A city that has not been extinguished for three thousand years and a country's industrial dream
This place, Mao Zedong said, "You should go and have a look even when riding a donkey."
Source: September 30 "Xinhua Daily Telegraph"
As the 70th anniversary of the Republic is approaching the 70th anniversary of the Republic, the giant stone statue of Mao Zedong holding the ore has become a "check-in" landmark for the city's patriotic education. Citizens coming to pay tribute to and pursue it are endless.
This city enjoys the reputation of "a hundred miles of golden land, a treasure pot in the south of the Yangtze River". According to legend, every stone here "has gold and copper"; this city is known for its "bronze capital", "steel cradle" and "cement hometown"; this city has an industrial heritage tourist destination - the National Mining Park, and the statue of Mao Zedong holding the ore stands in the "Sunrise East" square in the park.
This is Huangshi, Hubei, a city that is proud of itself as the "cradle of China's modern industry", a city that is proud of Mao Zedong's visit twice within five years of the founding of New China.
Mao Zedong inspected Daye Iron Mine. Daye Iron Mine is the first large open-pit iron ore mined by household machines in modern China. It is also the only iron that Mao Zedong inspected and the founding leader "has a group of fire" in his heart
On February 19, 1953, the spring was chilly, and Mao Zedong took the " Yangtze River " ship to inspect the Yangtze River.
When it was dark, he saw the lights on the shore flashing. The person accompanying him told him that this was Huangshi, Hubei, and Mao Zedong immediately proposed to go ashore to take a look.
The comrade in charge of the defense dissuaded him and said that there was no road in Huangshi, which was very inconvenient. But Mao Zedong said: "The road is not good, I have to go and see it even if I ride a donkey."
According to the records of the Hubei Provincial Archives Collection, after getting off the ship, Mao Zedong and his group went straight to Daye Steel Factory. From steelmaking, cast steel, forged steel to steel rolling, Mao Zedong walked from the south to the north in the workshop, and saw the steel mill production line from the beginning to the end.
In the steel rolling mill, next to the 430 rolling mill heating furnace, Mao Zedong carefully inquired about the production situation; in the iron smelting plant, Mao Zedong took the blue fire mirror from the workers to see the iron smelting situation; at the Yangtze River Wharf, Mao Zedong looked back at the Daye Steel Plant where the fire was shining by the Yangtze River, and said to the comrades who came to see him off: I hope you can do this factory well!
Mao Zedong talked with Chen Mingjiang, the director of Daye Iron Mine.
On September 15, 1958, on the third day after participating in the celebration of the first iron furnace of Wuhan Iron and Steel, Mao Zedong was originally going to Anhui from Wuhan to inspect. But he temporarily proposed to go to Huangshi to take a look. The Daye Iron Mine he visited this day was the only iron mine he had ever visited in his life. According to archives, Mao Zedong also came to Daye Steel Plant again, climbed the flat stove platform to shake hands with the workers who were operating one by one, and praised the steel plant for "developing very fast."
html visited the same place twice in 25 years, which is rare in Mao Zedong's life. The story of has always been a special "business card" for people in Huangshi to introduce their own city.
Why did Mao Zedong value Huangshi so much? As long as we look back at the "poor and white" China 70 years ago and the poor and weak China since modern times, it is not difficult to understand that the founder of the Republic "has a fire" in his heart, which has made him look more at this "mining and smelting capital" with the first large iron ore mined by machines in modern China.
The "bulk fire" in Mao Zedong's heart is the fire as a symbol of industrial civilization, which is to enable China to realize its dream of industrialization. And Huangshi is a city that has been burning for 3,000 years.
html visited the same place twice in 2005, which was rare in Mao Zedong's life.
What the old China left behind a "family foundation" with extremely backward industrial industries. Mao Zedong once lamented that China at that time "cannot build a car, an airplane, a tank, or a tractor." The backwardness of industry is most prominent in China's "per capita steel production is only enough to make a sickle."
Modern China, "cliff-like fall" from the top of world civilization.Before the Communist Party of China led the Chinese people to fight bloody battles to establish the new China, aspiring people worked tirelessly to save the country and strengthen the country, but were powerless and helpless. The fate of Huangshi, the "mining capital", can be regarded as a microcosmelling.
Mao Zedong once pointed out: When talking about China's steel industry, we must not forget holes . Zhang Zhidong was one of the few modern Chinese people who should not be forgotten in Mao Zedong's mind. Because, during his administration in Hubei in the late Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zhidong created the largest and earliest steel joint enterprise in Asia - Hanyeping Company, in order to develop national industries, reduce foreign dependence, and achieve prosperity and strengthen the country and the army, and was praised as the "father of steel" in modern China.
In the Hubei Provincial Archives, there is a complete copy of "Hanyeping Company Chronicle". In that year, the raw materials came from Daye Iron and Iron Factory, the first steel company in Japan, 7 years earlier than the Hachiman Iron and Steel Production and accounted for almost 99% of the country's total steel production. It can be said that the prelude to the development of China's modern steel industry in was also opened in Huangshi.
However, China was in turmoil at that time, Zhang Zhidong was unable to turn the world back, and Han Yeping was useless. However, Mao Zedong did not forget the efforts of Zhang Zhidong and other aspiring people; Huangshi, the mining capital on the south bank of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, still had an important position in Mao Zedong's mind. He led the standing up China to march towards industrialization, and "you have to go and see even if you ride a donkey" Huangshi, which is completely in line with the logic of history.
60 years have passed. What changes have this historical and cultural city that has established the city through mining and developed the city through Yexing? With these questions in mind, Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters started a survey from the Tonglu Mountain Ancient Copper Mine Site.
Tonglushan ancient bronze mine site. Photo by Wang Keli
"original fire" on Tonglu Mountain
is surrounded by mines and pits. A three-story building is particularly eye-catching. The eight golden characters "Tonglu Mountain Ancient Copper Mine Site" above the main entrance are handsome and handsome. They are from the hands of the archaeologist who has a special liking for this place and rarely has inscriptions, and "Academician of the Seven Kingdoms" .
In June 1973, miners of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company accidentally discovered 13 copper axes hidden underground while mining in Tonglu Mountain.
Archaeologists have followed the clues to unearth ancient mines as dense as spider webs and mazes based on these copper axes.
66-year-old Huangshi Museum former director Gong Changgen had participated in the initial archaeological investigation of the Tonglu Mountain bronze mine site. According to him, the measurement of isotope carbon 14 shows that the oldest mine in the Tonglu Mountain ancient copper mine site is more than 3,200 years old, and can be traced back to the late Shang Dynasty. It was passed through the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period and the Western Han Dynasty. It continued to mine early sites after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and lasted for 13 centuries.
This excavation is like a thunderclap on the ground, unveiling a corner of the mysterious veil of China's industrial civilization. , a site more than 3,000 years ago, is the largest, longest mining age, the highest smelting technology, the most complete preservation and the richest cultural connotation discovered in the world so far, overthrowing the "West of Bronze Culture".
Copper grass flower is a characteristic plant that can display copper mineral deposits more accurately. The ancients used it to judge the location of copper minerals.
"Copper grass flowers, purple flowers bloom, wherever there is copper." In autumn and winter, tourists admire the brown-purple copper grass flowers all the way and approach the Tonglu Mountain Ancient Mine Ruins Museum. "The copper grass flower is like a toothbrush, also known as a toothbrush flower. Its magic is that its blooming indicates that there is a copper mine underground." said Zhang Yan, a tour guide at the museum.
climbed up the stairs. In the ruins museum, an ancient mining site more than 3,000 years ago is shocking. At the Sifangtang site next to the mining site, archaeologists discovered roasting furnaces from the Song and Ming dynasties in 2012, and in recent years, they discovered a group of tombs composed of dozens of ancient tombs from the Spring and Autumn Period - this is the first time that ancient tombs were discovered in Chinese mining and metallurgy archaeology.
Mine and smelting culture research expert and Dean of Hubei Institute of Technology Li Shejiao led Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters to explain while visiting, "The research found that the ancestors at that time had mastered a very advanced set of mineral exploration, mining, and smelting technologies; they solved technical problems such as support, lighting, drainage, transportation, and ventilation in deep well mining, and also used blower vertical furnace copper smelting technology to form a scientific mining and smelting technology system."
Li Shejiao said, "Smelting is the turning point for mankind to shift from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. The 8 spring and autumn vertical furnaces discovered at the Tonglu Mountain site represent the highest level of copper smelting in China in the pre-Qin period."
A professor at Kunming Institute of Technology touched the well wall of the Tonglu Mountain ancient bronze mine site and cried. He said that when we used to teach college students about tower-connected frame support technology, we gave examples from Britain 200 years ago. We did not expect that our ancestors had solved this problem more than two thousand years ago.
sampling analysis of a large number of ancient slags left by
showed that its copper content was mostly less than 0.7%, which was not much different from the copper content of modern technology copper slags. After expert research, it was found that the bronzes of the Houmu Wu Ding and the King of Yue Goujian’s sword all came from Tonglu Mountain. The bronzes of Tonglu Mountain can cast a large number of weapons, which is directly related to the strength of Chu.
Cultural Relics Archaeologists are studying the mine excavation site during the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period of Tonglu Mountain (770-221 BC). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Xinning
Archaeological master Xia Nai has a special liking for Tonglu Mountain. In 1976 and 1980, Xia Nai visited Tonglu Mountain twice on-site inspection. On June 2, 1980, an academic seminar on ancient Chinese bronzes was held in New York, USA. At the opening ceremony, Xia Nai was the first to speak, and he gave a speech on "Excavation of the Copper Mine of the Copper Green Mountain" to scholars from all over the world.
On October 13, 1981, an international academic seminar on ancient metallurgical technology was held in Beijing. At the meeting, Xia Nai and Yin Weizhang explained in detail the Tonglu Mountain bronze mine refining furnace and simulation experiment, which aroused the interest of experts and scholars from all over the world. After the meeting, Smith, a world-renowned expert in metallurgical history and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a group of eight people came to Tonglu Mountain to inspect the ancient bronze mine site.
At that time, Professor Smith, 78, said excitedly: "What a smart people! I saw things that other parts of the world cannot see here."
Professor Mai Ding, an archaeologist at Harvard University in the United States, said: "Although copper mines have been smelted very early in the Middle East, the scale of their mining sites and the advanced level of smelting furnaces are far from comparable to China's Tonglu Mountain ancient copper mine. The Tonglu Mountain ancient copper mine site is undoubtedly the world's first-class ancient copper mine site."
Li Shejiao believes that large-scale mining of copper mines requires fine collaboration and division of labor. Tonglu Mountain ancient copper mine site proves that, more than 3,000 years ago, in addition to agricultural civilization, there was also an advanced industrial civilization represented by Huangshi. The fire here has not been extinguished for three thousand years, which promoted the continuous development and progress of Chinese industrial civilization.
In 1982, the State Council listed it as a national key cultural relics protection unit; in 1995, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage listed it on China's list of World Cultural Heritage Applications; in March 2001, it was rated as one of the "100 Archaeological Discoveries in China's 20th Century".
In Huangshi National Mine Park, the Daye Iron Mine Open-pit mining pit, known as the "No. 1 mining pit in Asia". He Ge
The fire that never expired for thousands of years
Huangshi not only has the ancient copper mine of Tonglu Mountain, but also the open-pit mining pit of Daye Iron Mine, which is 2,200 meters long and 440 meters deep, and is known as the "No. 1 mining pit in Asia", witnessing the history of the "Millennium Iron Capital" in Hubei Huangshi City.
The Daye County Chronicle compiled during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty stated: "Tonglu Mountain is five miles west of the county town, with purple and red mountains. Every time the rain passes by, there are copper green dotted on the earth and stones, like snowflakes and small beans, or the place where copper comes from ancient times." Records show that Daye has been a place where copper is produced since ancient times.
" King Wu Sun Quan was used to pick copper, iron, and make thousands of swords and ten thousand mouths of swords in the fifth year of Huangwu (226 AD)."The history of Sun Quan casting weapons with copper and iron from Huangshi recorded in " Ancient and Modern Sword Records " by Tao Hongjing of Liang Dynasty. It is engraved on the relief wall next to "Asia's No. 1 mining pit". 17 sets of copper reliefs tell the thousand-year mining history of Daye Iron Mine, attracting tourists to stop and watch.
archaeological sites and cultural relics discovered by archaeologically show that the Huangshi area is one of the birthplaces of Chinese bronze culture. During the Sui Dynasty, Jin Wang Yang Guang ordered ten furnaces to be set up in the south of Tieshan to cast Wuzhu coins; during the Southern Song Dynasty, Yue Fei ordered the Yue Family Army to split the mountains and mine in the Daye area to forge the "Daye Sword" and Jin soldiers fought. Huang Chao, the leader of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty, Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty, and Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty, also left behind the traces of mining and smelting in Huangshi.
In the Huangshi National Mining Park, there is an open-pit mining pit of Daye Iron Mine, known as the "No. 1 mining pit in Asia". Photo by He Ge
In the view of experts such as Li Shejiao and Gong Changgen who have been paying attention to Huangshi mining and smelting culture for a long time, the period when Huangshi's fire was the most prosperous and highest-ranking period should be during the Tang and Song dynasties. According to the History of the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, "In the second year of Tianyou in the Tang Dynasty (905), Qin Pei, the governor of the Wuchang of Yangwu, was in charge of 7 years, and accumulated 200,000 military reserves, and opened the Qingshan Daye, and the public was full of support. "
This is the earliest record of Daye's "Qingshan" as a smelting place in history. Qin Pei also established Qingshan Farm (the site is a mining smelting agency, and the courtyard is an administrative management agency), mining and smelting, and Daxing Furnace Smelting, becoming a historical figure that has been praised by the people of Huangshi for thousands of years.
In fact, before Qin Pei, Han Zhongqing, the father of the great writer of the Tang Dynasty, was in Wuchang County, and Han Zhongqing, in Wuchang County. l8 ordered the post of the office and made contributions to the development of local mining and smelting. When Han Zhongqing left office, the people carved stones and erected monuments for him. The writer was the great poet Li Bai who lived in Yuzhang (now Nanchang ) because of his crime from King Yong, and often went to Wuchang. He wrote in the "Wuchang Jailu Han Jun's Go to the Song of Songs": "The copper and iron were green at first, but they did not choose the place to come out. Daye drums were cast like gods from heaven. Since they are cooked and frizzy, they will make hundreds of billions of dollars, and they will rely on them for public and private purposes. "
In the fifth year of Qiande in the Northern Song Dynasty (967 AD), when Li Yu was the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, he analysed the three townships of Wuchang County and merged with Qingshanchangyuan to establish a new county. According to the words "Zhuangzi·Grandmaster" "Heaven and Earth are furnaces, and nature is Daye", he used the meaning of "Daxing Furnace and Metal", and named it Daye County .
Not long after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established Xingguoye in Daye and Yangxin, under Huangshi's current jurisdiction. Iron Mountain in Daye area became the iron ore base of Xingguoye. According to historical records, the annual total iron production in the country was more than 18 million jin, and in the seventh year of Hongwu ( In 1374) Xingguoye annually produces one million kilograms of iron, which shows the prosperity of iron ore mining and smelting at that time.
Xinye steel-Zhang Cave. He Ge took
Spark of modern industry
In Huangshi National Mine Park, Huaisheng Pavilion built to commemorate the representative of the Westernization Party Sheng Xuanhuai is right next to the "No. 1 mining pit in Asia".
Two years ago, the Xinqiao Cave in Tieshan District was renovated and was named "Xuanhuai Gate". Han on the south bank of the Yangtze River In the Yeping site, two statues 7.2 meters high are erected to commemorate Zhang Zhidong and Sheng Xuanhuai who both passed away at the age of 72... These all show that these two historical figures are closely related to the city.
The steel industry is the soul of modern industry. The rapid development of steel production technology has driven the rapid development of Western modern industry, and "prosperity and strength are the best in the world." China was in a very difficult situation at that time: Westernization enterprises needed a large amount of steel, and the earth and iron produced by the people were mostly unsuitable, so they had to "move millions" from Westerners. " is a very small thing, and it is estimated that those who enter China every year are worth more than 70 foreign countries. 10,000 yuan”.
What’s more serious is that once foreigners do not come, waste workers in various factories will fall into trouble. The coal and iron industry directly strangled the throat of China’s modern industry. Developing the local steel industry gradually became a strong desire of the Westernization faction and even the government and the people.
1874, Li Hongzhang, then the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang, sent his aide Sheng Xuanhuai to find coal-producing areas across the country, and at the same time introduced advanced Western technologies and equipment to prepare to establish China’s steel industry. In 1875, Sheng Xuanhuai established the “Hubei Coal and Iron Mining Administration” in Pantang, Guangji, Hubei.
In the autumn of 1877, Guo Shidun, a British miner hired by Sheng Xuanhuai, said in his mine exploration report: "There are many iron ores in Daye County... I have discovered that the iron veins in the iron layer are about 5 million tons. If they are transformed into two furnaces, it will be enough for a hundred years." The net quality of iron ore here is 60%-66%, while the best iron ore in the world is 70%. Daye iron ore is comparable to the best iron ore produced in the UK, the United States and other countries.
Huaxin Cement Plant is one of the earliest enterprises in my country's cement industry and is known as the cradle of China's cement industry. In January 2018, it was selected as the China Industrial Heritage Protection Huangshi, the "ancient capital" of mining and smelting that has lasted for three thousand years, has carried the development of modern industry and the revitalization of national industry on its shoulders.
1889, after Zhang Zhidong was transferred to the position of governor of Huguang, he began to work in Hubei with the Westernization Affairs Office. Four years later, the Hanyang Iron Plant he presided over was put into production and became Asia's first modern steel enterprise. Daye Iron Mine, located in Daye County, is the raw material base of the iron plant and has become the first large open-pit iron ore mined by household machines in Chinese history. Its scale is the highest in East Asia at that time.
is to transport the ore of Daye Iron Mine to Hanyang Iron Plant via the Yangtze River. A railway from the foot of the iron mountain to the lime kiln on the river bank was paved in 1892. This is the first railway in Hubei's history, and the passenger and freight trucks and sleepers were purchased from Germany.
1896, Zhang Zhidong handed over the factory and mine to Shengxuanhuai Investment and was transferred to the official office to the official supervision office. In 1908, Sheng Xuanhuai merged Hanyang Iron Plant, Daye Iron Mine and Pingxiang Coal Mine to form Hanye Ping Coal and Iron Plant Co., Ltd., which started the company's commercial and office process.
The two "connect the past and the future" and jointly opened up China's modern steel industry. As the largest steel joint venture in Asia at that time, Hanyeping Company was called "the cradle of China's steel industry."
Huangshi is one of the important ports of the Yangtze River. The picture shows the Huaxin Cement Plant that was restored and expanded after liberation. Photo by Gu Songnian
The "Oriental Magazine" in the first year of the Republic of China records that when the iron produced by Hanyeping was trial sold in the United States, Americans were "scared of incredible value". Because there is too little manganese added to foreign iron, there is often a concern for peeling off when used; while Han iron contains natural manganese, and manganese ore is added during smelting. The product is "hard and soft, and the file is good for you."
As a brand of modern Chinese industry, Hanyeping Company's products have repeatedly participated in various international and domestic exhibitions and have won awards many times.
It was not until the Anshan Iron and Steel Plant was completed and put into production in 1919. In more than 20 years, this iron plant produced more than 90% of China's steel.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the rich copper and iron ore and limestone in Daye attracted a large number of official and private capital to influx, and more than a dozen official, private and foreign-funded coal mines appeared one after another. In 1913, Hanyeping Company planned to build the Daye Iron Plant (i.e. Daye Steel Plant), and in 1922 its No. 1 blast furnace was discharged.
The Huangshi area is also distributed in the first cement plant in the Far East, Huaji Cement Plant, the first railway in the central and southern region, the Daye Iron Mine Transportation Railway, the largest power plant in the central and southern region, the Huangshi Power Plant , the largest coal base in Hubei Province, the largest coal mine company in the Yangtze River, and the largest transportation port in the Yangtze River, Huangshi Port .
Li Shejiao said that in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, Huangshi was the only mining and smelting industrial base in China with complete heavy industry departments such as steel, cement, coal, and electricity. is the area with the most concentrated distribution of national heavy industry in modern China, and it is also a ray of dawn in the history of modern Chinese industry.
However, under the poverty and weakness of the country, such a dawn seems too weak. During the renovation and expansion of the Hanyang Iron Plant, Sheng Xuanhuai was unable to obtain funding support from the Qing court with empty treasury, nor could he obtain sufficient financing from the private sector. He had to sign a loan contract with Japan and repay the principal and interest with the ore of Daye Iron Ore, and gradually fell into a trap set by the Japanese...
From the fall of Daye in October 1938 to the surrender of Japan in 1945, Japan plundered more than 5 million tons of iron ore in the Daye mine, accounting for 9.66% of Japan's plunder of China's iron ore. archives record that from the official launch of the Daye Iron Ore in 1893 to 1945, a total of 20.9232 million tons of iron ore were produced, and 15.508 million tons were plundered by Japan, accounting for about 74% of the total output.
In the view of Cai Minglun, professor of , Hubei Normal University, and head of the Hanyeping Research Center, , a history of Hanyeping is a history of the development of modern Chinese industry. The development of Hanyeping Company is closely linked to the fate of the country. Only when the country stands up can the company have room for development.
Hubei University professor Zhou Jiming said: "Hanyeping company failed in the end. The reasons for the failure are complicated, the current situation is chaotic, and the Japanese debt is heavy, but the most important thing is that it has never received support from the state."
Mao Zedong inspected Daye Iron Mine.
The torch of an industrial power
stands at Hubei Xinye Steel Co., Ltd. Hanyeping Plaza. The strong contrast between history and reality is sad: on the one hand, it is a modern production workshop that provides special steel for domestic C919 large passenger planes, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, "Shenzhou", "Tiangong", and "Chang'e", and on the other hand, the Hanyeping blast furnace site, which has experienced vicissitudes and has only broken walls.
These two blast furnaces, built in the early 1920s, were the largest blast furnaces in China at that time. They produced a total of two years and two months, and refined more than 258,000 tons of pig iron, and most of them were transported to Japan to repay Japanese debts.
In the summer of 1938, the Japanese army approached the lime kiln and blocked the upper reaches of Huangshi Port with planes. On July 28 of that year, Chiang Kai-shek called Yang Jizeng, chairman of the Iron and Steel Plant Relocation and Construction Committee: "Hanyeping Company's Daye iron furnace is not convenient to be demolished, so it should be prepared for blasting." Subsequently, the Kuomintang Wuhan Garrison General Command sent a blasting team to blow up major equipment such as iron furnaces and hot air furnaces and some factories.
The turmoil and poverty in the country have caused the once prosperous Hanyeping Company to decline rapidly and die in name only. At the end of 1948, the National Government of officially abolished Hanyeping Company and handed over all its assets to the newly established Huazhong Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., and Hanyeping Company withdrew from the historical stage.
Hanyeping blast furnace site. Photo by Wu Jianxin
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Huazhong Steel Company wanted to restore the smelting of a blast furnace, but the dying National Government lacked both machinery and funds. In the end, it pieced together and only built a 66 cubic meter small blast furnace.
The important task of revitalizing the national steel industry fell on the shoulders of the Chinese Communists. At dawn on May 15, 1949, the People's Liberation Army crossed the Yangtze River and Shihuang Town was liberated peacefully. That night, Daye County was liberated and was taken over by the Wuhan Military Control Commission, and a special commissioner of the Lime Kiln Industrial Zone was set up.
On June 12 of that year, with the approval of the Central Plains Provisional People's Government, Shihuang Town and four townships in Daye County were separated, and the "Hubei Daye Special Zone Office" was established.
On September 29, 1949, with the approval of the Hubei Provincial People's Government, the "Hubei Province Daye Industrial and Mining Special Zone" was established, which was the first industrial and mining special zone in New China.
The first district mayor of the Industrial and Mining Special Zone Liu Jinsheng once said: "The establishment of the Daye Industrial and Mining Special Zone was to develop industrial commerce and support the liberation of the whole country according to Chairman Mao Zedong's instructions. Because this area is an industrial zone, the superiors attach great importance to it. In the future, production materials can support other places." At that time, the mining area had a total population of more than 40,000, and the factory and mine employees had more than 5,000.
Huangshi has occupied a prominent position in modern China because of its mining and smelting. Just like the Westernization leaders such as Zhang Zhidong who, after being stimulated by imperialism's strong ships and cannons, worked hard to establish the national steel industry by using the barbarians to control the barbarians, Mao Zedong and other founders of the New China also had unforgettable pain for the backwardness of the national industry and had a strong steel complex.
1945, in the article " on the United Government ", Mao Zedong wrote: "Without industry, there will be no consolidated national defense, no people's welfare, and no country's prosperity." It was this strong industrial complex that made Mao Zedong inspect Huangshi twice in 1953 and 1958.
Inspired by Mao Zedong's inspection, in 1959, Daye iron ore produced 2.9 million tons. By the early 1970s, production reached its peak and annual output was 5.051 million tons. As the "industrial granary" of New China, Huangshi continuously transports raw materials to the country and makes contributions to the revitalization of national industries.
data shows that from the city's establishment to 2008, Huangshi has contributed a total of 190 million tons of iron ore, 741,300 tons of copper concentrate, 54 million tons of raw coal, and 560 million tons of non-metallic ore to the country. It produces 28.65 million tons of steel, 2.7 million tons of copper, and 125 million tons of cement. The profit and tax were directly paid 27 billion yuan, contributing a total of 35 billion yuan.
On November 28, 2017, tourists visited the Huangshi Planning Exhibition Hall. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xiong Qi
"war" for transformation and development
On August 21, 1950, the State Council of the Central People's Government telegram Central South Military and Political Committee , merged the lime kiln and Huangshi Port Industrial and Mining Area into provincial municipalities and named it Huangshi City. Huangshi has become the second directly under the jurisdiction of Hubei Province.
During the national construction period, relying on rich mineral resources, 27 key industrial projects, including Daye Steel Plant, one of the top ten special steels in the country, Daye Iron Mine, one of the top ten iron ores in the country, Huaxin Cement, one of the three largest cement production bases in the country, and Daye Nonferrous Metals, one of the six largest copper mines in the country, have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and thousands of industrial workers have poured in from all over the country.
In 1956, 21-year-old Ma Jingyuan graduated from Daye Technical School of Huazhong Steel Company. Together with more than 30 classmates in the class, he was assigned to the newly rebuilt Daye Iron Mine. Since then, from electrician to the secretary of the Youth League branch in the workshop, to the director of the Mining Chronicle Office, he has participated in the compilation of the "Huangshi City Chronicle" and "Hanyeping Company Chronicle", he has personally experienced the prosperity, decline and transformation of the mining area.
Ma Jingyuan remembers that from the 1960s to the 1980s, it was the best era of Daye Iron Mine, with more than 10,000 workers, producing more than 5 million tons of iron ore every year. "The enterprise benefits are good, the employee benefits are good, and popsicles and soda are free in summer, and everyone is very motivated."
Huaxin Cement Plant former site.
Wang Dingxing, executive deputy director of the Yangtze River Middle Tour of Mining and Metallurgy Culture Research Center of Hubei Institute of Technology, said that the establishment of large enterprises such as Daye Iron Mine, Daye Iron and Steel Plant, Huaxin Cement, etc. directly drives the completion of railways and wharfs and the flow of population, making Tieshan, Xialu and lime kilns connect, allowing this young city to rapidly develop into a famous mining and smelting city on the shore of the Yangtze River.
Liu Wenxiang, who grew up on the railway side of the old city of Huangshi, remembers that in the 1990s, steam locomotives shuttled between the old city and several major industrial and mining enterprises every day, pulling both coal and iron ore and workers. The grand occasion of tens of thousands of workers taking trains to work in the factory is memorable.
The rise of industry promotes rapid development of cities. Since the reform and opening up, Huangshi has once shined in the halo of rapid economic growth with its strong industrial foundation, expressing the glory of "Huang Laoer". At the highest level in history, Huangshi mining and its processing industry accounted for 62% of the total GDP, making it the second largest city in Hubei after Wuhan.
"Asia's No. 1 mining pit" in Huangshi National Mine Park. Photo by He Ge
Nowadays, we are approaching Daye Iron Mine. A huge funnel-shaped mineral canyon is 2,200 meters long from east to west, 550 meters wide from north to south, with a maximum drop of 444 meters, and a pit opening area of 1.08 million square meters. The huge funnel-shaped mineral and smelting canyon is amazing. It is a vivid witness to the history of China's industrial history for a century, and it also tells the trauma and rebirth of a mining and smelting city after its gradual depletion of resources.
The formation of "Asia's No. 1 mining pit" is accompanied by the industrialization of the Republic. From 1958 to 2016, workers have produced nearly 140 million tons of raw ore from here and produced nearly 86 million tons of iron concentrate. The amount of iron metal provided to Wuhan Iron and Steel accounts for 70% of the total pig iron produced by Wuhan Iron and Steel. Daye Iron Mine has become a veritable "Wugang Grain Store".
After accumulating over time, about 370 million tons of waste stone were discharged from mining, which stretched for more than ten miles around the mining area, and several hills dozens of meters high were piled up.
In the Daye Nonferrous Tonglu Mountain Mine production workshop at the foot of Tonglu Mountain, the ore will be sent to the downstream workshop through grinding and flotation processes to produce copper, iron, gold, etc. Since 1965, more than 1.3 million tons of ore can be mined here every year. At present, the ore produced from here can produce 10,000 tons of copper, more than 200,000 tons of iron, and 500 kilograms of gold each year.
drives to visit the old city of Huangshi. The dilapidated streets, dilapidated buildings, and the gray tones in your eyes made the reporter feel a little depressed.
In recent years, Huangshi City, Hubei Province has actively explored and developed industrial tourism, and has built Tonglushan Ancient Copper Mine Site, Huaxin Cement Plant site, Huangshi National Mine Park, etc. to create
The "fire" that lasted for thousands of years has brought glory to this city that has established factories due to mines and built cities due to factories. The continuous mining of resources has also made it suffer a huge ecological deficit: more than 150 tailings ponds, hundreds of thousands of acres of industrial and mining wasteland, large-area lake pollution, and ecological function degradation... At most, Huangshi has more than 100 chimneys of large and small, with an annual dust volume of more than 6,000 tons, and is called the "light ash city".
In March 2009, the State Council announced the second batch of resource-depleted cities, including Huangshi, and Daye, its city under its jurisdiction, ranked first.
Entering the 21st century, due to the sluggish global energy market, steel market and non-ferrous metal market, the pain caused by resource depletion, environmental pollution and unemployment are even more prominent, making this former "Yellow Second" far behind by Yichang and Xiangyang . The GDP ranking in Hubei dropped to about ten, and the mining and smelting city stood at the crossroads of development.
Return to the "Yellow Lao Er". Huangshi did not engage in real estate, but persevered in pursuing the dream of modern industry. They loudly shouted the slogan of establishing an ecological city and strengthening the city in industries, and planned to build an advanced manufacturing city.
Yan Hongyong, who was once a miner in Daye Iron Mine, has now become the head of Huangshi National Mine Park. He is committed to the restoration and management of the ecological environment of the mining area, and has created the miracle of "planting trees on stones" with his colleagues.
Yan Hongyong said that since the 1980s, the mining area began to try to plant trees on piles of waste rocks. After repeated attempts, the locust tree with a high survival rate was finally discovered. Over the past 30 years, generations of workers have continued to plant more than 1.2 million locust trees on the pile of waste rocks that were originally deserted. The former waste rock pile has become the largest hard rock greening and reclamation ecological forest in Asia with an area of 3.66 million square meters, equivalent to about 8 Tiananmen Squares.
Tourists visit Huangshi National Mine Park. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xiong Qi
In 2007, Huangshi National Mining Park was officially completed and opened, becoming the first national mining park in my country. On an open space in the park, workers used steel scraps to make craft sculptures and built a mineral and smelting expo park. The original iron ore facilities have been transformed into tourist landscapes such as "underground exploration", "stone sea oasis", and "Jiulong Cave Heaven".
Now, this place has become a national 4A-level tourist attraction and has become a shining business card for Huangshi Industrial Tourism, receiving 100,000 tourists every year.
Tonglu Mountain has also started ecological restoration: 555.7 hectares are determined as the red line range of the site protection area, and ecological restoration of ancient ore sites, mountain damage restoration, soil heavy metal restoration, water environment pollution ecological restoration, and abandoned construction sites of industrial and mining enterprises... Relying on Tonglu Mountain Ancient Copper Mine Site, a Tonglu Mountain characteristic bronze town will be established on the north side of the site, and a national first-class archaeological site park will be built, integrating tourism, cultural display, and industrial aggregation, so that the millennium bronze site will continue to write a new chapter.
On November 28, 2017, the Huangshi Industrial Tourism Special Train carried tourists to Huangshi National Mine Park. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xiong Qi
Zhong Liping, member of the Standing Committee of Huangshi Municipal Party Committee and Minister of the Propaganda Department, said that in recent years, Huangshi has insisted on iron-fisted pollution control, putting the protection of the Yangtze River in an overwhelming position. It has successively closed more than 1,000 "five small" enterprises, demolished 123 illegal wharfs, closed 131 open-pit quarries, and achieved no "five small" enterprises and illegal wharfs in the entire region. It has invested 3 billion yuan to implement 71 industrial and mining waste land reclamation projects, with a reclamation area of 40,000 mu, and a forest coverage rate of 36.1%. In 2018, Huangshi won the title of "National Forest City".
Ecological transformation is a "basic question", and implementing an industrial-strengthening city and building an advanced manufacturing city are the "must-answer questions" for this city that has been unswervingly pursuing the dream of modern industrial.
During the transformation process, several century-old stores that once supported the four pillars of Huangshi's economy were reborn and reborn from the ashes, becoming the "ballast stone" leading high-quality development.
students receive patriotic education in Huangshi National Mine Park.Photo provided by the Propaganda Department of the Huangshi Municipal Party Committee
Huaxin Cement invested 6 billion yuan to build a century-old rejuvenation base, invested in and built factories in countries along the "Belt and Road", with a profit of more than 3 billion yuan last year; Xinye Steel invested more than 3 billion yuan to implement technical transformation, moving towards military industry, aerospace and automobile special steel, with profits and taxes exceeding 1 billion yuan last year.
On the basis of promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional pillar industries such as non-ferrous metals, ferrous metals, and building materials, Huangshi relies on its strong industrial foundation and superior location to accelerate the cultivation of emerging industries such as electronic information, new energy vehicles, and biomedicine.
In Dayehu National High-tech Zone, Hanlong New Energy Vehicles are the leader, and supporting industries such as engines, wheels, seats, sunroofs, and lithium battery new materials are becoming increasingly perfect; with health wine as the leader, Jinpai 300,000-ton health liquor base and biopharmaceutical industry park have begun to take shape.
In Huangshi Economic and Technological Development Zone, the "iron triangle" of the electronic information industry - Hushi Electronics , Xinxing Electronics, and Shangda Electronics have successively settled. Optoelectronics products, electronic basic materials, application electronics, embedded software and other supporting projects have come one after another, becoming an important PCB (printed circuit board) industrial cluster in the country.
At present, Huangshi City has formed eight key growth industrial clusters such as copper smelting and deep processing, electronic information, clothing, molds, chemical and pharmaceuticals, and the industrial structure is significantly optimized.
Huangshi Municipal Party Committee Secretary Dong Weimin said that only backward products and no backward industries should be understood and deepened. Huangshi is making every effort to promote the high-quality development of manufacturing and strive to build an advanced manufacturing city.
, a city that carries China's thousand-year industrial civilization, a century-old industrial dream and a strong country, has stood at a new starting point for high-quality development; here, the "war" of transformation and development is burning and has become a prairie fire.
