Wanzhang salt bridge

Wanzhang salt bridge

Wanzhang salt bridge is located on the Qarhan Salt Lake in the south of Qaidam Basin. It is about 60 kilometers from Golmud in the South and 30 kilometers from Xitieshan in the north. The highway is like a bridge floating on the brine. The total length of the salt bridge is 32 kilometers, which can be up to ten thousand feet in the city system. It spans the whole Qarhan Salt Lake and is known as the "ten thousand feet salt bridge".

Basic introduction

It is a rare kind of road and Bridge in the world, and also a great spectacle of Qaidam Basin. "Bridge" smooth road surface, mountains and lakes, beautiful scenery, can be called "unparalleled". Jade belt like salt bridge, no guardrail, no pier, no water. The whole road is smooth, smooth and straight. The salt bridge (Road) splits the salt lake in two from the middle, which makes people marvel. They have to submit to the intelligence and wisdom of human beings.

Wanzhang salt bridge is actually a wide road paved with salt built on the salt lake. It has neither piers nor railings. The whole road surface is smooth and smooth. It looks almost the same as the asphalt road in the city. Interestingly, because the road surface of wanzhang salt bridge is too smooth and the car drives too fast, it will slip and roll over. Therefore, the maximum speed of the wooden plate at the end of the bridge should not exceed 80 km / h. The maintenance method of salt bridge is very peculiar. Usually, once there is a pit on the road, the road maintenance workers smash some salt particles from the nearby salt cover, and then pour a spoonful of thick brine into the salt water pit dug by the roadside. The salt particles melt quickly and condense on the road, and the pit is as good as ever.

Wanzhang Yanqiao road is wide and long with boundless scenery. When people came here by car, they saw the straight and open road and bridge, like a sword, splitting the vast Salt Lake in two. On both sides of Yanqiao are potash plants, dormitories, gullied mining sites, the world-famous Qinghai Tibet railway, and long snake like trains, whistling and roaring over the lake.

geographical position

Wanzhang salt bridge is a section of road from Golmud to Dunhuang, which passes through the Dabson lake. The 15-18 meters thick salt cover forms a natural salt bridge, with a total length of 32 kilometers, which can reach wanzhang in the city system. Therefore, people call it "wanzhang salt bridge". "Bridge" smooth road surface, mountains and lakes, beautiful scenery, can be called "unparalleled". Jade belt like salt bridge (Road), no guardrail, no pier, no water. The whole road is smooth and straight. The salt bridge (Road) splits the salt lake in two from the middle, which is amazing. We have to submit to the wisdom and wisdom of human beings.

In about 200000 square kilometers of Qaidam Basin, there is a unique natural landscape, which is dotted with salt lakes. Some of these salt lakes are adjacent to the snow mountains, reflecting the continuous mountains and white snow in the lake; some lie in the desert, surrounded by white salt belts, as if wearing a white jade like collar; some have dried up and become hard salt stones, from which the railway and highway pass. There are many kinds of salt stones, which have the style of Yunnan stone forest. There are many kinds of chemical elements in salt lake water, which contain huge mineral resources of inorganic salts.

Cultural origin

"Slip on the salt road, slow down!" A wooden sign on the side of the road reminds people that the car has entered the largest salt lake in China - Qarhan Salt Lake. The bright and flat road at the foot is the strange and famous "wanzhang salt bridge".

It's a road. Why is it called "salt bridge"? It's a "bridge". Why can't we see the water flowing under the "bridge"? If you want to know the secret, you must first understand the structure of the salt lake. Qarhan Salt Lake covers an area of 5856 square kilometers. On the broad surface of the lake, the evaporation is more than 140 times larger than the precipitation. Due to long-term evaporation, the lake water has been condensed into a hard salt cover. Under the salt cover, which is tens of centimeters to more than one meter thick, are crystal salt and intercrystalline brine as deep as ten or twenty meters. In fact, the highway is like a bridge floating on the brine, from which the "wanzhang salt bridge" comes.

On both sides of the salt road, there is a salt pit hundreds of meters away. The bottom of the pit is brine with high concentration, which is specially used for road maintenance. Salt can be dissolved in water. Clever road maintenance workers make full use of this feature of salt. When salt roads are full of potholes, road workers dig up salt covers from the lake to pave the road, and then pour brine to make the salt cover powder erode. After being crushed by cars from south to north, the uneven road surface is soon smooth as a mirror.

It's unprecedented to build a road on the Chaerhan Salt Lake. The grass on the 32 kilometer wide Salt Lake is not long. It's not easy for people to walk, even for birds to fly. General Mu Shengzhong, who led the team to build the Qinghai Tibet highway, put forward the proposal according to the requirements of general Peng. On May 11, 1954, the construction of the Qinghai Tibet highway officially broke ground in Golmud. On December 15, it took only seven months and four days to complete and open the Qianli Qinghai Tibet highway. This was a great shock to China and other countries after the birth of new China. Under the leadership of general mushengzhong, the road construction team has completed the 2000 km long Qinghai Tibet highway from Xining, Qinghai to Lhasa, Tibet in a short time. The total investment is only 2.3 million yuan. The team has only one engineer and no modern equipment. All its assets are 1200 farmers who have turned from camel workers to road builders, and more than 3000 heavy shovels, pickaxes, steel fibers, sledgehammers, etc It's a tool.

Construction process

Mu Shengzhong will never forget that he went to Beijing three times in a row to ask President Peng for help. President Peng is worthy of being the "general backstage" of building the Qinghai Tibet highway. The army and the people who built the road shed sweat, while President Peng poured hard work.

Mu Shengzhong will never forget that when he first planned to build the Qinghai Tibet highway, general manager Peng firmly supported him to drive a carriage to explore the road to the Heihe River, and then made up his mind to repair it. Mu Shengzhong will never forget that when the carriage successfully explored the road from Golmud to the Heihe River, Mu Shengzhong made up his mind to repair the road. He needed 300000 yuan to repair the road. He went to Beijing for several departments, but met with a nail in the coffin. However, he went to general manager Peng for help for the second time. General manager Gu said bluntly, "you should draft a report now, and I will submit it to Premier Zhou." The report was written on the spot, and Mr. Peng immediately submitted it to the premier. Premier Zhou immediately approved 300000 yuan in full after receiving the report. At the same time, Mr. Peng gave Mu Shengzhong 10 engineers, 10 trucks and 1 jeep;

Mushengzhong will never forget that when the road was quickly built to Wudaoliang, there was a serious shortage of funds. Along the way, there were Tanggula locked in ice and snow, and the rocky Gangdise gorge. These were hard bones to chew, and they were in urgent need of the support of engineers and auto soldiers. When Mu Shengzhong went to Beijing for the third time to ask for help from general manager Peng, general manager Peng said quickly, don't disturb the prime minister this time. You can give whatever you need and how much you need. General manager Peng met Mu Shengzhong's request of giving 2 million yuan, 1000 engineers and 100 cars. At the same time, general manager Peng gave Mu Shengzhong the opportunity to build the tunge highway and expand the Qinghai Tibet highway It's a new task.

Who will be sent to accomplish this mission? Mu Shengzhong has chosen Qi natural. Qi natural was a major general and division commander of Hu zongnan of the Kuomintang. He led the uprising after the war of liberation. In 1951, shortly after he came to Tibet with the northwest detachment led by Mu Shengzhong, he went to the Xi'an Office of the Tibet working committee to be responsible for purchasing materials for Tibet. Through his hands, he purchased a large number of medicines, cloth, silk, machinery and other goods, which made a certain contribution to stabilizing the situation in Tibet soon after its peaceful liberation. In 1953, he was transferred to the Tibet camel transportation Corps led by Mu Shengzhong. He had traveled all over Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, bought more than 11400 camels, and served as the leader of the second brigade. He led camel workers to rush thousands of bags of grain, making contributions to Tibet's victory over the extraordinary period. In 1954, Mu Shengzhong led the construction of the Qinghai Tibet highway, and Qi natural was arranged to be the station master of the Kekexili grain transfer station, where the conditions were difficult. He worked very well and was deeply trusted by Mu Shengzhong.

When Mu Shengzhong asked Qi natural gas to complete the task of building the tungge highway entrusted by general manager Peng, Qi natural gas issued a military order: even if there is a sea of fire, I will break through. I will never delay the Qinghai Tibet highway. I will work hard to complete the glorious and arduous task of building the tungge highway entrusted by general manager Peng.

Soon after, Qi Ran Ran Ran took four people and a car to Dunhuang by way of Xining and Lanzhou. They hired more than 40 local migrant workers and began to explore and repair the tungge highway in early November 1954. They cut through the thorns all the way, shoveled the slope and filled the ditch, and broke into the Chaerhan Salt Lake, but they were stopped by the cave area.

Under the hard salt cover, there are numerous caves with narrow top and wide bottom. The caves are formed by the infiltration of underground fresh water into Hubei and the dissolution of rock salt. They are shaped like trumpets with big heads facing down. With a steel drill down a plug, not to the end, brine at least more than 3 meters deep. If the car accidentally falls into a cave trap, it can't do anything. People can't do anything about it. There is neither stone nor sand on the salt lake. What can we do to fill these caves? Qi Ran Ran Ran, with a crowbar, knocked and poked in the East and the west, and even lifted a hard salt cap more than 30 cm thick. This made him suddenly open. Can we fill these caves by taking the salt cap on the spot? At the end of the road, people's spirit came again. They chose a zone with few karst caves, carried large salt caps on their backs, and built a salt covered subgrade. The car drove safely through the karst cave area more than a mile wide. "We win," people cheered