Liantan Memory of Tongcheng Fertilizer Factory

In the ancient town of Liantan, there was once a very high-end place at that time. A large signboard with black characters on a white background hung at the gate, which said Tongcheng County Fertilizer Factory.

Liantan Qiuyue, one of the eight scenic spots in ancient Tongcheng, has changed over time and the Liantan River has changed its course, and the scenery has long since ceased to appear. The location of the pump room where the fertilizer plant used to draw water, due to the depth of the water, is probably where the wharf was. The busy water system in the past has long been turned into an inland river and fertile land for fish farming.

The long years of youth have left fragments here.

Chemical production requires a lot of water. It is impossible to verify whether it is located here because of the convenience of water collection and drainage. The inland river used for fish farming is used for water intake. Along the roadside, you can see long sewage pipes laid all the way to the outer river.

I worked in a fertilizer factory for four years. I remember that on the first day we entered the factory, the leaders spoke to us one after another in the auditorium on the second floor of the factory office building. A leader wearing washed white labor cloth overalls spoke very people-friendly and straightforward words. Your job is as a chemical production operator. What do you do? You just sit there and look at the pressure gauge every day. You have seen the pressure gauge on the rice frying machine, it is the same. Such a frank and vivid metaphor can easily be remembered for a lifetime.

The fertilizer plant is located in a relatively remote location. Many years after the factory was established, employees whose families lived in the city were trying their best to find people to transfer to units in the county. Many positions were short of manpower. So our group of people gradually became a new force.

The fertilizer production line is divided into several work sections, with workers rotating in three shifts, and the machines and equipment not taking a break. I was assigned to the gas-making section. The task of this section is to regularly add briquettes to a two-story gas-making furnace that can hold several tons. Used for completely burned coal ash), the air and steam from the boiler room are used to react in the combustion layer to generate gas, which is then input into the gas holder (a very large and tall iron behemoth) for use in subsequent work sections. Briquettes are produced in another specialized production workshop through lime kiln processing. This job seems very simple, right? Improper operation may cause scarring on the gas generator or even the risk of the gas cabinet tipping over. If one of the two gas generators becomes scabbed, the gas supply to that furnace will have to be stopped. If the gas cannot keep up, the production of subsequent processes will have to be reduced. Once the production is reduced, the leader will immediately know where the problem lies.

I will never forget the scene of dealing with scarring on the gas generator. (There are many reasons for scarring, so I won’t go into them here.) At this time, the then section chief would be summoned to our operation room on the third floor. Check the situation and direct on-site scar treatment. A large iron drill five to six meters long and five or six centimeters in diameter was raised from the mouth of the furnace where the fire was still coming out when the lid was opened. (Smash the scar into pieces on the third floor, open the ash outlet on the first floor and take out the iron.) Not to mention the weight of the solder, the heat from the furnace mouth rushes directly into the face. Only those who have experienced it personally know this feeling. When the iron drill gets red hot, you have to wrap it in several pairs of work gloves to pull it out, throw it aside quickly (the gloves also have to be thrown away immediately, because it has already been burned), and then replace it with another one. The whole process is not continuous. It can't be finished in a few hours.

Of course, this only happens in rare cases, and it is still very comfortable under normal circumstances. Look at the pressure gauge, turn the joystick, add briquettes in real time, check the height of the gas tank, and get off work at that point.

The day shift gets off work at 3:30, and the middle shift (also called the night shift) gets off work at 11:30 in the evening. It is customary to go to the canteen to prepare a meal and then go to bed after eating. The night shift starts at 12:30, and the meal is delivered to a fixed place in the workshop. At 12:15, someone is knocking the lunch box with a spoon and waiting at the place where the meal is served. I always felt that this meal was very delicious. Maybe it was because I was hungry after lunch.

There is no need to elaborate on the hardships of working the night shift. My eyes were staring at the gas cabinet through the window, unblinking, for fear that the warning mark would be exceeded at any time. In case the mark is exceeded, measures must be taken to emergency stop the gas generator to vent the gas, and then wait for it to slowly fall back to the permitted range before turning it on again.

When we were young, we had no particular objection to working the night shift and had a happy-go-lucky attitude.

When I get back from get off work, I take the time to take a nap, get up to eat at noon, do whatever I like in the afternoon, and then sleep for a few hours at night until I go to work. Sometimes I think it’s good to work the night shift because I have time to play during the day.

The dormitory building we lived in was a long three-story building. We joked at the time that the structure of the building was the same as a hospital clinic (two rows of houses facing each other, with an aisle in the middle). There are more than 60 rooms on the three floors, commonly known as the bachelor building. There is also a residential area for families. There is a hillside behind the building, so the building is also built on the hill. There is a half-story-high step from the ground to the entrance of the building. When eating, people finish their meals from the canteen. When they walk to the door of the building, they habitually squat on the ground, shoveling the food into their mouths while doing household chores. They can also talk to people passing by under the steps, forming a daily ritual. Timed scenery.

To the north of the building, there is an overpass. (This is the first time I have passed here, and I was surprised that there is no water under the bridge. It’s so strange!) There are rows of dual-employee dormitories, nicknamed "Eighteen Rooms", the origin of the specific name is not clear. Passing under the bridge is the village, and beyond that are the terraced fields and hills. I like to go for a walk in the back alone after dinner. Sometimes I pretend to hold a book of Tang poetry and Song poetry, pretending to be polite, and glance at it while walking. I haven't accumulated a few poems in my stomach yet.

While walking, I can also meet really knowledgeable people. One is the quiet technician in the general analysis room next to the second gate. Everyone walks at different times. Sometimes I rub elbows with him. If you pass by, you will hear the murmur from his mouth, which must be a kind of concentrated recitation. Seeing me is like seeing the air. Later, I finally got admitted to graduate school. There is another one who is the secretary of the Youth League branch in the factory. He is my idol. He is good at dancing, writing, calligraphy and painting. There are thousands of books in the room. At that time, Tofu Chuan was published in the newspaper. I also borrowed books from him. I haven’t seen him for many years. I don’t know how he is doing now.

When I feel depressed or excited, I will ride my bicycle to the Liantan River in the evening, find a lawn and lie down, rest my head on the grass, look up at the blue sky, and let my thoughts fly. This is a very comfortable environment where you can sit and read a book or lie down. The difference is that others travel in pairs, but I am alone. I looked at the big trees on the river bank, leading into the distance. I couldn't see the edge at a glance. The scenery was really beautiful. I thought it would be a good shot if I had a camera to capture it, but I couldn't do it. Occasionally on the dry river beach, you can see old farmers plowing the fields with their oxen. While driving the oxen with whips, they shouted, "Follow the ditch, walk in the ditch." It took me a long time to understand what he meant.

On summer evenings, the room on the third floor was rather stuffy, so we who lived on the third floor simply spread a mat on the roof of the third floor, lit a piece of mosquito coils, and slept all night. The insulation layer on the roof of the third floor is made of red bricks placed vertically first, leaving a gap. The purpose of leaving the gap is for ventilation, and then a layer is placed flat on top. There is no cement and the floor is uneven, making it uncomfortable to sleep on. I don’t know who first discovered a good place. There is a partial fourth floor above the third floor with only a few rooms. In the northwest corner of the building, the brick stair handrail reaches the top of the building. For some reason, there is a stack, and people are standing on it. On the top of the stair railing, I stretched my body upwards, grabbed the roof with my hands, and used my legs to move up. (Of course, you are timid and dare not go up. There are no railings on the roof, which is very dangerous.) You can start with the mat Throw it up, or ask people below to throw it up. It's very flat here, and there are few mosquitoes. I didn't get up until the sun was shining on me. It's easier to come down. Hold on to the eaves with your hands and lean down slowly. When your body is vertical, you can jump down as soon as your hands are released.

There is another favorite place in my spare time. There is a room on the second floor of the two-story building next to the bachelor building, which is called the reading room. It is not open all day, but at designated times. There is a library card, one book is returned, and another book is borrowed. The previous administrator was more competent. She would keep an eye on you when you borrowed books, and you had no chance of fishing in troubled waters.

Maybe he was transferred later and was replaced by a part-time one who was more relaxed. The sets of "The Grudge of Monte Cristo" and "No. 5 Garden Street" at home were still stamped with the seal of the reading room. In the last year, many of my favorite books disappeared from the bookshelf in the reading room. When I wanted to keep a few books, there were no books worth collecting. They were just unknown foreign works that probably not many people would love. What I read is left on the bookshelf.

Every summer there is a production shutdown period of about forty days for maintenance, also called the overhaul stage. Maybe the weather is too hot? Or does the equipment really need maintenance? Don't know the specific reason. This period is a busy stage for equipment maintenance workers, disassembling, inspecting, and repairing. There is basically nothing for the operators to do. It seems that they can take turns and rest, and there is no need to worry about night shifts. It is a beautiful period.

Four short but long years have passed. After the production shutdown and overhaul in the middle of the last year, for some reason, we entered a long-term vacation period, and the machines in the fertilizer plant never started running again (I heard later that The equipment was treated as scrap) and ended its life forever.

The friends who have been together for four years have since gone their separate ways and have lost contact with each other. How much I miss the joy of drinking and partying together with my brothers and sisters, and the completely opposite youthful hesitation and indecisiveness. I will never forget the earnest teachings of the teachers in the class, and of course I will also miss the supercilious look from the leader.

I don’t know what the fertilizer factory has become now. I heard it was turned into a private industrial park, but I have never been there.

There is a chance to wait and talk about it later.