At this time, the surveying and planning of the Lanqing line was also commenced. In the early spring, Tibet was still pure white all around, with ice everywhere, and Mu Shengzhong took Cao Ruzhen with him to Lanzhou City, along the Tanggula Road of those years, entering Xining City, across Huangyuan, crossing Riyue Mountain, and they took a winding route through their surveying journey. We arrived at where Princess Wencheng smashed the mirror, in a place that did not face Chang'an.[1] A road continued upstream to the old Tangbo Road, heading South, through Gonghe County, passing Madoi County, entering Yushu Prefecture, crossing over the Tanggula Mountains at the Qinghai-Tibetan border, arriving at Sog County in Nyainrong, finally entering Heihe City, which was at the time the seat of the general administration of the Tibetan North, later following the Nyenchenthanglha mountains and the Damxung grass plains straight to Lhasa, this was an ancient road interspersed with rest stations, and, in the old days, everyone coming from the northwest into Tibet came via this route.
However, Mu Shengzhong, standing on top of Riyue Mountain, gazed out in the direction of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, and said, waving a hand, "North of Qinghai Lake!"
Cao Ruzhen looked at the map, and asked, astonished, "General Mu, this means that the railway must go through Delingha, starting from Baili Salt Lake."
"Indeed!" Mu Shengzhong nodded his head, "Cao, since the highway is already completed, the highway should support the railway."
Cao Ruzhen admired the General's strategic vision, yet he was not without worries, as passing through Delingha, there was the enormous Tsaidam Basin. The Kunlun Mountains and the Tanggula Mountains still stretched out in front, and this was the foremost challenge for the railway's line selection, regrettably, the first time he arrived at Qinghai-Tibet, the road ahead was clear, and he did not know what the meaning of waiting for his group would be.
They arrived at Xiangride, and the sky gradually became dark. A dry north wind swept across a sky full of flying snow, occasionally blowing through the door-flap of the newly erected tent, Mu Shengzhong's driver and guard collected dried cow dung and made it into a powder, using a firestick to ignite it. In a pot, noodles cooked with a hiss—the elevation of Riyue Mountain was already more than 3,000 meters above sea level, and without a high pressure pot, it was very hard to boil. The guard wrenched the lid off a military use kettle, and gave it to General Mu Shengzhong.
"Have a sip!" Mu Shengzhong had a mouthful, and gave the alcohol flask to Cao Ruzhen, saying, "warm yourself up."
Cao Ruzhen shook his head, "General, the doctor said no drinking on the plateau."
"And you believe that fool." Mu Shengzhong showed his military coarseness, "if you don't drink on the plateau, how can you call yourself a man? Drink!"
"Fine then, let's drink!" Cao Ruzhen was infected by the general's boldness, and a manly courage mixed with the line selection engineer's distance and rigour, and he raised his head to take a sip, coughing dryly.
Mu Shengzhong, lying on the bedding, laughed a great laugh: "Good form. If you've had the first mouthful, you'll have the thousandth mouthful, the ten thousandth mouthful, and you'll be able to become the god of alcohol."
Liu Deji and Wang Lijie also began to drink.
"General Mu, for a long time I haven't been able to understand, when you first picked the route for the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, why did you go for the harder route when there was an easier one available. Instead of going along the ancient Tangbo road, you went through Qinghai and Hubei, through the Tsaidam Basin, into Kunlun, and across the Tanggula Mountains."
"Haha, Cao, during the day I saw you knitting your eye-brows, I know you wanted to ask me." Mu Shengzhong touched a mouthful of alcohol to his lips, "in fact, what is now the Qinghai-Tibet Highway was a caravan track, and in those years, when Mongolian lamas came to Tibet to study the Buddhist sutras, they all set off from there. In 1950, as a political commissar of the Northwest Working Committee when it entered Tibet, I took several thousand camels along the Tangbo Road, via which Princess Wencheng entered Tibet, the terrain was comparatively flat, but there were too many swamps, so naturally it was not convenient to go by car."
Cao Ruzhen finally understood why General Mu had abandoned the ancient Tangbo road, and chosen a route through the wilds of Kunlun.
"General Mu, reportedly during the route for the Qinghai-Tibet Highway was being chosen, the troops under your command respected your exhortations, crossing Kunlun in a rubber-tired cart, across the Tanggula Mountains?"
Mu Shengzhong shook his head: "Taking a rubber-tired cart across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was not originally my idea, that should be credited to Marshal Peng Dehuai. In the winter of 1953, when marshal Peng returned from Korea, at that time, I held posts both as the Tibetan Transport Committee's political commissar, at the same time, administering the Northwest and Tibetan working committees. We had 26,000 camels, however, the first time they were sent from the Northwest to Tibet to return some goods, more than half of them died. I said to Peng that the Sichuan-Tibet road is under repairs and not taking traffic, it's not going to work if the Northwest is relying only on camels for transport of goods, we need a highway, I'll go up the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in a wooden cart, to investigate whether or not a highway could be built on the wasteland, directly to Lhasa. Peng said, ok, but if you take an ox-cart up on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, no one would believe it. However, if you were to go up in a rubber-tired horse cart, after the rubber-tired cart had gone, a truck could be driven. I suddenly had a flash of insight."
"General Mu, did you also go like this that time?" Cao Ruzhen asked sincerely.