At that time, the incident caused quite a stir. Many people were spreading rumors that 723 had dug up something extraordinary in Inner Mongolia. As for what exactly was found, there were more than a dozen versions, and no one could say for sure. For those not involved in the 1962 incident, their understanding usually ended there. What happened afterward was ignored as the “Cultural Revolution” worsened, and no one paid attention anymore. The group of technical personnel who were sent into the mountains by truck were quickly forgotten.

I myself was among those forgotten geological engineering technicians. As I later learned, 723 selected a total of twenty-four people. We were all dispatched according to orders from the military district, setting out from our respective geological exploration teams. We took the train to gather in Jiamusi, with a few going directly to Qiqihar. In those two places, we were loaded onto military trucks and rumbled all the way from Heilongjiang to Inner Mongolia. At first, the trucks drove on highways, but then the route became more and more remote. The last few days of the journey were spent almost entirely on winding mountain roads. Before going, I had no idea what had happened there, but after overhearing some of my companions’ conversations along the way, I sensed that something unusual had indeed occurred in the mountains.

However, our speculations at the time were still within the scope of our profession. Most people thought it might be the discovery of a large oil field. Some veteran comrades who had participated in the Daqing oil field exploration even described it vividly, saying that when Daqing was discovered, it was a similar situation: the exploration team found an oil and gas field, experts were dispatched from all over the country, and after months of discussion and verification, the existence of the Daqing oil field was finally confirmed.

Such talk, despite our doubts, gave us a sense of pride at being chosen.

When the trucks delivered us to the command post of the 723 Geological Engineering Brigade, we immediately realized that things were not as simple as we had imagined. As we got off the trucks, the first thing we saw was a valley filled with rows upon rows of military field tents, large and small, looking like countless burial mounds. It didn’t look like an engineering brigade at all, but rather like a field army encampment. The camp was extremely busy, with people coming and going—all army engineers. We were dumbfounded, thinking the higher-ups had gone mad and decided to attack the Soviet Union.

Later, we discovered that not all of those tents were for living in; most were actually storage tents. A few of the more experienced guys secretly lifted the tent flaps and took a peek, then came back and told us that inside was all Soviet-imported equipment, covered in Russian writing that they couldn’t understand.

At that time, our exploration equipment was extremely outdated. The methods we used were not much different from those right after liberation. The country had only a small number of “modern instruments,” most of which had been purchased from the Soviet Union at exorbitant prices. As basic technical personnel, we had never had a chance to see them.

The problem was, this kind of equipment was used for exploring deeply buried mineral deposits, at depths of one thousand to fifteen hundred meters. Given the country’s capabilities at the time, there was no way to develop such deep deposits. Even if we insisted on doing it, it would take five to seven years of infrastructure construction before production could begin—far too slow to solve any immediate needs. So, when such deposits were discovered, the national policy was always to keep them secret and sealed, with no further exploration, leaving them for future generations. Our maximum exploration depth at the time was only about five hundred meters.

The presence of such equipment here made us feel puzzled, and a strange feeling crept into our hearts.

That night, there was no explanation given. The few of us who had come together were assigned to several tents, about three people to a tent. The mountain nights were freezing cold. Even with a stove burning inside, it was impossible to sleep. Whenever the orderly came in to add firewood in the middle of the night, cold wind would rush in as soon as the tent flap opened, waking us up instantly. In the end, we just lay there with our eyes open until dawn.

The two people sharing my tent—one was a bit older, born in the late 1920s, from Inner Mongolia, and seemed to be somewhat well-known. Everyone called him Old Grant, and his real name seemed to be May Howard. I said that was a good name, sharing a surname with Chairman Mao. The other was about my age, a big, burly guy with a solid build, a Mongolian, named Edward Foster. He was as dark as coal, and everyone called him William Grant. He was from Heilongjiang.

Old Grant was the most senior and didn’t talk much. While I chatted here and there with William Grant, he just sat by, smoking and smiling at us, never expressing an opinion. Who knew what he was thinking about.

William Grant was a typical northerner—warm and straightforward. We quickly became close friends. He told me that his grandfather’s generation had already intermarried with the Han, and the family had moved into the heartland from the west, working as horse traders. When the war broke out, his father joined the logistics unit of the North China Field Army, took care of horses for Luo Ruiqing, and after liberation, returned to their old home in Heilongjiang to become the director of a coal mine.