for him and a way for him to become one with nature.
On his boat is the phrase Go with the flow: “Don’t fight the water, you go with it.” He told his crew, “You can’t have any speculation or frivolity on the river, give yourself to the river and it will bless you.” Based on this philosophy, Ken? Warren had an unusual understanding of the most dangerous accident in rafting, capsizing: the boat is capsized by the waves, but when the waves are too big and fill the boat with water, the boat becomes part of the river and it doesn’t capsize, you are safe instead, “because the river can’t turn itself over.” A year later, at the deadliest part of the Yangtze River, Ken? Warren’s philosophy of this kind of rafting will amplify the thrill of the Yangtze.
Outside of work, Ken Warren has only one pastime. Warren had only one pastime: drinking whiskey. In the evening, at the end of the day, he would find a spacious place in his home and drink a brand of whiskey called Canadian Clubs, the only brand he drank, every day. Sitting and talking while he drank, he relaxed with what he called Ken’s Medicine (Ken? Warren’s Medicine.
Just three months before he left, Ken was dealing with a medical lawsuit. Warren dealt with a medical lawsuit in which his left kidney was misdiagnosed and removed during a surgery. He received an $80,000 settlement and will not pursue the case. To float the Yangtze River, Ken? Warren invested $1.9 million and his company went bankrupt. TV sponsorship was not enough and he had to take his own money and put it into the expedition. The phone at home was shut down, the gas was cut off, and he had to collect sticks to make a fire. He pinned all his hopes on documentary royalties and a future commercial drift in China.
But most of the Sino-American team was not as serious and committed as Ken? Warren is not as serious and committed, and their average age is younger than Ken? The average age is more than 20 years younger than Ken Warren. The youngsters came with the mindset of having fun, mingling, and soon some of the team members fell in love, and a love triangle was born. At the last team meeting before arriving in China, Ken Warren asked the team if they had any questions. Warren asked the team what doubts they still had. The team asked him: Can we read novels in the boat while drifting?
Children of the compound
In life Yao Maoshu was obscure, but in death his fame was so great that it stung the sensitive pride of the Chinese.
In September 1985, the Sichuan Daily published “A Long Song for a Strong Man”, the first detailed account of Yao Maoshu’s drifting adventures. This heavyweight report was reprinted by more than a hundred media outlets. People rhetorically asked, “The Dragon’s Heir, is there only one Yao Maoshu?”
In China in the 1980s, such a question was a bomb. In order to get ahead of the Americans, in June 1986, a self-organized rafting team in China set out for the source, unprepared. A team from Shanghai arrived at the source with only one person left, and this person struggled to the Tuotuo River and took a look before returning willingly. Another drifter from Wuhan, whose drift boat was three tires tied together with a board in the middle, was also persuaded to return near the source.
The last ones to stick around were two drifting teams. One is the Luoyang drifting team (“Luoyang team”), a private initiative; one is the “China Yangtze River scientific research drifting expedition” (“Sichuan team”), supported by the Sichuan provincial government “), a number of media support, relatively well-funded. But no one has rafted on either team.
Most of the Luoyang team members came from the Luoyang Municipal Committee and the municipal government compound. The two compounds are only separated by one street, and all of them are families of the municipal party committee and the municipal government, who grew up with “heroism” education, but caught up with the Cultural Revolution at the best age, either going to the countryside or hanging out on the streets.
The children of the compound were naturally clumped together and were a major force in the street fights. Lang Baoluo, who later became the main force of the drifting team, was in and out of labor camps many times because of fights. Captain Wang Maojun once went to Longmen coal mine to carry coal because he missed a murder. Vice captain Lei Jiansheng’s father was the director of Luoyang Glass Factory, a vice department-level official, but he was beaten as an “unrepentant capitalist” during the Cultural Revolution. Later, Lei Jiansheng applied for the pilot’s examination and passed all the links, but was eventually rejected in the political examination.
Without a proper education, the street experience added to their stain, and finally, most of the children of the compound entered the factory, Lang Pauluo was a cadre in a rubber shoe factory, failed to apply for graduate studies in law, Lei Jiansheng worked as a dry heat treatment worker in a bearing factory, and Wang Maojun worked as a boiler worker in a textile factory. Compared with the heroes they worshipped since childhood, the factory work was so bogged down, and “building a career” had nothing to do with it. Their ideal, “the boiler overturned also can not be achieved, (also have to count) safety accidents.” Wang Maojun said, “almost suffocating madness.
Yangtze River rafting is like an outlet to release the passion they failed to burst out when they were young. Although they were ignorant and uninterested in rafting, their families were not supportive, and the whole team’s training was to row in Luoyang Park, they set out anyway. in May 1986, the Luoyang rafting team secretly embarked on a train to Xining, behind the backs of their families and avoiding the interception of the Sports Bureau.
When they arrived in Qinghai, they found it difficult to touch the source of the Yangtze River, let alone get into the water. All the way to no-man’s land, windy and dry, the team’s lips cracked and blood flowed. The road beneath their feet for a while is cold and bone-chilling snow, a while is soft sand, several tosses and turns, the team members feet are rotten.
No man’s land life no man’s land life
Food is also not enough, Luoyang team nearly starved to death. They were not used to eating fried barley at first, and then they broke it and swallowed it hard, and after a few days, their mouths were rotten, and their upper and lower lips stuck together if they were not careful. Barley is also almost finished, can only grab the grass to feed. Coupled with the plateau reaction, every half-hour walk, they stopped to catch their breath for a while. There is no large-capacity water storage equipment, thirsty can only drink the Tuo River water mixed with the smell of dead livestock. Yangtze River in the source section is called Tuotuo River, Tuotuo River water is small, rubber boats simply can not float up, and more river forks, dragging badly into another riverbed.
On June 24, the Luoyang team finally reached the town along the Tuotuo River. They learned that the Sichuan team, which was supported by Sichuan Province and had a large number of personnel, was also launching at the source, and that Ken? Warren’s Central American team had also set out, well equipped and with many boats. On the river thereafter, the two Chinese teams sometimes cooperated, sometimes competed, but both had “floating ahead of the Americans” as their goal.
It was not only drifting that grabbed time with foreigners. The Luoyang team met a painter at the Qumalai County Guest House, who was investigating the Yangtze River on foot at his own expense, preparing to create a 1,127-meter-long “Yangtze River Miles”, which was planned to be completed in 1997 when Hong Kong returned to China. Asked why, the painter said he learned that the Japanese painter Ikuo Hirayama came to China to create the 1,100-meter-long “Silk Road” to develop this idea. Another person who grabbed time with foreigners, the Luoyang team immediately invited him to drift on the boat.
The Luoyang team traveled around the clock and spent three weeks floating to Yushu, but their worst fears came true: Yushu’s reporters told them that Ken? Warren arrived in the town along the Tuotuo River on June 30, in a big truck, and took only five days to reach the source. They heard that Ken? Warren is an experienced professional rafting explorer, floating through the Mississippi, Nile, Amazon and other large rivers, in order to challenge the Yangtze River, he brought 12, more than 100,000 U.S. dollars worth of boats. The equipment of Luoyang team is “104 military landing craft” and rubber round raft, which is only worth 6000 RMB.
This greatly stimulated the team members. Luoyang team meeting, someone proposed a single boat drifting, the rest of the people ashore, but the sealed boat can not drive, after discussion, think it is not good. Vice captain Lei Jiansheng also proposed to put small open boats alone to reach Batang directly, however, the supply could not be guaranteed and was also rejected. Finally, it was decided to still put three boats, but let the painter and others who were on board before go ashore, then lighten the equipment and reach Batang as soon as possible.
Cowboys and hippies
According to the original plan, the Chinese and American teams needed to drift 80 kilometers a day, compared to the Luoyang team who took a month to drift to the place where Yao Mao Shu was killed, an average of 40 kilometers a day. Unlike the expeditions of the early 20th century, one of the major tasks of the Yangtze River rafting was to film a documentary, with the TV station being the biggest sponsor. The crew followed the producer’s orders rather than Ken’s. Warren’s orders, and the conflict first arose between the crew and the rafting team. Ken Warren had to lead the team on the road. Warren had to lead the team on the way, but the crew wanted to gather more material. Almost to the rapids, the team will have to stop, the crew down the boat to choose the camera, metering, each shot to choose at least three camera positions, which will take a lot of time.
The team, most of the younger members of the team is also with the mentality of coming to play. “We came so far to float the Yangtze River, not to participate in the race, and every day with the hard work like a desperate rowing.” But Ken? Warren is an old-school Western cowboy who calls himself John? Wayne, which is the most famous American western actor, his role honest, conservative, rich in personal heroism. When rafting Ken? Warren never wears a safety helmet, but often wears a cowboy hat. He was the first down all rivers and the first up all dangers. He strictly followed the contract to meet the time, “not to mention that we have been delayed along the way”.
Every morning, Ken? Warren was the first to get up and wake up the team one by one. “Warren energy is particularly strong, because this is his project, all his ambition, passion are in it.” Chinese team member Chu Siming said. He treats Ken? Warren as Zhou Pai Pi, every day at dawn to urge him to get up, darkness has not stopped, stop to set up tents, staking, people extremely tired.
The two expedition mentality and purpose, resulting in increasing disagreement. The team rumors that ABC TV gave the already bankrupt Ken? Warren a condition: if he can finish ahead of schedule and help ABC save on labor costs and equipment rental, he will get an extra bonus. This bonus had nothing to do with the crew.
This difference in mentality is most evident in oarsman Toby. Toby is a Ken? He calls Ken Warren, an employee of Warren Outdoors, “Dad. He calls Ken Warren “Dad”. When he went to the source of the Yangtze River, Toby was afraid to go, so he stayed in the town along the Tuotuo River on the pretext of organizing his equipment and food. During the stay, the Chinese team teased him, gave him a beer and taught him Chinese, “buddy”. “What do you mean by buddy, buddy is, sharing whatever you have.” Toby hadn’t been to school, so he took Ken? Warren’s whiskey for the Chinese to “share”.
When he returned to the town along the Tuotuo River, Ken Warren was surprised to find that the Chinese had a lot to offer. Warren was surprised to find that the Chinese had bought him whiskey in Guangzhou, and Toby had only one bottle left. He was furious and later became very uncomfortable and disoriented when he became addicted to alcohol.
Toby was also in charge of logistics problems, each time the load of food was not enough. When hungry, the team blamed each other, and some Americans said that Ken? Warren secretly hid food to eat themselves, or that the Chinese hid food. In the Chinese team, Chu Si Ming English best, he heard the American photographer complained: “the Chinese provide canned food, than the American dog food is worse.” Americans also do not trust the Chinese team members of the rowing level, refused to take their boat. After crossing Yushu, the Chinese crew asked to row a boat by themselves, and the food was eaten separately.
On the 3rd day after launching from the town along the Tuotuo River, American photographer Xi Pi had difficulty breathing and turned white. At 11 p.m. on the fifth day, Sippy died of pneumonia. Toby and Sippy a tent, the moment Sippy died, Toby saw countless yellowish bubbles coming out of his mouth. Jiyue Zhang saw that a crying and wailing Toby found Ken? Warren, Ken? Warren did not comfort him, but reprimanded him, “Why cry! This is an expedition, and you may be next.” In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, after the water is no man’s land, there is no road along the river. Ken? Warren turned on his radio to ask for help, but the signal was not available and all he heard on the radio was Russian.
The team buried Sippy on the shore and tied five American flags to his paddle to commemorate the five days he spent on the river, with the Chinese team providing one Chinese flag. During Sippy’s funeral, Chus Ming fired several shots. Ken? Warren did not directly object at the time, but later he said to Chu: should not waste bullets, those flags and paddles also have a special purpose.
The U.S. crew buried Sippy on the shore and hung a five-star red flag in memory of the U.S. crew buried Sippy on the shore and hung a five-star red flag in memory of the U.S. crew buried Sippy on the shore and hung a five-star red flag in memory of the
After the death of Sippy, the team members more panic, began to binge eating, each meal to eat two or three plates of food, propped up to almost sleep, and more serious morning bedwetters. Ken? Warren was angry, “as if they would have died themselves if they had not eaten so much,” and he urged the team more sternly to speed up the rafting.
Upon arrival in Yushu, the Americans learned that the Chinese team had been killed in Yeba. Yeba was the next stop in Yushu, and fear further seeped into the team. The team members demanded that Ken? Warren to step down, they accused Ken? Warren had no concern for Sippy and treated the team extremely poorly, especially with Toby, “like a piece of shit. Another long-running dispute was that Ken Warren had banned the team from the river and the river. Warren forbade the crew from playing music on the river and after 11 p.m., or from reading novels on the boat. “No crew member took the long float as a vacation, but some realized how serious it was when it was too late.” One team member said.
Eventually, three paddlers, including Toby, and a team doctor quit and took a flight back to the United States, and the Mid-America team continued to drift. At the meeting, many of the team members were afraid of the “most dangerous stretch of river” between Yushu and Derg, Ken Warren said. Warren said: “No way. Tiger Leaping Gorge is the most dangerous water, where it would take two days just to survey and set up the machine.”
Along the way, the Chinese and American teams continue to find capsized boats, broken oars and rubber boat debris, Chu Si Ming picked up a meter or so of plastic paddle, “children in the park in an inflatable boat paddling to play.” He found it funny, thinking: how is this possible?
On August 17, the Chinese and American teams from Yushu, gradually entering the most dangerous section of the Yangtze River. With the Jinsha River dropping more than 3,000 meters in a 3,000-kilometer basin, the Yangtze was about to reveal its power and majesty.
Yebatan in distress
The Chinese team felt this much earlier. Entering the Jinsha River, the river narrows, the banks are steep, the current is swift and the fleet is difficult to stop. The Luoyang and Sichuan teams were using small rubber boats with shallow drafts, which could easily capsize when they encountered big waves. More dangerous is that the river is densely covered with reefs, rapid water flow, irregular river channel to form a turbulent whirlpool, some form a water bay, once entered it is difficult to get out.
Jinsha RiverJinsha River
At that time, there was very little hydrological information on the Yangtze River, and the team members took Tiger Leaping Gorge and Yao Mao Shu’s shipwreck as the focus. With frequent capsizes in the Jinsha River, the Luoyang team decided to take out a special weapon prepared for the Tiger Leaping Gorge in advance – a bunker-type sealed boat.
This is the Luoyang team invented the “special drift boat”, its shape like a flying saucer, closed around the body, in a flat circle. After people enter, tie the entrance, hold the air column, rely on the oxygen bag inside the cabin breathing, very similar to the anti-Japanese film of the black bunker. Both Chinese teams believe that this closed drifting equipment is safer, and four members of the team entered the sealed boat for the first time and drifted smoothly across the big beach. People are full of confidence in the sealed boat.
Sealed boat schematic Sealed boat schematic
However, the sealed boat is far more dangerous than it looks. Due to the inability to manipulate, people in the boat can only do as they are told, neither can they avoid the reefs, nor can they stop the boat. In Laojun Beach, the Sichuan team into the boat before drinking bracing wine, the results of the beach when violent bumps, a team member of the chicken and bracing wine are vomited out. Another female team member touched the vomit and also vomited. So, the vomit rolled up and down in the boat and stuck all over the team members.
The superstition of sealing the boat was broken in Yebatan. This is the first large dangerous beach down Yushu. 25 July, Luoyang team and Sichuan team decided to use the sealed boat tied to the open boat to break the beach, the same night it capsized, 7 people fell into the water. Open boat 5 people found one after another, sealed boat 3 people but missing. A few days later, the receiving team fished to the empty sealed boat, are stunned: the middle of the sealed boat torn, broken open 2 / 3, like the mouth of the shell. The team speculated that 3 people were trapped in it when the big wave, the sky spun, and finally the hull cracked, 3 people were thrown out and disappeared.
Sichuan team capsized after the Sichuan team capsized after
This is the first water casualty in the Yangtze River rafting in 1986. Search and rescue teams into the mountains, nothing, the missing 3 people basically no possibility of survival. Before departure, the Luoyang team completely spontaneous, discussed in advance, life and death at their own risk. They informed the families of the victims in the rear, after a few days, the rear call: “the families are treated correctly”, the team was very shaken.
But by this time the drift had become complicated. After the Yeba accident, Reuters, AFP and other media reports, people began to know that a tragic adventure race was underway on the Yangtze River in China. on August 8, Hu Qili, a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau, gave instructions to praise the drifting team’s fighting spirit for the country’s glory. Subsequently, Sichuan Province sent a deputy commander to the front line, requiring every step of the team’s action to be reported to the province. The Luoyang municipal government also sent people to persuade them to return, and the Luoyang team was to be disbanded at once.
More urgently, on August 13, Batang County invited the Luoyang team to a banquet, during which officials revealed that the Chinese and American teams had floated through Yushu. The Luoyang team did not expect the Sino-American team to be so fast. “They came to overtake us …… simply, directly to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, bet once, we bet success, on the line; bet not successful let people U.S. overtake, it’s not ugly.”
The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public.
Before the two teams arrived, dozens of media were already waiting at Tiger Leaping Gorge. The press had their long guns set up and everyone was looking forward to the upcoming Sino-American showdown on the Yangtze River.
Killer River
However, the Chinese and American teams could not reach Tiger Leaping Gorge, and they experienced the most terrifying section of their water adventure in Yaba.
On August 29, under cloudy skies, the team first sent canoe paddler Sharp to survey the water conditions. The canoes were light, easy to stop, and could be affixed to the river and rubbed along, making them suitable for the open road. Sharp saw a shocking sight: there was a large, deep water hole in the river ahead, swallowing up to 30 meters of water downstream, and the Chinese American team’s boat would “fall right in and disappear completely. Sharp said to the fleet: “My God, this hole is too big, fall in and you’re dead. Go along the river, you might be able to squeeze through. But you must survey it first.”
The river was so high and steep that it took until 3 p.m. for the Central American team to find a spot on the right bank where they could see the water hole. Ken? Warren judged: water flowing from the right side of the water hole, should be paddled to the right. This day, the crew set up the machine and spend a lot of time, 4:30 p.m., the Chinese and American teams set off.
The current Yeba Dashui, taken in Yeba Village, Gayu Township, Baiyu County, Sichuan Province The current Yeba Dashui, taken in Yeba Village, Gayu Township, Baiyu County, Sichuan Province
In the record of the day, Ken? Warren wrote: “We entered the largest rapids in the world, with a 10.8-meter-long, 7.2-meter-wide flotilla of boats being thrown around like toys.” To float through the big hole, the Chinese and American teams tied four boats together and tied them into a large diamond-shaped raft to increase buoyancy and stability, but the biggest waves were at least as high as two flotillas.
Chu Si Ming horrified to find that although the boats tied together to avoid capsizing, but because of the load of water, the boat is extremely heavy, no one can stop the boat! Everyone could only follow the water, full of gas rubber boats tied together, rubbing against each other and making strange sounds.
“Very narrow, very many bends, a few steps and then a turn, a few steps and then a turn. The bend is a very scary thing, there is a psychological implication, if you turn around and look, My God! The river is no more, the front is a break, especially scary! Because you do not know how deep it is broken below, it may only be 2 meters, the problem is not too big. But you can’t see downstream in the upstream, so you see the white splash upward, the river is broken, like a line broken down.
“Can not stop, very scary, the last section who do not speak, just listen to the sound of rubber, splashing water sounds, as if into the slow motion of the film, the individual sound pumped out, the other sounds are empty. All the attention is focused on the following to see what is, naturally no one speaks, who’s heart is particularly nervous. There is a particularly heavy atmosphere there. Cloudy days, walking for a long time is such a state, that day is a very strong psychological torture.
“That period of time is particularly concentrated downward, you can not stop. It has been particularly narrow, has been falling down constantly, falling water, you can only walk, so it is particularly dangerous. If there is something like Tiger Leaping Gorge, then go down, it’s over. Because it is the first drift, who do not know the road ahead, who do not know what kind of water in the end Yaba, how the Chinese side died do not know. So that psychological shadow has been in.”
The “house so big water” to the Chinese and American team hit, the fleet was buried in the wave group, the team members fell into the water many times. Chu Si Ming and Zhang Ji Yue fell into the water, the river is full of eddy current, like “was thrown into the side of the washing machine stirring”, the two desperately grabbed the boat rescue rope before not being thrown off.
At this point, the U.S. oarsman Ansuo saw: “the torrent like a brown enraged dragon desperately shaking, as if trying to shake off their own body of worms. Chusming and Zhang Jiyue fought to pick up the side of the raft, the wave toppled the raft almost upright and fell back into the water, cutting across the edge of the water hole churned into a whirlpool …… strung together with the gumbo, the sound of the raft frame and water rubbing together was gut-wrenching.”
“At this point, the waves rushed to the walls on either side, rolled back in anger, were twisted and shattered. We were flung out like cork. …… The sound of the waves and the creaking and twisting of the raft stirred together, and all other sounds were inaudible, like a train going through a tunnel. The raft was filled with water.”
The out-of-control boat was going down at high speed, with a huge current that seemed to put it in the middle of the ocean. At the biggest rapids, Ken Warren told the paddlers. Warren told the oarsmen to “stop trying. The following year, he went with Ken Warren again to India. Sharp, who went rafting in India with Ken Warren again the following year, observed that Ken Warren was not able to tell when the water was too rough. When he couldn’t judge the water, Warren would turn to his own rafting philosophy: “go with the flow. “Rather than believing in human chance and good fortune, he was convinced that a supernatural force will bless you after one wholeheartedly combines one’s own destiny with the inevitability of the river’s universal flow, without hesitation.” Thirty years later, Chusmong understands in this way Ken? Warren’s instructions at that time.
So, at the critical moment, Ken Warren told the oarsmen to quit wrestling with the river. Warren let the oarsmen give up wrestling with the river, instead, he let the fleet of boats filled with water half-submerged in the river, “become part of the river”, with the river down the rapid. The danger of capsizing was avoided and replaced by the fear of the falls. At that moment, a huge rock appeared ahead, the boat could not avoid it, Ken? Warren’s boat rode onto the rock, the bottom of the boat was pulled open a large mouth, the water began to pour in, the boat gradually sinking, but Ken? Warren did not immediately realize.
Suddenly, Ken Warren, who was half in the water, realized that there was no boat under his feet. Warren found that there was no boat under his feet, and he and oarsman Ansell fell into the water. He quickly turned around and grabbed a boat next to him, the boat is very fast, he did not have time to climb up, can only hold on for dear life, the team shouted: Hang on for your dear life!
Chu Si Ming in the back of the boat, the waves continue to hit the fleet, “stand up and be thrown off”. He clung to the boat, completely powerless to pull Ken? Warren pulled up. Seeing a sharp bend in the river ahead, the bend a big cliff angle outward, the water rushed the boat to the cliff, lost control of the boat straight to the cliff and go.
Ken? Warren and Anso at this time still in a death grip on the side of the boat, most of his body in the water, head towards the boat, the cliff protruding boulder is facing the back of his head. Chu Si Ming ready to close his eyes, he did not want to watch these two people’s heads were squeezed flat. Fortunately, as he rounded the corner, the rapids that hit the cliff crashed back, and the force of the backwash pushed Ken? Warren’s head pushed back a few dozen centimeters, Ken? Warren’s head almost grazed the cliff.
The more Chu Si Ming thought about it, the more scared. “If he saw (cliff), he must have been afraid, certainly think will be crushed in it, certainly will let go, let go of the boat will go, they both ruined. Is that they both do not know, foolishly desperate in that grasping grasping, on the rush down.”
Have been waiting for the water slightly slow, Chu Si Ming hurriedly scurry out, the Ken? Warren two people dragged up. His first sentence said: Congratulations.
Ken? Warren asked: congratulations on what? Chu Si Ming said: you are only so far from death, just now too dangerous.
Long after the big raft docked, Sharp, who was driving the canoe, paddled to, and after docking, with an incredulous expression, he said: Is everyone here?
This night, no need to urge the lights out, everyone was exhausted and went to sleep quickly. Four crew members were injured, some of the camera equipment was smashed and the boat was badly damaged. “The Yangtze took its toll.” Ken? Warren wrote in his diary that night.
Misunderstanding and escape
What happened on Aug. 30 was a series of misunderstandings that ultimately led to the great-intentioned, well-prepared expedition falling apart before it even reached Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Waking up the next day, a stunned crew and paddlers approached Ken Warren and told him they didn’t want to drift any further. Warren told him that he didn’t want to float anymore, but to set up tents and wait for rescue. Especially Ron, the main paddler, who was terrified by the previous day’s water conditions. The team waited for a day at the river, when the canoeist Sharp, who was responsible for surveying the water conditions, sat up and paddled downstream to take a look. Sharp in the crew in the lowest position, but he is strong and decisive, their own ideas, in the rafting before he heard a day to float 80 kilometers, it is considered impossible, “which makes me do not trust Ken? Warren’s leadership”.
After Sharp paddled downstream and then upstream, he brought back news that hit everyone: the river below was even more treacherous than before. “I saw that the team’s morale was low, and Ken wasn’t going to continue.” Sharp mentally calculated that the food reserves would not last a few days, “and that’s when my role changed: I was the only canoeist on the team, and the only one with the courage.” He paddled the boat to the other side, then abandoned it and hiked deep into the mountains, where he would go to find help and then “come back with tools to fix the boat and keep floating.
But Sharp didn’t tell the rest of the crew about his intentions; in their minds, Sharp was afraid to run away. Even stick to the side of the canoe can not pass, only from the middle of the river through the large raft is more impossible, the team more fear to return to the water, only fantasy air rescue. Helicopters became a nightmare for the whole team, and for three days everyone was looking at the sky, searching for the sound of helicopter engines. When the director turned the generator on, the team started shouting: Helicopter! Helicopter! Even responsible for contacting the air rescue, the most clear that there will be no helicopter Chu Si Ming also hallucinated. Exploration, he was on the mountain to the sound of water splashes into propellers, thinking: “bad, the helicopter is now here, pick them up, put me alone here.” Then desperately he ran down the hill. Later, he heard everything like a helicopter, moving to look up to see if the helicopter had come, “bullshit.”
On the fifth day, three members of the team along the land route to survey the water, came back, paddler Ron to Ken? Warren said: the river below can float, he will fix the boat as soon as possible. Two hours later, Ken Warren walked over to Ron’s tent. Warren walked over to Ron’s tent to check on the progress of the boat repair, with a tape recorder in his pocket, and was shocked by what Ron said next.
“I lied to you, Ken. The river is dangerous, I don’t want to go back, I want to wait for a helicopter rescue.” Ron had an emotional breakdown. This wasn’t the first time Ron had lost his temper; he had symptoms of emotional mania, and in Yushu, he was the one who made a fuss and demanded that Ken? Warren stepped down. Then he was the first to reconcile, crying and hugging Ken? Warren hugged him. His mood swings were so great that when Ken Warren left, he was the first to reconcile, crying and hugging Ken Warren. After Warren left, he analyzed with the team again and decided that it was really difficult to hike here and instead floated down for a day before coming ashore.
“Good.” Ken? Warren replied.
“I’m glad you’re not mad.”
Ken? Warren thought to himself, “I’m pissed? Ron, damn it, why would I be mad? You’re a crazy motherfucker. That’s how I’m dealing with you guys right now.”
But still he said.
“Sure, no problem.”
On the team, Ron’s rowing skills are second only to Ken? Warren is also an expert at repairing boats, and he builds all the frames. Ken? Warren couldn’t operate a big raft alone, and if Ron didn’t go, it would be doubly dangerous to have a boat with no one to row it in heavy water. Ken Warren was also well aware of Ron’s ability to operate a large raft. Warren was also well aware of Ron’s capriciousness, and with six days of drifting from Baiyu County, he mistakenly thought he was close to the next pickup point and would arrive quickly if he walked out.
So he found Chu Sming, three Chinese team members have always obeyed his instructions, “the captain said what to do,” is the last person he trusted in the team. At the time of the mutiny of the American team members in Yushu, Ken? Warren had said, “Even if we were the only Chinese left on the oarsmen, I never doubted that it would work.” After confirming that a helicopter rescue was impossible, Ken Warren said, “I’ll go out and survey the area. Warren first said: I went out to survey, to line I will come back and then go together. Also said: Chu, I must go, “even if the gang are not doing, even if I find people from the United States then drift, but also to do it all.” Chu Si Ming feel incredible: how can you get to the United States to find people back to float it? Before he could think about it, Ken? Warren on the backpack away.
Yeba near the vast primeval forest, before leaving, Ken? Before leaving, Ken Warren left a message to his wife, Jane, on a tape recorder. Warren’s words: “Because I don’t trust them, I decided to walk out …… I don’t know what to say, this damn, funny fear has penetrated this camp …… their spirit of cooperation is deteriorating, courage no longer exists, only thoughts of self-preservation. No teamwork, nothing, just shit, complete shit ……”
After departing, Ken? Warren walked to the top of a hill conducive to surveying and looked down at the river, which was so fast that, although he still wanted to float, he felt “it was impossible to convince the others to continue.” So he went on, hiking out with anger at everyone, including himself. Followed by Ken? The only person who went with Ken Warren was the director, who said that if Ken Warren didn’t come back, the documentary would have to have a lot of people in it. Warren does not return, the documentary has to have an end. So he carried the camera and filmed until Ken Warren’s lonely figure disappeared. Warren’s lonely figure disappeared over the mountain, and the director came back alone the next day.
Ken? I weighed his backpack and it weighed at least 70 pounds. The team ran to go through Ken Warren’s tent. Warren’s tent, the whole long drift, Ken? Warren never camped with the team, he would run away from everyone, and sometimes even to the opposite shore to set up tents. This made Chu Smythe feel that he was withdrawn, “as if you hate us”. The team unpacked his tent to see if they had left any letters, but found jumping balls and inflatable dolls. Chinese journalists with the team had never seen this stuff, take and the Americans stabbed to play. Everyone blew up the inflatables and moisture-proof bags, wrote SOS, and threw them downstream.
Ken? After Warren left, the Chinese and American teams paddled for another day before deciding to hike ashore. Cameras, batteries, lenses, film and boats were stranded on the river, with only food, tents, clothes and water. In order to pack lightly, Chu Si Ming put the 1985 Ken? Warren gave him a cowhide belt were lost, replaced by a rope to tie the boat. He only brought his own film and two thin diaries. At that time, the whole team had only a little bit of noodles and dry white flour left, and if they waited for Ken? Warren had to starve to death if they waited for help.
After days of hiking in the mountains, the team finally found a village and paid for a pig with all the money they had. No one knew how to kill the pig, so the team tied up the pig’s mouth and “tried to suffocate it”. At this time, the recorder, who believed in Buddhism, came up to us. While drifting, he recited Buddhist scriptures and wrote letters to his Japanese wife every day. He said, “When is this going to happen? He went up and “poof” a knife, stabbed the pig to death.
A day later, the rescue team, which had been searching for more than ten days, finally found them. On the way out of the mountains, because the horse did not listen, Ron’s manic mood again, he took off his shoes, dragging the bridle head wildly hit the horse’s head, shouting. Half an hour before they reached the county seat, Ken, who had been hiking out alone, came across a Tibetan village. Warren also encountered a Tibetan village, his fair skin and novel equipment attracted the Tibetans, and soon the news cascaded up to Batang County. Ken? Warren was rescued.
After returning to Batang, Ken? Warren declared the end of rafting. A leader in Sichuan Province told them that the Chinese had a “secret weapon” sealed boat. Warren, who saw the sealed boat on TV, said, “That’s not drifting.”
On the day of the announcement, with the sound of dogs barking all night long in Batang, Ken Warren wrote in his diary, “I’m not sure what I’m talking about. Warren wrote in his diary, “The power of the Yangtze is difficult to describe even to a rafting veteran …… These people we have chosen, these people who have signed a contract to dedicate themselves to the Long Drift, are ultimately concerned only with their own safety. If there is a failure in this expedition, it is the lack of determination and courage.”
At the end of his diary, he said, “As I said, meeting the people of the Yangtze River Gorge was the whole point of the trip, and there were too many touching scenes. But the moments I cherish most are when I am alone …… I may never see the Yangtze again. For its grandeur, its power, its speed and turbulence, and this unspeakable roar, I am filled with gratitude.”
Duel at Tiger Leaping Gorge
When two Chinese teams arrived at Tiger Leaping Gorge in late August, they had no idea that Ken Warren was already in distress.
Tiger Leaping Gorge is located in northwestern Yunnan, at the junction of Lijiang and Shangri-La. The gorge is between the Haba Snow Mountain and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and is 17 kilometers long with a deep and rapid valley. Down the river, there are three prominent boulders in the center of the river, which are divided into Upper, Middle and Lower Tiger Leaping, and more than 20 extraordinarily dangerous beaches between Upper and Middle Tiger Leaping. It is a world-famous hiking mecca and was depicted in articles written by Western explorers as early as the early 20th century.
The Luoyang and Sichuan teams hesitated, and the Tiger Leaping Gorge was far more treacherous than they had imagined: the originally turquoise river turned eastward at the bridge and fell into the crevices of two snow-capped mountains, which rapidly narrowed the river and made the three-kilometer gorge steep and rocky. Locals say that the cut wood from the upstream down, after the Tiger Leaping, can be fished out but half. Either they are smashed on the boulders in the center of the river, or they fall into the water bay and can’t get out for months.
The team took the cliff road halfway up the mountain to explore the Tiger Leaping, and before they saw the water, they heard the majestic sound of water. When we got closer, we saw that the water was constantly falling, the boulders were dark, the waves were ten meters high, the river instantly turned into a thick fog, and the sound of the water was deafening. People talking to each other, even face to face roar are difficult to hear.
When walking along the Tiger Leaping Gorge, if you hear a rumbling sound, you have to immediately shrink to the inside of the road and stick to the rock wall. Often a yak or goat rolls down, rumbling down, hitting a boulder and drowning instantly in the river. Later, when rescuing Lang Pauluo under the cliff, a Sichuan reporter was killed by falling rocks on the mountain road at the age of 23.
The Sichuan team command was waiting for instructions from the higher-ups and was late in giving orders. Some members of the team started to oppose the risk, they played cards, went out to play and went home to visit their relatives. A Sichuan team member at the very beginning stole the team’s equipment, ahead of time on the source, the first to quit in case of danger: “So dangerous, do not float, the people of the motherland will forgive us.”
But dozens of media reporters can not wait, another stalemate meeting, a reporter sarcastic team members: “You are too skimpy (Sichuan, poor), are deflated gunpowder, you dare not drift, I am a reporter I dare to drift.” Sichuan team member Li Dafang was instantly enraged: “No one on I want to go!”
“I was young, blood and vigor, can not stand to be underestimated by others, before the floating so long way, you still dare to underestimate us?” 30 years later, Li Dafang said to reporters.
Every day, reporters go to ask the team, drift or not, when to drift, “Sichuan Daily” reporter found Luoyang team captain Wang Maojun, the first sentence is: “Do you drift Tiger Leaping Gorge or not?”
“Why not? If you don’t float Tiger Leaping Gorge, why don’t you just go home?” Wang Maojun said. The reporter also passed the attitude of the Luoyang team to the Sichuan team, which was also under great pressure.
In the process of pushing the Yangtze River rafting from a folk activity to a national patriotic movement, journalists acted like catalysts, whether the results were good or bad, they were the “spice for writing”. 1985, a journalist and rafting team member Kong Zhiyi found Zhang Jiyue, “Let’s get a rafting team together. team, we journalists can give you a flag waving.” Zhang Jiyue refused, and Kong Zhiyi, who was very poor in water, drowned in Yeba Beach.
Kong Zhiyi and Wanming, who were killed in the drift, were killed in the drift
In late August, when the Luoyang team was surveying Tiger Leaping Gorge, they met two journalists at a small restaurant, one of whom excitedly shouted to them, “The U.S. team has a dead man! The U.S. team has one dead, too!” The joy was overwhelming. He didn’t know the details, but repeatedly affirmed that there was no mistake, there was a dead team member named David Sippy. Sippy.
People on both sides of the river also knew about the rafting, and they came to the river every day to see which side would rush through first. The Luoyang team surveyed near the village of Walnut Garden and met the village secretary, who knew that the “American team” was chasing after them and reassured them that they could definitely float through Tiger Leaping Gorge first.
On September 4, the new sealed boat arrived, and the Luoyang team decided to put a dog in first and “test drift” from the upper Tiger Leaping Gorge. As a result, the sealed boat cracked and the dog was nowhere to be found. But this does not affect the reporter’s “confidence”. The next day, Sichuan TV reporter told the captain Wang Maojun: “Wang, if you were sitting people, also passed, the dog is not a person, it can only hide, people can grab the boat.”
Restlessness, there are journalists to stay awake. Dukou Daily” reporter Dai Hongfang is very dissatisfied with the persuasive behavior of radical journalists, she said to Wang Maojun instead: you can not listen to those irresponsible journalists, saying some inciting words, they are to write news, send reports, Tiger Leaping Gorge you can pass, can not pass around, people will understand, why do you have to put your life on the line?
After the interview, she asked Wang Maojun to write a few sentences, and Wang Maojun wrote: “The Yangtze River is a huge wave, accumulated in a trickle / China’s revitalization, to be revitalized in thousands of Laiyuan. Wang Maojun also asked her to sign, but Dai Hongfang only wrote: “May God bless you!” Wang Maojun was stunned, as this was a gift rarely seen before. Dai Hongfang said, “I have no grand words, I can only silently bless you.”
After the test drift boat broke, Luoyang team could not find the right tools to repair the boat, so they used the glue to repair the bicycle and stuck the old tires sent from Lijiang passenger station. At this time, it happens to be in the Tiger Leaping Gorge of Chongqing rubber factory technician arrived, he looked at repeatedly shaking his head, learned that the Luoyang team to take the boat into the water, he took out fifty dollars, stuffed to Wang Maojun, turned around and left.
On September 10, Luoyang team Lei Jiansheng and other two people on board, the day rushed through the upper tiger jump, hatch connection torn, people were not injured. All major news units immediately issued a report: Luoyang team rushed through the Upper Tiger Leaping!
The morale of the Luoyang team was greatly boosted, and they again made up their ships overnight and stormed the Middle Tiger Leaping. The hatch connection was not easy to repair, so they put a piece of red air cushion bed into the crack, and used glue to reinforce it repeatedly. Two days later, Lang Pauluo and Sun Zhiling on board, the first big wave after launching, the red air cushion bed flew out, sealing the boat tore into a semi-open boat. Sun Zhiling disappeared, and after drifting across the Middle Tiger Plunge, Lang Paulo disembarked at the cliff side boulders and waited for rescue. With one dead and one wounded in the Middle Tiger Jump, both teams stopped and made every effort to rescue Lang Paulo.
This process was filmed by several TV stations and broadcast on CCTV News. On September 16, the country rejoiced when Langbao Luo was rescued from the rock crevice.
Just three days earlier, Ken Warren had announced the end of the Central American team’s rafting trip. Warren announced that the Central American team had ended the rafting. “The Americans backed out, we will never back out, we would rather not die than finish the rafting!” Standing in front of the Tiger Leaping Heavenly Danger, the Luoyang team swore to the roaring plunge like thunder. After that, both teams floated the whole Tiger Leaping Gorge using sealed boats.
After floating the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the two teams immediately became national heroes and were wildly sought after by the people along the way. When the Luoyang team pumped up the boat in Dagou County, Yunnan, a Naxi youth carrying a basket of pears asked to join the team, saying, “Chinese people drifting the Yangtze River should also have a share of ethnic minorities.” The waiter of the hospitality house also asked to join. At the ferry port of the first big city on the upper Yangtze River (now Panzhihua), a delegation of condolences led by the Standing Committee of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and the Deputy Secretary General of Luoyang City greeted.
The ferry city was filled with 10,000 people, and when they left, tens of thousands of people on the riverside sent them off, squeezing a crowd of onlookers off the bridge. A young girl suddenly jumped into the water, swimming toward the drifting boat, did not catch up, let out a cry. In front of the frenzied public, the drifters understood that they were famous. “They all look at me with a kind of admiration, I do not understand what they are looking at, look at aliens? It’s not like they came back from Antarctica.” A rafting team member said.
Fame and rematch
Ken? Warren and the United States team gave up, but intensified the competition between the Luoyang team and the Sichuan team, both teams to grab the “first drift” honor.
After discussing with Luoyang City, Luoyang team directly sent a team to Wuhan by car to launch, and the two places started drifting at the same time, heading straight to Wusongkou in Shanghai. The Sichuan team was caught by surprise, after Yibin, the Yangtze River would be navigable, so they could not catch up with the car by paddling alone. The Sichuan team began to emphasize “not to lose an inch” and sent people to make up for the four sections of the river they had skipped in Sichuan and Yunnan. After Yeba was blocked, the Luoyang team ran to Tiger Leaping Gorge and skipped half of Sichuan directly, and “not an inch” was their weakness.
In November, the Sichuan team’s four drifting teams went to Sichuan and Yunnan. In the Mordin Dangerous Beach, the three people of the replenishment drift team had been on the boat drifting in addition to one person after the ferry, the other two people were on the boat for the first time, and had been in charge of the team’s logistics and equipment before. As a result, the boat capsized and fell into the water, and all three members of the team were killed. This is the last three people who died in Yangtze River rafting, together with the three people missing in Yeba, two people killed in Tiger Leaping Gorge and White Crane Beach, the sick and dead Xipi and the journalist who was killed by flying rocks, the three teams of Yangtze River rafting died a total of 10 people.
Three warriors killed in the last fight of Jinsha River: Yang Qianming, Wang Jianjun, Wang Zhen three warriors killed in the last fight of Jinsha River: Yang Qianming, Wang Jianjun, Wang Zhen
The further down the Yangtze River, the more exaggerated the scale of the welcome crowd. Everywhere they went, there was a grand reception banquet and they were invited to the auditorium to make a presentation. on November 12, the Luoyang team entered Shanghai Wusongkou and was greeted by the leaders of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, the municipal government, the naval base in Shanghai, Henan Province and Luoyang City. after disembarking, Shanghai citizens with flowers in their hands flocked to the drifting heroes into the city. The team members gave a speech at Tongji University and were interrupted by the cheers of the students. Captain Wang Maojun was invited by Shanghai TV to shoot the program “Real Men”, he purposely shaved his beard, the director was greatly disappointed, “Alas, we shot that beard of yours ……”
After a two-day break, the Luoyang team returned to Henan by train, and thousands of Shanghai people went to the train station to see them off. The next day, at 5:17 a.m., the Luoyang team took a train that passed through Zhengzhou, where leaders of Henan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government were waiting on the platform to see the passing players. At 9 a.m., the train arrived in Luoyang and tens of thousands of people poured into the train station square. “The cars couldn’t even drive, the teachers stopped teaching, and the crowd threw the players up.” A first-hand witness recalled.
The journalists who covered the rafting also received their rewards, bagging that year’s National Good News Award and the first prize in the national photojournalism competition. The following year, the country’s rivers, large and small, were crowded with people on rafting expeditions, hoping to stain the glory of their heroes in the same way. The story of Yangtze River rafting was also brought to the screen. Yao Maoshu’s story was adapted into a TV series “The First Drift of Yangtze River”, starring Zhu Shimao, who became famous at the Spring Festival Gala, and the experience of Luoyang rafting team was changed into a movie “Heavenly Drum”, with the main characters including Li Youbin and Chi Zhiqiang.
When drifting on the Yangtze River, the Luoyang team thought about drifting on the Yellow River again. In Sichuan, a child asked the Luoyang team members: “What are you doing after rafting the Yangtze River?” The team member replied, “Rafting the Yellow River.” As a result, the child cried out and said, “You have finished floating, what will I float when I grow up?” The team members were in tears after hearing that.
In 1987, the Luoyang team went to the Yellow River again, in the Yellow River, the Luoyang team insisted on not using sealed boats, insisted on “not falling an inch”. But this time, the conflicts within the team during the long drift were open and magnified. When the team was formed, Lang Paulo took the “Garrison Death Squad” as a template and selected a group of labor inmates, rapists and robbers as team members. Garrison’s Death Squad, the first American drama introduced by CCTV in 1980, tells the story of a group of World War II prisoners who are led by Captain Garrison to establish a miraculous success. The show became a national sensation and was followed by countless young people, leading to a crackdown in 1983, and the show was forcibly cut off. In the upper reaches of the Yellow River, this “death squad” clashed with Tibetans along the way, repeatedly using knives. In Dari, due to infighting, the team killed each other, one member was stabbed, and a reporter was stabbed in the abdomen while trying to persuade the fight.
In Laga Gorge, the Luoyang team failed to force the beach and four people, including Lei Jiansheng and Lang Baoluo, died, which became the turning point of rafting. The General Office of the State Council issued the “Notice on Strengthening the Management of River Rafting Activities”, and rafting immediately turned from “promotion of national spirit” to “overheating”, and the Ministry of Propaganda ordered that rafting “not to promote, not to report, not to support “. But the 3 teams on the Yellow River insisted on finishing the rafting, which ended with the death of 7 people. By the time the Luoyang team reached the mouth of the Yellow River, there were only 3 journalists present. Yangtze River rafting along with together, was quickly forgotten.
In 1986, when the drifting team arrived in Nanjing, the captain of the five consecutive women’s volleyball team, Sun Jinfang, said: “You are not only not afraid of hardship and tiredness, but also add a not afraid of death! There are still players among you who sacrificed, we are very moved to learn from you.”
But today, the Yangtze River rafting, which once ranked alongside the revitalization of China, the five consecutive titles of women’s volleyball, and the first gold in the Los Angeles Olympics, became a patriotic movement that was forgotten the fastest in the 1980s.
Topographical map of Yangtze River rafting Topographical map of Yangtze River rafting
Chusming
After returning to the United States, Ken? Warren soon faced a lawsuit from Sippy’s family. The team members who gave up in Yushu returned home early and gave interviews that described Ken? Warren described as a demon and filed charges against him. Because of Sippy’s death, coverage of Yangtze River rafting in the United States was overwhelmingly negative. “He would rather step on a corpse than float the Yangtze for the first time.” So described one report.
In June 1990, four years after the long drift, the court pronounced a verdict that denied the testimony of the four departing team members, and Ken? Warren was not guilty. Sippy and his doctor had falsified a medical report, hiding his history of allergic rhinitis and asthma. Sippy was extremely eager to participate in the long drift, but his newspaper had no desire to cooperate, with no pay, no leave, and no promise to keep his job, which Sippy wanted to use to jump ship to a Washington newspaper. Ken? Warren won all six lawsuits, but owed $180,000 in court costs. His drifting business became unsustainable due to excessive negative publicity, his company and personal bankruptcy were declared, and his estate was sold.
One day in June, Ken? Warren came home with a bunch of white feathers, which he explained to Jane? Warren explained, “To the Indians, a white feather is a symbol of cowardice.” He wrote eight letters and sent them to four members of the team who had quit in Yushu and four former enemies, with a feather attached.
In December 1990, Chu Si Ming is preparing to study abroad, Ken? Warren said to him: Chu, you do not rush to come, let’s do the drift together, I am responsible for paying your tuition.
Ken? Warren again to obtain the permission of the body suit, a Japanese film company is willing to sponsor, ChuS Ming put ZhangJiYue, that year with the team reporter are shouted on. When Ken? Warren’s representatives were negotiating in Japan when, in February 1991, Ken? Warren died of a heart attack at home at the age of 63.
Chusmong explained Ken Warren’s obsession with the Yangtze River in this way Warren’s obsession with the Yangtze River: “There was a time when there was love in people’s hearts. People couldn’t stop loving, so they were drawn to mountains and rivers and deep seas and space, and they threw themselves on the line to explore, much like the recklessness that bursts out of people at the extremes of being in love. Warren from the bottom of his heart love Yangtze River, he magic spell in the body, can not get rid of, only to martyrdom.”
Chusming Chusming
In 1993, the Chinese paddler Zhang Jiyue set up the earliest rafting company in China, the company’s a classic rafting route is exactly when Ken? Warren fancy Yushu to Qumalai. In China, rafting is almost exclusively found in parks in the form of “rapids” and is far from being a popular sport. Zhang Jiyue’s main customers are Japanese. At the time of the interview, the UK had only just passed the EU referendum, the yen had appreciated, and Zhang Jiyue’s rafting company had just received a remittance. He told his friend at the bank that he would slow down and convert this money transfer into RMB. Another Chinese paddler, Xu Jusheng, later became the coach of the Chinese national kayaking team.
In India, Ken K. Warren planted another seed. In 1985, a young Indian paddler who trained with Chu Smyth and Zhang Jiyue at Ken Warren’s home grew up. A young Indian man, Shauket Sikand, who trained in Warren’s home, returned home and founded India’s first rafting company. Sikand said, “In India, Ken? Warren is almost considered a god by the older generation of rafters. Because of him, rafting has taken off in India.” Referring to the Yangtze River rafting, which the media has called “the last great conquest,” he said, “You can’t conquer the Yangtze. Because the Yangtze has been around for millions of years, and it will probably continue to be around for millions of years. We use the river to reach everyone, and we must be grateful for the Yangtze.”
Ken? After Warren’s death, with one child, Jane? Warren was living in hardship and personal bankruptcy, and the law did not allow her to have personal savings. But even in her most difficult moments, she saved $90 a month and rented a storage room in which she stored all of her materials and files from 1986. Until 25 years later, recovering from the pain, she decided to write her memoir of drifting down the Yangtze River, a book called When Dreams Hit Fear. After losing $400,000 to a scam in 1983, Ken? Warren wanted to give up at one point, but Jane drank him in. “I will not allow anyone to say the word give up to me,” she said, “Now, get out of my office.” In her book, she writes, “A woman is like a tea bag. You’ll never know how strong she is until you put her in the water.”
There was a time before the illness and death when the Warrens were doing slightly better financially and they bought a new house. It wasn’t long before Ken? Warren died, and his widow, Jane? Warren filed for personal bankruptcy, and in order to avoid debt, she had to sell the house. In the same year, Chu Si Ming came to the United States to study, he wanted to visit Jane? Warren. Jane? Warren said to him: Chu, you come quickly, this house I have sold. Because to let you take a look, I discussed with the owner, he first not to move over, and give me a few more days.
In the summer of 1991, after six years, Chu Smyth returned to Portland, Oregon. He came to the house that Jane Warren had sold. The house, which Warren had sold, was filled with cardboard boxes, large and small, already sorted, and Warren’s personal belongings packed and sealed. The house was built along the river, with the front door leading to the road and surrounded by woods. Jane? Warren said to Chu Sming: I’m just waiting for you to come to live for two days, take a look, this is the most wanted house when Ken was alive, he did not live here long before he died.
Chusming pushed open the back door, there is a small river, the river flowing through. Every day, wild ducks swam down the river and came ashore here, and the Warrens would throw lots of corn beans on the ground for them to eat. In the tree, a wooden box was tethered by a small stone, take the pulley to drag up, it is also filled with peanuts, corn, small squirrels will run along the tree to eat, eat and leave. This is Ken? Every night, he sleeps to the sound of the river, and the 63-year-old still imagines that one day he will be able to ride on his What’s Next and embrace the white water again.
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