“I’m asking, what are you trying to make us do?”
Li Minsheng went silent and bowed his head under the captain’s fiery stare.
The captain turned toward the crowd. “Brothers, they want us to blow up the tunnels!” he shouted. There was a moment of commotion among the miners, but a wall of armed police came forward in a semicircle to block the crowd from reaching the trucks. But the police line distorted under the pressure of the surging black human sea, until it was at the breaking point. All of this took place in a heavy silence, with the scuffle of footsteps and clack of gun bolts the only sounds. At the last moment, the crowd ceased its tumult as the director and mine head stepped up onto the bed of one of the trucks.
“I started work in this mine when I was fifteen. Are you just going to destroy it?” shouted one old miner. The wrinkles carved into his face were visible even beneath the thick cover of coal dust.
“What are we going to live on after it’s closed?”
“Why are you blowing it up?”
“Life in the mine was difficult enough without you all messing around.”
The crowd exploded, waves of anger surging ever fiercer over the sea of coal-blackened faces flashing white teeth. The director waited silently until the crowd’s anger turned to restless movement, then, when it was just about to get out of control, he spoke.
“Take a look in that direction,” he said, pointing to a small rise near the mine entrance. His voice was not loud, but it quieted the angry storm, and everyone looked where he was pointing.
“We all call that the old coal column, but do you realize that when it was erected, it wasn’t a column, but a huge cube of coal? That was in the Qing Dynasty, more than a hundred years ago, when Governor Zhang Zhidong erected it at the founding of the mine. A century of wind and rain have weathered it into a column. Our mine has weathered so much wind and rain during that century, so many difficulties and disasters, more than anyone can remember. That’s more than a brief moment, comrades. That’s four or five generations! If there’s nothing else we’ve learned or remembered over the past century, then we must remember this—”
The director raised his hands toward the sea of faces.
“The sky won’t fall!”
The crowd stood frozen. It seemed as if even their breathing had ceased.
“Out of all of China’s industrial workers, all of its proletariat, none has a longer history than us. None has a history with more hardship and tumult than ours. Has the sky fallen for miners? No! That all of us can stand here and look at that old coal column is proof of that. Our sky won’t fall. It never did, and it never will!
“Hardship? There’s nothing new about that, comrades. When have we miners ever had it easy? From the time of our ancestors, when have miners ever had an easy day in their lives? Rack your brains: Of all the industries and all the professions in China and the rest of the world, are any of them harder than ours? None. None at all. What’s new about hardship? If it were easy, now that would be surprising. We’re holding up both the sky and the earth! If we feared hardship, we’d have died out long ago.
“But talented people have been thinking of solutions for us as society and science have advanced. Now we have a solution, one that has the hope of totally transforming our lives, bringing us out of the dark mines and into the sun to mine coal beneath blue skies! Miners will have the world’s most enviable job. This hope has now arrived. Don’t take my word for it, but look at the pillars of fire shooting skyward in the south valley. But these efforts have caused a catastrophe. We will explain all of this in detail later. Right now all you need to understand is that this may be the very last hardship for miners. This is the price for our wonderful tomorrow. So let’s stand together and face it. As so many generations have before—again, the sky hasn’t fallen!”
The crowd dispersed in silence. Liu Xin said to the director, “I’ve known you and my father, and I can die without regret.”
“Act, and think of nothing else,” the director said, clapping Liu Xin on the shoulder, then gripped him in an embrace.
The day after demolition work commenced on Shaft No. 4, Liu Xin and Li Minsheng walked side by side through the main tunnel, their footsteps echoing emptily. They were passing the first blast area, and in the dim light of their headlamps, they could see the boreholes densely distributed in the high ceiling, and the colorful waterfall of detonation wires streaming toward a pile on the floor.
Li Minsheng said, “I used to hate the mine. Hate it, because it consumed my youth. But now I realize that I’ve become one with it. Hate it or love it, it’s what my youth was.”
“We shouldn’t torture ourselves,” Liu Xin said. “We’ve done something with our lives, at least. If we’re not heroes, then at least we’ve gone down fighting.”
They fell silent, realizing that they were talking about death.
Then Aygul ran up, breathing hard. “Engineer Li, look at that,” he said, pointing at the ceiling. A few thick canvas hoses, used for ventilating the mine, were now limp and slack.
Li Minsheng blanched. “Shit! When was ventilation cut off?”
“Two hours ago.”
Li Minsheng barked into his radio, and soon the chief of ventilation and two ventilation engineers showed up.
“There’s no way to restore ventilation, Engineer Li. All of the equipment from down below—blowers, motors, anti-explosion switches, and even some pipes—have been taken out!” the ventilation chief said.
“You fucking idiot! Who told you to take them out? Are you fucking suicidal?” Li Minsheng shouted, far past caring about decorum or professionalism.
“Engineer Li, watch your language. Do you know who told us? The director expressly said for us to take out as much equipment as possible before the shaft is sealed. We all were at the meeting. We’ve been working day and night for two days and have taken out more than a million yuan worth of equipment. And now you’re cursing at us? What’s the point of ventilation anyway when the shaft’s going to be sealed?”
Li Minsheng let out a long sigh. The truth of the situation had still not been disclosed, leading to this kind of coordination issue.
“What’s the problem?” Liu Xin asked after the ventilation staff had left. “Shouldn’t the ventilation be stopped? Won’t that reduce the supply of oxygen to the mine?”
“Dr. Liu, you’re a theoretical giant but a practical dwarf. You’re clueless in the face of reality. Like Engineer Li said, you only know how to dream!” Aygul said. He had not spoken courteously to Liu Xin since the fire had started.
Li Minsheng explained, “This coal seam has a high incidence of gas. Once ventilation is shut off, the gas will quickly accumulate at the bottom of the shaft, and when the fire gets here, it may touch off an explosion powerful enough to blow out the seal. At the very least it will blow out new channels for oxygen. There’s no choice but to add another blast area.”
“But Engineer Li, the two areas above us are only half done, and the third hasn’t even started. The fire is nearing the southern mining zone; there might not even be enough time to complete three zones.”
“I…” Liu Xin said carefully. “I have an idea that may or may not work.”
“Ha!” Aygul laughed coldly. “This is unprecedented. When has Dr. Liu ever been uncertain? When has Dr. Liu ever had to ask someone else before making a decision?”
“What I mean is that we’ve got a blast zone already set up at this deep point. Can we detonate it first? That way, if there’s an explosion farther down the shaft, there will be one obstacle, at least.”
“If that worked we would have done it already,” Li Minsheng said. “The blast will be large enough to fill the tunnels with toxic gas and dust that won’t disperse for a long time, impeding further work in the tunnels.”