Visiting the Frontier in the New Era | Northern Border Outpost: The Colors of Perseverance
Northern Border Outpost: The Colors of Perseverance
■ Li Xiaojian, Long Xitao, PLA Daily Reporter Bi Xiaotian
Editor's Note
Early summer. The China-Mongolia border. Gale-force winds sweep sand and gravel across the Gobi.
The Haritaolagai Outpost of the Northern Theater Command Army is the most forward garrison point in New Barag Right Banner. The ground here is covered in broken rock and saline-alkali soil; gray-brown is the most common color.
Every summer, newly assigned recruits, led by veteran soldiers, swing pickaxes into the sand and gravel to dig tree pits, then plant poplar saplings with their own hands. In the days that follow, whenever a recruit stands beneath a tree and looks up, he always recalls what the old squad leader said: a tree is like a man, and a man is like a tree — only by putting down deep roots can one draw strength from this land.
Year after year, on the open wasteland, the iron pickaxes keep swinging and the green keeps spreading. What the soldiers plant is not only trees, but also a kind of vigil (守望) — a vigil over the national territory beneath their feet, and over a tomorrow that grows better with each passing day. When one poplar after another joins into a green barrier, when one young face after another sheds its rawness in the shade of those trees, this stretch of Gobi acquires stubborn dreams and the full spectrum of youth.
At this northern border outpost, the colors of perseverance have never been monotonous: "Gobi brown" is the base color of the road that brought them here; "rooted green" is the declaration of growth; "dry-branch plum red (干枝梅红)" is the banner of faith. Those kaleidoscopic dreams — trodden into footprints, hidden beneath tree shade, reflected in young eyes — are being written, stroke by stroke, as an unyielding youth inscribed into the nation's borderlands.
[Caption: Recruits admiring flowers.]
[Caption: Recruits planting greenery with their own hands.]
From "Gobi Brown" to "Rooted Green" ——
Plant a Sapling, Plant a Youth's Vow
The vehicle jolted along the Gobi road for an entire day. When the silhouette of Haritaolagai Outpost emerged in the distance, recruit Hu Lezhi instinctively tightened his grip on his pack straps.
Outside the window stretched a wasteland with no visible end — no trees, no buildings. Birds occasionally swept across the sky, giving this young man raised in the city his first real sense of the desolation and solitude of the frontier.
There were no trees as he had imagined, only wind and sand whirling with gravel. Standing on the watchtower and gazing out, the border defense line in the distance appeared and disappeared in the wasteland. In the morning he woke to a layer of fine sand on his blanket; after training he returned with yellow sand packed into his collar; at night he lay down to the howl of the wind.
"For dozens of kilometers in every direction there is no sign of human habitation, and the mobile signal is often not at full bars," he wrote in his diary. "That feeling of being cut off from the world is more corrosive to the bone than the wind and sand."
Nineteen-year-old Hu Lezhi was nearly broken. At night he curled up in his bedding thinking of home; during the day his mind wandered during training, and he would unconsciously gaze into the distance and sigh: "Two years to get through here — how am I going to do it?" All of this was noticed by Staff Sergeant Second Class Zheng Binheng. One morning, Zheng handed Hu Lezhi a pickaxe, its head worn to a bright sheen: "Come on, let's go plant trees."
This is a tradition the outpost has maintained for many years — every early summer, recruits must plant a poplar sapling with their own hands. Over the years, generation after generation of officers and soldiers have managed to plant more than a hundred trees in this barren, saline-alkali Gobi soil. Zheng Binheng told Hu Lezhi that on this impoverished land, every trace of green has been wrested from nature by force.
Zheng Binheng swung the pickaxe; sparks flew where the tip struck the gravel. He raised his voice: "When I first enlisted I was just like you — I couldn't take the hardship. The squad leader told me that the trees able to put down roots in the northern borderlands all have a stubborn streak; the harsher the conditions, the more tenaciously they must grow. That refusal to be beaten — that is our base color."
Refusing to be beaten starts with digging a proper tree pit. Hu Lezhi followed the squad leader's example, swinging the pickaxe into the gravel until his arms were too sore to lift. He seemed to grasp something of the stubbornness required to take root in the Gobi.
Not long after, a sudden gale swept through the outpost, knocking the newly planted saplings every which way. The soldiers fought through the wind and sand to save them. Hu Lezhi knelt on the ground and carefully straightened each sapling, repacking and tamping the soil. He murmured to the sapling: "Brother, we both have to hold on."
When the wind died down, Zheng Binheng looked at the saplings standing upright again and clapped Hu Lezhi on the shoulder: "If the trees can get through it, why can't we?" Those words were like a stone dropped into a lake, sending ripple after ripple through Hu Lezhi's heart.
That night, moonlight fell on the wall and Hu Lezhi lay awake. The next day he wrote a wish plaque — "Wind and sand cannot knock me down; my original aspiration will never shift (风沙吹不倒，初心永不移)" — and solemnly tied it to his own rooted tree. From that day on he seemed like a different person: he voluntarily added physical training sessions, eagerly took on guard and sentry duties, and his sun-darkened face regained its smile and spirit.
The recruits who had just arrived at the unit each had their own hardships and joys: Yang Wenbin had been taciturn when he first came and was now talkative and cheerful; Feng Minze dug tree pits until blisters bled, wrapped them in gauze, and kept going. Through the grinding, they gradually found their own rhythm of taking root: they no longer wrinkled their noses when picking up black soil mixed with sheep dung, and the days of perseverance were no longer dreary.
Behind every stubborn tree on the Gobi stands a story of perseverance. When the spring breeze blows, the wish plaques on the trees flutter and speak the recruits' youthful vows — Yang Wenbin wrote "Understand the meaning of guarding the border"; Feng Minze wrote "Guard the northern gateway." Sunlight falls on the leaves, and the dappled shadows on the ground trace the outlines of hearts committed to holding fast.
[Caption: Officers and soldiers patrolling through the snow.]
[Caption: Ma Dengguo gazing into the distance from a hillside outside the garrison compound.]
From "Dry-Branch Plum Red" to "Unit-Soul Red" ——
Be a Plum That Defies the Snow, Carve the Vow into the Earth
The trees adapted to the environment, and the men, too, were tempered through hardship and solitude. Staff Sergeant First Class Ma Dengguo has guarded the border for more than ten years; every landmark along the patrol route has been carved into his memory. He says: "A person is like a tree — only by driving one's roots deep into the earth can one extend one's branches toward the sky."
Ma Dengguo also went through the confusion of being a new recruit. From confusion to conviction — in his view, that journey is the most precious gift a border defender's life can offer.
More than ten years ago, the outpost environment was even more desolate. When winter storms came, the soldiers patrolled on horseback, stamping the tracks of perseverance through a sea of snow. In those days the outpost had no continuous electricity; through the long nights, everyone took turns recounting books they had read and telling stories from their hometowns. When the stories ran out and the memories were exhausted, they would sit together and count the stars against the canopy of sky.
Even monotonous days had their color. On one patrol, Ma Dengguo spotted a dry-branch plum (干枝梅) in the snow — standing alone on the white expanse, its branches dotted with flecks of crimson. In the bitter cold season when nothing else grew, it bloomed defiantly. An old soldier told him that the dry-branch plum always blossoms in wind and snow, bringing a splash of brightness to a monotonous world.
Ma Dengguo stopped and bent down to look at the plant, and a warmth welled up inside him. He recalled what an old soldier had said before leaving the service: "Don't let the hardship here fool you — this place is a furnace that tempers people. Hold this place, and you can bear any difficulty that comes after." He understood then that the dry-branch plum of the Gobi also possesses a character of tenacity.
That year, after Ma Dengguo — by then promoted to non-commissioned officer — had finished planting trees with the new recruits, the political instructor asked everyone to write a message on their wish plaques. He thought of that dry-branch plum, picked up his pen, and wrote: "Be a 'Xu Sanduo (许三多)' with a clear conscience. Only through perseverance in holding fast does youth have meaning."
Soldier's Assault (《士兵突击》) is Ma Dengguo's favorite military drama. He resolved to learn from Xu Sanduo — the character who built a road all by himself — and on every patrol he collected Gobi stones of regular shape and uniform size, arranging them on the hillside across from the garrison compound to form a large-scale motivational inscription.
On every patrol rest stop he would rummage through rock crevices, stuffing stones into his pack to carry back to the outpost. In his spare time he climbed the hillside across the way, carefully selecting Gobi stones. He felt the process was also a way of tempering his own character: "Carve your footprints into the patrol road; carve your time into the stones."
When the political instructor learned of Ma Dengguo's idea, he immediately provided "fire support." After discussion by the whole company and approval from higher authorities, they decided to arrange the stones on the hillside to form the border-defense vow: "Never forget our original aspiration; always remember our mission (不忘初心，牢记使命)."
One man's persistence quietly became the shared pursuit of his comrades. More and more soldiers spontaneously helped Ma Dengguo collect stones. When the eight large characters of "Never forget our original aspiration; always remember our mission" were laid out on the hillside, the soldiers discussed and agreed to paint them the red of the dry-branch plum, so the vow would stand out more boldly. From that point on, the vow and the spirit of the dry-branch plum became inseparably linked, becoming the spiritual symbol of the outpost.
From the red of the dry-branch plum to the red that is now the unit's soul (连魂), that shade of red has always been engraved in the hearts of the officers and soldiers.
During a company-organized armed five-kilometer cross-country run, Zheng Binheng suddenly stumbled at the sprint, an old leg injury flaring up. Through the piercing pain his vision began to blur, but those red characters blazed like a flame in his chest, driving him to charge forward with everything he had.
Today, the dry-branch plum has become the symbol of the company's spirit. A cluster of fiery red dry-branch plums is also painted on the company's training honor board, constantly inspiring officers and soldiers to strive boldly and achieve new results.
[Caption: Zheng Binheng (right) leading recruits on duty at the watchtower.]
[Caption: A dry-branch plum displayed in the honors room.]
[Caption: A soldier claims his own rooted tree. Photo by Guo Zeguang.]
From "Wasteland Gray" to "Dream's Full Spectrum" ——
Saplings Grow Toward the Sky; Youth Shoots Up Toward Its Dreams
The May breeze sweeps through the outpost. Sapling after sapling stretches its tender green branches in the wind, the leaves casting a soft luster in the sunlight, a vivid contrast to the surrounding desert. Ma Dengguo is leading a team digging tree pits on the hillside; the crack of pickaxe against ground rings out with particular clarity on the quiet slope. He straightens up and wipes the sweat from his brow.
In that moment, gazing at the rows of poplars, Ma Dengguo falls into a reverie — every leaf seems to be telling the border-defense story of a comrade. Those who once planted trees alongside him: some have completed their service and returned home, some have been transferred to other outposts. Only these trees remain here, keeping him company.
Resting in the shade, Ma Dengguo's mind always circles back to a simple dream: that one day this barren hillside will be covered in lush forest — not only out of a longing for green, but because this land needs trees to hold back the raging wind and sand.
In recent years the outpost's conditions have steadily improved; unmanned aerial vehicles, all-terrain patrol vehicles, and other new equipment have made duty considerably easier. "I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that the border-defense conditions for the company would become this good," said a veteran who had left the service years ago, speaking from the heart during a visit back to the outpost.
When the subject turns to his own dreams, Ma Dengguo's gaze always drifts involuntarily toward the distance. He often tells new recruits: "Every tree is a soldier; a canopy of shade records the story of a group of people taking root, and also embodies the spiritual heritage of an outpost."
On this land, every trace of green is a continuation of life. The officers and soldiers have entrusted their youth and their hopes to this place, living through the cycle year after year.
"Cultivating trees is cultivating people (育树就是育人)." This is a phrase Zheng Binheng always has on his lips. When he was a new recruit, the old squad leader would dig pits and plant trees while passing on the unit's heritage and experience. Now that he has become a backbone soldier, he continues the tradition, though with more varied forms.
Repainting the boundary markers red, red-themed story-sharing sessions, skills competition platforms — these enriched activities inject new vitality into the transmission of heritage, allowing recruits to grow and mature through participation in the outpost's development.
Whenever Zheng Binheng sees recruits gradually mastering the essentials of patrolling, their eyes on duty growing ever more resolute, he breaks into a satisfied smile. His wish today is simple: bring out more good soldiers.
As a soldier brought up by Zheng Binheng, Hu Lezhi's transformation is especially striking. The young man who once frowned at the sight of wind and sand can now skillfully navigate by direction across the Gobi, and his every movement carries a settled composure. Asked about his dreams, Hu Lezhi answers plainly and sincerely: "I just want to be a good soldier."
The disoriented confusion of his first days has long since dissipated, replaced by a clear understanding of the value of holding fast. Hu Lezhi is always talking about skills he wants to sharpen — operating the new patrol equipment, observing key areas, collecting coordinate data — every item committed to memory and turned over repeatedly in his mind.
In the sunlight, Hu Lezhi's smile is especially bright. Behind him stand the comrades who arrived with him; every one of them stands as straight as the poplars they planted with their own hands, together painting a vivid, many-colored picture on the Gobi.
The spring breeze passes through Yumen Pass once more, and the outpost's officers and soldiers continue their daily routine of border patrol and sentry duty, day after day. Only on those slopes that were once barren, the green is expanding, little by little.
When the wind rises, the leaves rustle, as if telling the stories bound up with perseverance. As the old soldiers say: because soldiers hold fast, green has grown across the Gobi in swaths — and the full spectrum of youthful dreams has bloomed there too.