For 9 hours, the flood roared past, but 7-year-old Jiang Shan still hugged the tree tightly.
Until armed police soldier Wang Minghua and his comrades arrived in a rescue assault boat and picked her up on the assault boat.
On the assault boat, Xiao Jiangshan's body and limbs were still in the stiff posture of hugging a tree for a long time.
After 28 years, the Yangtze River is still the Yangtze River, but little Jiangshan back then has become a people's policeman.
On October 19, the opening ceremony of the online themed publicity event "Why China Shocks the World" was held in Yichang, Hubei. In the narrative of "Children of Xiajiang", Jiang Shan once again meets Wang Minghua, the armed police soldier who rescued her. Wang Minghua is now the senior sergeant of the Economic Investigation Corps of the Hubei Provincial Public Security Department. The two people who became peers stood side by side and saluted together. This scene brought tears to the eyes of many people in the audience.
At the show, Jiang Shan said: "I want to say to my grandmother in heaven, my deceased relatives, fellow villagers, and the soldiers who sacrificed their lives. The Three Gorges Dam has been built, and now we are no longer afraid of floods."
"The uncle with the five-pointed star will come"
Even after 28 years, Jiang Shan still chokes up when recalling that summer night.
August 1, 1998, Jiayu, Hubei Province, Yanzhou Bay.
This place, known as "the first bay of the Yangtze River in thousands of miles", has come to an end.
The water doesn't rise slowly, it's like a wall standing up, chasing people.
Grandma dragged Jiang Shan towards the river embankment, picked her up halfway, threw her towards a tall poplar tree by the roadside, carried her up with her feet, and hugged the trunk of the tree herself.
The old man left only one sentence to his granddaughter: hold tight and don't let go. At dawn, the uncle wearing the five-pointed star will come.
The tree did not survive until daybreak before being overturned by the water. Grandma and grandson sank together. She choked on the water, and stepped on the sand under her feet. She floated up, and there was only a piece of yellow soup in front of her eyes, and her grandma was gone. She was scratching in the water, and the back of her head hit something hard. When she looked back, she saw the top of another poplar tree. She rushed towards him and hugged him.
This hug lasted for 9 hours. Her arms were so numb that she had no feeling, so she rested her chin on the treetop for a while, not daring to close her eyes. Debris was wrapped in the water, and it was knocked over one by one. Xiao Jiangshan's cry for help gradually became fainter, and then only the sound of water was left.
It was dawning, and the sound of the motor of the assault boat was approaching. Wang Minghua from the Hubei Provincial Fire Corps of the Armed Police saw the small shadow on the No. 2 boat. He leaned against it four times before leaning on it. Finally, he bent down and carried her into the cabin.
It wasn't until an uncle put a white vest on her that she realized she had survived.
The water took away five of Jiang Shan's relatives, including the grandmother who carried her up the tree. She was sent to the orphanage. Zhang Gaogao, deputy commander of the rescue commando team, and Wang Minghua, who rescued her, came to see her and brought schoolbags and stationery.
For many years after that, the words "Girl Hugging a Tree" followed her like a shadow: an honor and a wound. She was afraid that others would ask about that night over and over again, and she was even more afraid that she would not do well in the exam and be sorry for the concern of so many people.
She had buried a sentence in her heart long ago: When she grows up, she should be like them.
When I grow up, I will become you
In 2011, Jiang Shan was admitted to Zhengzhou Railway Police College. After graduating in June 2014, the civil service exam results were released two months later. She was assigned to the Xiangyang Public Security Division of the Wuhan Railway Public Security Bureau and became a police officer at the Yingcheng Station Police Station.
The small station is not big, and most of the tourists are people who go out to make a living carrying woven bags. She stayed there for ten years, rising from police officer to deputy director.
In December 2019, there was an earthquake in Yingcheng with a magnitude of 4.9. Jiang Shan, who had already returned home from get off work, handed her child over to her family, ran back to the station, and helped stranded passengers in the waiting hall. In February 2020, when the epidemic was at its peak, she asked Zhan to go to the goods yard of Tianmen Station and stayed with her colleagues for a whole day. All 606 tons of frozen pork and vegetables were distributed on the same day.
In the past ten years, she has coaxed many other people's children: those who were lost, those who had a high fever and were looking for their mother, and those who ran away from home in anger. The children all call her "loving mother".
She said, "Although my personal energy is limited, I will persevere and work hard in my ordinary position, try my best to help more people in need, and let the love I receive pass on."
On January 15, 2021, Jiang Shan reunited with her benefactor at the recording site of CCTV's "The Echo". Wearing a police uniform, she burst into tears when she saw Uncle Wang Minghua who had saved her again: "I have not let you down, I am already a people's policeman."
From then on, she would always call Uncle Wang during every New Year and holiday. In her heart, Uncle Wang is a family member, a comrade-in-arms, and a mentor.
From being guarded to being a guardian
In August 2025, Jiang Shan left the platform of the small station and went to work in the Youth League Committee of Wuhan Railway Public Security Bureau, in charge of the Communist Youth League and mental health services. The bureau has invited more than 50 psychology experts from universities, hospitals, and the public security system to form a service team; the public account has opened a "Police Camp Heart Bridge" column, and the service center website has received more than 15,000 visits; the team has visited the grassroots level 12 times, and a mental health counselor training system has been set up for new police training. She also stood on the podium, as a member of the first propaganda team of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee Lecture Team, and talked about her origins. The title is "In the Name of Love" and the subtitle is "Spiritual inheritance from the protected to the guardian".
Every Qingming Festival, she takes her husband and daughter back to Yanzhou Bay. In the Martyrs Cemetery in Zhongbao Village, nineteen tombstones are neatly lined up, where the young officers and soldiers who failed to come back that night sleep. The two poplar trees at the entrance of the village grow taller than the roof. The villagers privately call them "Jiangshan tree" and "Jiangshan tree".
She told her daughter about the martyrs and about the tree. There is a painting on the wall of a Zodiac approaching a tree.
On National Day this year, the waiting halls of several train stations in Wuhan were so crowded that I couldn’t even walk. Jiang Shan walked through the crowd, listening to the sound of rollers, laughter, and radio. She said that seeing thousands of families reunited was the greatest happiness.
At the opening ceremony of the online themed publicity event "Why China Shocks the World", Jiang Shan said that over the years, she was actually not used to facing the camera because every time she mentioned events from the past, she would think of her family members who had passed away. But someone told her that she came here to tell everyone that because of the Three Gorges Dam, such a disaster would never happen again.
"Uncle Wang Minghua and the poplar tree saved me back then. Now with the support of the country, I have become a people's policeman like Uncle Wang. The sapling that was once swaying in the torrent has grown into a big poplar tree that can protect the people."
The rivers are flowing and the poplars are evergreen. The sons and daughters of Xiajiang have given this river warmth with their protection and response from generation to generation. The little girl who hugged the tree has now become the person who protects the lights of thousands of families; the little girl who hugged the tree has now become the person who protects the lights of thousands of families, just like the "Uncle Pentagram" who saved her.
The life that has been protected will eventually become the new guardian.
