China News Service, Beijing, October 17. Title: "Rescue Pioneer" Wang Xiaocheng: Driving a power boat bridge to transfer trapped teachers and students in Guigang, Guangxi during floods
Reporter Guo Chaokai
In July this year, a school in Guigang, Guangxi was surrounded by floods, and thousands of teachers and students were trapped. Wang Xiaocheng, captain of the first district of the professional squadron of China Energy Bureau Guiyang Rescue Base, led a team to rush to the rescue at starry night, using a powered boat bridge to break through the rapids and evacuate the trapped teachers and students. After this scene was spread on the Internet, it became known to many netizens; and this is not the first time in Wang Xiaocheng's fourteen-year emergency rescue career that he has taken risks like this.
As a front-line force in emergency rescue, Wang Xiaocheng went to the sites of major disasters such as Dongting Lake flood control in Hunan, Hohhot flood control and rescue in Inner Mongolia, and Typhoon Mesak disaster relief in Guangxi. He faced dangers and grew up in the most urgent and dangerous rescue missions.
In 2014, Wang Xiaocheng participated in earthquake rescue and relief in Ludian, Yunnan. Photo courtesy of China Aneng
Ludian fights against danger and goes retrograde in armor
In 2014, 21-year-old Wang Xiaocheng, a first-class non-commissioned officer of the Armed Police Hydropower Corps, took the first step in his emergency career during the earthquake rescue in Ludian, Yunnan. At that time, a strong earthquake caused a mountain collapse, and a high-risk barrier lake in Hongshiyan suddenly formed. The river was cut off and the water level continued to surge. The lives and property of tens of thousands of people downstream were in danger, and a life-or-death rescue was imminent.
After receiving the rescue order, Wang Xiaocheng, who participated in the rescue of a major disaster for the first time, rushed to the disaster area with his team at night and joined the core battlefield of barrier lake rescue. At that time, opening up the rescue channel and sending large machinery to the core area of the barrier was the only way to resolve the danger, and it was also a tough battle against death.
Faced with the crisis, Wang Xiaocheng took the initiative to volunteer and took an excavator on a boat bridge to advance into the dangerous river with turbulent water and dense hidden dangers. When we reached the core area of the river, the mountain suddenly collapsed for a second time. Rocks fell loudly above our heads, and the floods roared beneath our feet. There was no cover to hide, and we were in a desperate situation with no way forward or retreat. At the moment of life and death, he crawled close to the fuselage to avoid danger, gritted his teeth and persisted in the dangerous situation of falling rocks, successfully broke through the barrier between life and death, and successfully broke through the dangerous situation to reach the front line of the operation.
Faced with massive amounts of collapsed rock and soil and rising lake water, Wang Xiaocheng knew that the release channel was the lifeline for the people. Throughout the operation, there were frequent aftershocks, scorching heat, and constant landslides. He always adhered to the most dangerous position, kept a close eye on the mountain dynamics, conducted precise survey and layout, and worked continuously all night long to accurately complete the task of deploying nearly ten tons of explosives, securely organize the evacuation of personnel and equipment, and accurately complete the core blasting operation. He successfully broke through the river blockage and opened a key breakthrough for the danger elimination.
After two days and nights of continuous work, the team excavated a total of 45,000 cubic meters of mud and rock, successfully opened a standard discharge channel and opened a 100-meter flood discharge channel, completely stabilizing the high-risk situation and laying a solid foundation for the safety of the disaster area.
In July 2024, Wang Xiaocheng (first from the right) participated in the rescue and relief work of the Dongting Lake embankment burst in Tuanzhou County, Huarong County, Yueyang County, Hunan Province. Photo courtesy of China Aneng
Conquer Dongting and face danger
"Push forward a few meters, and the people will be able to return home one day earlier." This sentence was the expectation that Wang Xiaocheng kept on his lips when he was fighting on the front line of Dongting emergency rescue.
On July 5, 2024, a breach occurred in the first-line embankment of Dongting Lake in Tuanzhou Village, Huarong County, Yueyang County, Hunan Province. The 226-meter-wide breach caused floods to surge back. Wang Xiaocheng, who was leading a team training in Guanyang, received a rescue order and rushed to the rescue battlefield thousands of miles away at night, taking the initiative to take over key tasks such as road clearance, breach closure, and anti-seepage and breath-holding.
During the rescue, he was always at the forefront of the danger, serving as both a commander and a combatant. He grasped every process of personnel arrangement, sand and gravel filling, and embankment reinforcement, and monitored every detail throughout the process. After many days of high-intensity continuous fighting, the hoarse voice and red bloodshot eyes were the marks of the fierce battle against the flood.
After the breach was closed, the more difficult battle of preventing leakage and holding breath followed one after another. The Tuanzhou Embankment breach has a large span, turbulent underwater flow, and complex topography at the bottom of the embankment. The core geomembrane laying link encountered difficulties: the huge buoyancy of the water flow continuously lifts the membrane body, and it cannot adhere to the underwater embankment slope. Once handled improperly, secondary dangers such as leakage and piping may occur.
Wang Xiaocheng led the team to take root in the embankment, observing the flow direction again and again, repeatedly studying and judging the underwater terrain, and deducing comparison plans over and over again. After countless trials and errors, a set of disposal tactics of "binding steel bar counterweights at the bottom of the geomembrane and gravity traction for precise sinking" gradually took shape. During the first laying operation, huge waves hit the boat bridge. He took the initiative to stand at the forefront and coordinated the division of labor among traction, fixation, placement, and observation. The geomembrane bound with counterweights withstood the buoyancy disturbance and fell smoothly, accurately fitting the underwater dam slope, and successfully overcoming the anti-seepage core stuck point.
After winning the first battle, there was no let-up. He led the team to continue the fierce battle, completing material filling ship by ship, laying geomembrane meter by meter, and strengthening the embankment section by section. While dealing with dangerous situations, he summed up experience and worked together in actual combat, and tempered the team's practical ability to deal with complex dangerous situations in the test of wind and waves. After continuous hard work, the entire set of anti-seepage operations has been implemented to a high standard, and the risk of dam leakage has been completely eliminated, building an underwater "invisible defense line" for the Dongting Lake long embankment.
In July 2026, Wang Xiaocheng (first from right) participated in the transfer of stranded teachers and students of Guangxi Guigang Vocational and Technical College of Logistics. Photo courtesy of China Aneng
Bagui Flood Fighting Ark Benefiting the People
In July 2026, Typhoon Mesak swept across the land of Bagui with heavy rains, and Hengzhou and Guigang suffered severe floods one after another. After receiving the order, Wang Xiaocheng did not hesitate. He immediately led the team to the forefront of the disaster and advanced retrograde towards the dangerous peak of the flood.
As an on-site commander, Wang Xiaocheng knows that blindly rushing in will only increase the danger, and survey and judgment are the prerequisite for all rescue operations. He did not stand behind to make arrangements, but took the lead in stepping into the icy water, sinking his feet into the mud, and inspected the damaged road section by section, marking landslide points and water-damaged gaps.
After understanding the danger, he finalized the rescue plan based on on-site manpower and equipment, and established an operating mechanism of "non-stop personnel, two shifts, and day and night attack". During the day, he monitors the scene to deal with secondary dangers, and late at night repeatedly checks the progress and predicts the risk of landslides. The team members take turns to rest, and he often can only take a short breath. After the team worked hard day and night, a total of 19.2 kilometers of damaged roads were cleared, and 4 damaged bridges were repaired. The remote mountain island that was isolated from the outside world finally ushered in a lifeline.
The rush here has not yet been settled, but there is an urgent danger in Guigang: a school is surrounded by floods, and more than 10,000 teachers and students are trapped in the school, and they urgently need to be safely relocated. With no room for a moment's rest, Wang Xiaocheng suppressed his exhaustion and quickly gathered his team to rush for help at night. The power boat bridge became the core weapon of this large-scale transfer.
Arriving at the outskirts of the school, you can see submerged campus buildings everywhere and undercurrents on the water surface. Once a large-scale transfer is misjudged, it can easily lead to mass injury. Wang Xiaocheng did not dare to be reckless at all. He personally took an assault boat and sailed into the hinterland of stagnant water to find out the water depth and flow rate, and to feel for obstacles such as walls and columns under the drainage.
After the survey, he found that the original single group of pontoon bridges had limited transport capacity, making it difficult to balance efficiency and safety. He decisively suggested dismantling and reorganizing the 6-section pontoon bridge into three groups of independent ferry units, and synchronously deploying assault boats to undertake warning, search and rescue, and guidance on the periphery. A three-dimensional rescue system of "main transfer of large ships and peripheral escort of small ships" was established to maximize transfer efficiency above the bottom line of safety.
At 19:35, Wang Xiaocheng commanded the first group of powered pontoons to break through the rapid flood and sail steadily towards the dormitory area where teachers and students gathered. As the pontoon bridge docked, he saw the children clutching their schoolbags tightly, with a mixture of fear and expectation in their eyes. He quickly stepped forward to help them, and calmly shouted to reassure people: "Don't panic, everyone, we will pick everyone up and evacuate safely."
That night, Wang Xiaocheng led his team to fight continuously and escorted more than 1,000 teachers and students to safety. Taking into account the turbulent floods and poor visibility at night, and to ensure the absolute safety of personnel, the on-site command decided to suspend night operations. Wang Xiaocheng stayed on the front line, monitoring the water conditions and guarding the boat bridge all night long to prepare for subsequent tasks. At dawn the next day, rescue operations began one after another. As the last batch of teachers and students safely entered the resettlement site, he led the team to escort more than 6,000 teachers and students out of danger, and no one was injured.
During his fourteen-year emergency rescue career, the wind and frost have left dark marks on his face, but his eyes have always been firm and determined. From following others in the reverse direction to leading the team as the mainstay, his background as a soldier and his original intention as a party member have never changed. There is no end to protecting the lights of thousands of families. On the journey of emergency rescue, he will still take risks and keep walking.
