Fugitive trail

Author: Yang Zhijun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features:
"By the sun's passage through the heavens, who has ever witnessed such a cruel and avalanche-like death? By the rivers flowing across the earth, who has ever gazed upon such a vast and surging demise of scholars and elites? The heavens themselves cannot bear to hear it. With profound compassion and the courage to contemplate the ultimate meaning of life, the author reveals the little-known historical truths of the life-threatening regions: a Qinghai-Tibetan trail, three camel routes, countless lives forging ahead, traversing the vast deserts, swamps, mirages, ice peaks, and ghost cities, enduring the cataclysms of mountain collapses, sandstorms, whirlwinds, ground heaves, and collapses, pushing beyond the limits of oxygen, cold, hunger, terror, and delirium. Thus, they drank urine and ate earth, bled from every orifice, had limbs frozen, swelled all over, and collapsed from fear—scenery too unbearable to witness; thus, countless deaths from thirst, starvation, illness, fright, falls, asphyxiation, suffocation, exhaustion, and freezing. From the Qinghai Lake grasslands, the Qaidam Basin desert, and the Huangyuan Gorge, to the Tanggula Mountains, the Nianqing Tanggula Mountains, and as far as the Yangtze River's source, over 50,000 camels, more livestock, and an incalculable flow of people left behind endless rows of camel, donkey, yak, horse, and human bones, along with stories that moved people to tears, leaving behind the vast emptiness of life vanishing into the mists, and leaving behind epic sorrow, enlightenment, and lament: Life is higher than history, and also higher than all truths and material gains in the universe. This work follows its emotions with truth, stands tall in its realm, blends history and literature, and can be called a grand, desolate chorus."