Wu Qingxin, captain of the champion surveying team

　　At the end of July, the Transportation Company of China Construction Seventh Engineering Division held its first surveying technology competition. Twelve teams and 42 contestants from the company took part, and after intense competition, the surveying team of the Zheng-Deng Project Section II achieved the best overall score.

　　Speaking about winning first place in the surveying competition, Wu Qingxin, captain of the Zheng-Deng Section II surveying team, summed it up: “Actually, we are all veteran surveyors. In an on-site competition, as long as there is enough time, anyone can complete the surveying task. What matters is who can finish most accurately in the shortest time.”

　　Shedding Sweat on the Passionate Construction Site

　　The Zhengzhou-Dengfeng reconstruction and expansion project undertaken by the Transportation Company, comprising Sections I, II and III, involves high investment and a large scale. It is a key project of the engineering bureau and also a key construction project of Henan Province. Because of its high technical content, great construction difficulty and short construction period, and because it connects Zhengzhou with the famous tourist destination Shaolin Temple, it has a very high social impact and has attracted widespread attention from the company and all sectors of society. Therefore, the entire project department is filled with passion to build this road well and give the people of Henan a satisfactory answer. As a member of the project department, in order to carry out monitoring, measurement and control of the road surface and bridges, Wu Qingxin led the surveying team to stay on site almost all day, carefully studying the construction drawings, strictly preventing and controlling issues, and ensuring on-site construction quality.

　　The surveying team is like a ruler: their data are needed before construction begins, their inspection is needed during construction, and their measurement is needed after construction. Unlike the engineering department, where each person is responsible for a section of road or bridge, they must be familiar with the data for the entire section and grasp the construction progress of the whole project. Therefore, every day they shuttle back and forth across the site. Section II of the Zheng-Deng project is 13 kilometers long in total, and Wu Qingxin leads his team to measure it on foot with surveying instruments every day. “Although I have been doing surveying for more than ten years, when I get back every day I am so tired that my bones feel scattered, and I really want to lie in bed,” said Fang Kuiwu, a technical backbone of the surveying team. “But I still have to get up and recheck the data measured that day and learn some new surveying techniques. This is not only to improve our surveying level, but also to confirm the accuracy of the measured data.”

　　Experience is the foundation, and responsibility is the guarantee. In engineering construction, even a slight deviation in survey data may cause serious accidents and bring huge losses to the enterprise. In his work, Wu Qingxin carefully studies every step and every set of data, measures precisely and records promptly. In order to provide first-hand reference materials for engineering construction, he combined various curve parameters with his own experience and successfully compiled a series of simple and practical calculation programs. The programs produce accurate survey results, are easy to operate and highly practical, further improving construction progress. In his spare time, Wu Qingxin often takes a data record book back and forth to the site to continuously recheck survey data, striving for absolute accuracy.

　　“Measuring” Life Without Regret

　　For the technical competition held by the company, the surveying team of the Zheng-Deng Section II project department sent three people. Captain Wu Qingxin is 38 this year and has been doing surveying for 15 years; surveying engineer Fang Kuiwu is 32 and has also been surveying for 10 years; and new trainee Yang Fan is a post-90s generation member. Xu Jichao, deputy general manager of the Transportation Company and commander of the Zheng-Deng project, introduced: “This is a stable and efficient team, combining old, middle-aged and young members, and it has made great contributions to the company's road and bridge business. I just feel that we owe them too much in their personal lives.”

　　Captain Wu Qingxin was found to have a kidney stone during the company's physical examination last year, fully 2.2 centimeters in size. Doctors explained that once a stone exceeds 1.5 centimeters, laser lithotripsy cannot be used, and the stone can only be removed through surgery. But Wu Qingxin said that if he had surgery, it would take at least two or three months before he could get out of bed, so how would the work get done?

　　Wu Qingxin endured the pain and insisted on going to the site every day. In the morning, before dawn had fully broken, he hurried to the site, opened the tripod, mounted the level, observed data sample points through the eyepiece, and from time to time directed his teammates marking points: “Move 0.2 millimeters to the left, move 0.2 millimeters to the right……” In this way, one point, two points…… they found each of the different required positioning points.

　　Fang Kuiwu said: “Now when I see a nail tied with a red string, I unconsciously want to test it with my foot to see whether it is a centerline nail. I just want to protect it and not let anyone touch it, as if it were an occupational habit.”

　　The surveying team's work is hard. They are on the site every day and are especially afraid of wind and rain. When the wind blows, yellow sand fills the sky and stones fly. The person observing through the eyepiece and the person finding points are often far apart and must shout loudly to hear each other, and at such times they often get a mouthful of sand. Sometimes, when smacking their lips in the middle of the night, they can pick small grains of sand from between their teeth. Running around the site, especially in summer, they sweat a lot, and their clothes are always wet and then dry, dry and then wet. The water they bring is basically finished in less than half the morning. When it rains during field work, there is simply nowhere to take shelter, so they can only get wet. Fang Kuiwu said: “That's fine too. It has built us healthy bodies. We rarely catch colds. We are only worried that the new trainees won't be able to stand it.”

　　Not many new trainees doing surveying stick with it; most are frightened off by this high-intensity work. But Yang Fan has persisted and is doing very well. As his mentor, Wu Qingxin speaks highly of him. “Among today's post-90s generation, people who can endure such hardship are rare,” Wu Qingxin said.

　　Looking back on their surveying careers over the years, Wu Qingxin and the others feel no regret. Fang Kuiwu said: “I feel steady when I hold a surveying instrument. People say that half the work in road and bridge construction is measured out. Seeing roads and bridges completed one after another really makes my heart glad.”

　　Road and bridge projects are comprehensive system engineering with complex technology and high construction precision requirements, which requires them to be measuring, checking and observing at all times. They are like the GPS positioning devices in their hands, constantly positioning the coordinates of the entire project and guiding each construction task of the project.

　　Within this surveying team, surveying work has not only allowed them to measure the technical indicators of road and bridge construction, but also to measure the youth and lack of regret of these people, and even more to measure their life value and a different kind of life.