第一章
聞名遐邇的科爾沁草原西南部，有一片茫茫無際的不毛之地，當地人稱為莽古斯·芒赫
意即惡魔的沙漠。
最早，這兒還是沃野千裏、綠草如浪的富饒之鄉。隋、唐朝開始泛沙，但不嚴重，《清史稿》和《蒙古遊牧記》上還記載，這裏“水草豐美，獵物極盛”， 曾做為清皇太祖努爾哈赤的狩獵場。後來，大概人們覺得在這樣廣裹富饒的土地上不耕種莊稼，實在不合算吧，於是人們開
Mangos Manha-The Demon's Desert-is what the local people called the boundlessstretch of barren land in the southwest of thewell-known Horqin Grassland.
In the distant past, this had been a rich,fertile land with rolling, verdant grass. The landbegan to show signs of sand in the Sui and Tangdynasties over a thousand years ago. Even in theHistory of the Qing Dynasty and Nomadic Life in
始翻耕起草原。由此，人們為自己種下了禍根。草地下層的沙土被翻到表層上來了，終於見到天的沙上，開始鬆動、活躍、奔逐，招來廠風。沙借風力，風助沙勢，西邊蒙古大沙漠又漸漸推移過來，這裏便成r沙的溫床、風的搖籃，經幾百年的侵吞、變遷，這裏的四千萬畝良田沃上就變成了今日的這種黃沙滾滾， 一片死寂的荒涼世界。
莽占斯沙漠往西的縱深地區，是寸草不長的死漠，靠近東側的凸凹連綿的佗包區，還長有些稀疏的沙蓬、苦艾、白篙子等沙漠植物。佗包區星星點點散居著為數不多的自然屯落，在風沙的吞噬中仍然以翻沙佗廣種薄收為生計。五十年代末的紅火歲月，忽喇喇開進了一批勞動大軍，大旗上寫著：向沙漠要糧！他們深翻沙沱，挖地三尺。這對植被退化的沙佗是毀滅性的。沒幾天，一場空前的沙暴掩埋了他們的帳篷，他們倉惶而逃。但這也沒有使人們的盲目而狂熱的血有所冷卻。
後來，沱子裏的自然屯落都撤到東邊四十裏外的綠沙鎮建了一所治沙林場。當時需要一Mongolia it was recorded that the place had`good pasture, plenty of water and a lot ofgame " and had been the Qing emperorNurhachi's hunting ground. Later, people beganto farm the grassland, perhaps feeling that theyought to reap such fertile land, finally bringingcalamity on themselves. The sand buried underthe grass was exposed and began to loosen in thesun and shift in the wind. Helped by the wind,sand from the Mongolian Desert in the westcrept eastward to be cradled in the Mangos. In amere few hundred years, forty million mu offertile land became a dead, deserted world ofrolling sand.
The area west of the Mangos was a barrenwaste, while in the east, where sand dunes rip-pled, desert plants like sandwort and wormwoodgrew sparsely. Homesteads sprawled here andthere on the dunes, still farming the sand, whichyielded very little. In the days of wild enthusiasmin the late fifties, an army of laborers arrivedcarrying a banner inscribed: "Wrest grain fromthe desert!" They dug three feet deep, doingdevastating damage to the dunes, where vegeta-tion was already deteriorating. They had not個人留在沙佗裏，看管那些幸存的沙柳條子、山愉叢、錦雞兒。