There are no crows in the crow's cave. Miracles have happened here. It was once a secret military factory. The first aviation engine made in China was born here. It is the cradle of China's aviation industry. There are too many stories here, waiting for future generations to recall. Aiming for the Sky Unfolding the scroll of history, since the European Industrial Revolution, advanced technological industries have replaced traditional manual labor. The rapidly growing capital market requires a large amount of materials to maintain the overspeed operation of this huge machine. New and old capitalist countries have opened their mouths to encroach on China, an ancient and backward empire. Before and after the Revolution of 1911, treaties that were humiliating and humiliating the country were a deafening wake-up call for this ancient and young country. Only by working hard and saving the country through industry can this country no longer be bullied by outsiders. Sun Yat-sen, the founding father, advocated the pursuit of new knowledge throughout his life, hoping to use the ingenuity and wisdom of the Chinese people to devote themselves to the righteous way of building the country and build China into a great country. When he was running for revolution in the late Qing Dynasty, it was at the beginning of the European and American aviation industry. He knows that flying in the sky is not only the source of national defense and the national economy and people's livelihood in the new era, but also that the efforts and wisdom invested by the people in realizing this aviation dream are undoubtedly even more valuable. Selecting a site to build a factory In 1936, the international situation became increasingly dangerous. Japan had already been eyeing China and was ready to make a move. A large number of patriotic wise men knew the importance and urgency of strengthening national defense armaments. Aviation power determines a country's military strength. The Chinese Kuomintang Party Headquarters and the Military Commission took Chiang Kai-shek's fiftieth birthday as an excuse to launch a "birthday celebration" campaign. During the "July 7th Incident" in 1937, Japan's war of aggression against China broke out. As the war situation worsened step by step, important ports and cities fell, making it difficult for foreign aid to enter. The engine, as the core component of the aircraft, is even more difficult to obtain. In the summer of 1939, the National Government’s Aviation Committee decided to build China’s first aircraft engine factory to change the passive situation of completely relying on imported aircraft engines. In November 1937, the National Government spent more than 3.4 million US dollars to establish the Engine Manufacturing Factory Preparatory Office. Li Boling, who had studied in the United States and obtained a master's degree in aeronautical engineering, was appointed as the director of the preparation department (and later the first factory director). Due to the lack of relevant technical personnel in the country at the time, Li Boling went to the United States to recruit talented Chinese students studying in the U.S. aviation industry, including seven aerospace engineering experts: Li Yaozi, Qian Xuequ, Zhang Rumei, Liang Shouying, Cheng Jiahou, Hu Xuguang, and Shen Yunqian. These people later became the principals responsible for the initial various departments of the manufacturing plant. The preparatory office of Li Bailing, the founder of Dading Aviation Engine Factory and the first director, initially planned to build the factory at the former site of the Sino-German Aircraft Manufacturing Factory in Liuba Village, Anning County, 30 kilometers away from Kunming City. In 1939, the factory came from Massachusetts, USA. Li Yaozi from the Polytechnic Institute and seven other young doctors and masters were ordered to introduce aerospace engines to the Wright Company in the United States. In order to get rid of the middle-level exploitation by brokers, they personally went to the factory to purchase production equipment, crossed the ocean, and miraculously transported more than 500 tons of factory construction materials along the Burma Highway past the Japanese blockade and into the southwestern border of the motherland, preparing to build a factory in Kunming. Later, because French Vietnam was occupied by the Japanese army, Kunming was bombed repeatedly, and the preparatory office was bombed repeatedly. For safety reasons, the site was selected in Crow Cave, Yangchangba, Dading County, Guizhou (now Dafang County) for safety reasons. A distant view of the Crow Cave factory. The factory had just been completed at the end of 1942, and the site had not yet been cleaned up. Factory Construction On January 1, 1941, the engine manufacturing plant moved to Crow Cave, Yangchangba, Dading County, and was known as "Yunfa Trading Company" for safety reasons. The factory area is divided into production area and living area. The main workshop is located in Crow Cave. This cave is a natural karst cave, about 100 meters long, about 60 meters high, and about 900 meters long. There is a 50-meter long cave in the front. , an open space about 80 meters wide. It is about 160 kilometers from Yangchangba to Guiyang. The current site of Crowdong was at the time of the Anti-Japanese War, and the transportation was inconvenient, so the construction of the factory was really difficult. There is a lack of reinforced concrete, so we can only use local materials and use wood and stone to build factories. Engineers, technicians and migrant workers worked tirelessly to cut trees in the mountains and forests 40 kilometers away. They also searched for stone sources from all directions, collected the stones, and then organized migrant workers to carry them back to Crow Cave. They used special wood and stone structures to build factories in the cave, which can install various precision machine tools to ensure their safe operation. It is an unprecedented miracle in the history of Chinese industrial construction. What bothers them most is power generation. Without electricity, not only construction cannot start, but also domestic water cannot be obtained.
The local area is rich in anthracite coal. A steam engine that burns smokeless coal to generate electricity was originally purchased in the United States. However, after arriving in Myanmar, it was too heavy to be transported by road, so it was sold to India at a low price. They saw a large number of charcoal cars driving on the southwest highway at that time, and also wanted to use smokeless media to make gas to drive retired high-horsepower aircraft engines to generate electricity. After countless failures and re-experiments, he finally succeeded and made the Crow's Cave shine. At that time, the American consultant of the National Aviation Commission came to inspect the factory and was amazed and amazed by this initiative. From this door, you can enter the huge workshop inside Crow Cave. This dark cave, which was originally an elevator, can actually drive cars. From November 1940 to December 1942, after two years of hard work, in this desolate Yangchangba, Office buildings, workshops, and dormitories were built, and the entire infrastructure project of the aircraft engine plant was completed. China's first aviation engine manufacturing plant rose up among the rocks! The living area and production area cover an area of ??about 2 square kilometers. , the main factory building for producing engines is built in Crow Cave. It is a three-story wooden structure building. The ground floor is the equipment warehouse, the second floor is the machining class (including machining, tool manufacturing, heat treatment, electroplating and other workshops), and there is a hardware warehouse. , the third floor is the assembly class, finished product warehouse, tool warehouse, etc., with a total area of ??10,000 square meters. The factory building at the entrance of the cave is made of finely carved boulders to form a protective wall, which looks very majestic from a distance. There is ventilation equipment at the entrance of the cave to allow air circulation inside the cave. Various office buildings and auxiliary factories are scattered on the hills outside the cave. Clubs, dormitories, schools and service clubs line both sides of Yangchangba Highway. They are brightly lit at night and are known as "Little Guiyang". Engineer Building Administrative Building Corner of the Administrative Building Corner of the Old Factory R&D and Production The factory has initially designated 28 weaving officers, 100 mechanics, 30 apprentices, and 37 soldiers. At the beginning of the establishment of the factory, the general technical workers came from skilled workers recruited from various arsenals and aircraft manufacturers by the Aviation Commission; more than 20 1941 fresh graduates were recruited from Southwest Associated University, Zhejiang University, etc. as technical personnel. There is one director and one deputy director each. It consists of the Secretary's Office, the Chief Engineer's Office (in charge of the design section, work preparation section, inspection section, and research section), the Public Works Department (in charge of the foundry section, machining section, assembly section, equipment section, purchasing and transportation section, and control section), and the political department. Training Department, General Affairs Department, Manager Department, Health Department and other units. In order to train middle and lower-level technical personnel, three technical classes and one equipment administrator class were opened. The company has trained 286 intermediate technicians, 350 technicians, and more than 2,000 employees and family members in the entire factory. These technicians later became the technical backbone of the cross-strait aviation industry. The heads of each department were leaders in the domestic aviation industry at that time. Wu Daguan, known as the father of Chinese aviation engines, is one of them. He once recalled: "What impressed me most was that in such a small factory, there were 8 overseas students, including the factory director Li Boling. The deputy director came back from Germany. The chief engineer Li Yaozi came back from MIT; There is also Qian Xuequ, Qian Xuesen’s cousin, who is engaged in machining; Zhang Rumei is engaged in tool design, Cao Youcheng is engaged in metallurgy, Cheng Jiahou is engaged in casting, and Liang Shouying is engaged in aircraft engines. These people are from the United States and Europe. Many of those who came back were masters and doctors from MIT. At that time, these people held the belief of developing China's aviation industry and saving the country through aviation. They worked hard and worked tirelessly in such a difficult place. It was really not easy. "Since 1942! Wu Daguan was recruited from Southwest Associated University to work as a technician in the factory in 1956. He worked here for 14 years until he left Dading in 1956 to establish the first jet engine design room in New China at the Shenyang Aviation Engine Factory. The design scale of the Dading Yangchangba Aviation Engine Manufacturing Plant was determined by the factory director Li Boling signing a patent purchase contract with the American Wright Aviation Engine Factory. After the plant is completed and put into production, it should reach an annual output of 1,050 horsepower of the Seclon G105 type. It has a production capacity of 300 aero engines, and has purchased various equipment from the United States, such as cyclone G150 1050 horsepower aero engine blanks, automobiles, machine tools, etc. After installing the supporting equipment, it will be put into trial production. Chiang Kai-shek (middle) and his wife, Chiang Weiguo and his entourage inspected the aircraft engine factory. When Jiang Weiguo (2nd from left) visited the factory with Chiang Kai-shek, he took a group photo with Dr. Li Yaozi (1st from left), Dai Anguo (3rd from left), and Dr. Cao Youcheng (4th from left) in front of the aviation development factory club. From March 20 to 22, 1942, Chiang Kai-shek, President of the Kuomintang and Chairman of the Military Commission, together with his wife, Chiang Weiguo and his delegation visited the Dading Yangchangba Aviation Development Plant.
After listening to the situation report and seeing all the production lines in the factory, I was deeply worried about the slow progress of trial production of aero-engines, so I wrote the inscription "When will our engines be completely self-made" and sent a message to all the factory officials, technicians and Employees gave speeches. His calligraphy was as big as a bucket of sixteen Chinese characters: "Everything has its beginning and end, everything has its beginning and end. If you know the sequence, you will get the shortcut." It was later carved on the stone sill on the right side of the entrance to Daying Gate. On the second day, he inspected Dading County and returned to the Aviation Development Factory. He stayed in the Director's Office of the Aviation Development Factory (today's Yangchang Town Government Guest House). On the third day, he left Dading and returned to Guiyang. The handwriting covered by weeds "Everything has its beginning and end, everything has its beginning and end. If you know the sequence, you will get the shortcut." Working hard and overcoming numerous difficulties and dangers, the aviation development plant began official operation in 1943. However, due to the lack of raw materials during the war, Yunnan The Burma Highway was blocked by the enemy again, and it was not until the spring of 1945 that the trial production of the first domestically produced G105 engine was completed. In the same year, Japan surrendered and the Anti-Japanese War was victorious. Li Boling was also ordered to go to the United States, and many senior technical personnel in the factory were transferred to Northeast and North China to receive Japanese aviation industry equipment. Wang Shizhuo took over as the second factory director and continued to manage production. After all, the aviation engine factory is located in a remote corner with inconvenient transportation, which is not conducive to future development. At the same time, personnel were sent to Guangdong, Hunan and other places to select sites for the new factory. The second factory director Wang Shizhuo, in 1945, the first "Seclon" 1050-horsepower large aeroengine was successfully trial-produced and was taken on the test bench after the test. By the end of 1946, the factory had completed the overall assembly of 32 engines, of which two engines numbered 34639 and 34640 were installed on the C47-A273 transport aircraft as a power source and underwent trial operation on a direct flight from Kunming to Nanjing. Their technical performance The engine was very powerful and the aircraft soared into the sky. A few hours later, it landed safely in Nanjing. Its engine is now in the U.S. Military Museum. In the same year, the Dading Yangchangba Aviation Engine Plant expanded its production scale, added aircraft engine production models, and purchased the production patent for the 185-horsepower Lycomin engine from the U.S. Lacmin Plant. The following year, it purchased the NeneI from the British Rolls-Royce. Jet engine production patent. Because the government reduced military funding after the war, the aircraft engine plant did not receive other funds to maintain engine production, and China's first engine mass production came to a halt. After discontinuing engine production, the aviation engine plant transformed into manufacturing auto parts for common domestic automobile brands such as Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, Toyota and AIBI. These included pistons, piston rings, piston pins and cylinder liners. Among them, gray iron pistons Ring has the widest market. The aviation engine factory has specially set up a ring manufacturing plant, with an annual output of more than 50,000 piston rings of various brands, and has passed US verification. The ill-fated aviation power plant In July 1947, the People's Liberation Army shifted from strategic defense to strategic counter-offensive. After three major battles, the Kuomintang retreated steadily, and the situation was over. In February 1949, the Kuomintang Air Force Headquarters decided to move the aircraft engine factory to Taiwan and allocated 100,000 taels of gold as the cost of moving the factory. The third factory director, Gu Guangfu, personally went to Taiwan to select a site. In May, the original organizational structure was abolished and changed to the Dading Distribution and Auction Committee. The relocation of the factory began on May 19. The first planned personnel and materials were transported to Liuzhou via Guiyang for concentration. Some were transported directly to Taichung, Taiwan, by air, and some were transported along the Xijiang River to Hong Kong, and then transferred to Keelung, Taiwan. However, due to the sudden change in the war situation, the complete shipment could not be carried out. In September, a US landing ship loaded the last batch of materials from Liuzhou and sailed directly to Taiwan. Only about 50% of the machinery and equipment finally arrived in Taiwan, and the officers and soldiers who arrived in Taiwan accounted for about one-third of the entire factory. After moving to Taiwan, the aviation engine plant was located in Sheli, Qingshui Town, Taichung County. On November 1 of the same year, it was reorganized into the "Air Force Metalworking Engine Manufacturing Plant". On December 1, it was reorganized into the "Air Force Aviation Engine Manufacturing Plant". In April 1952, On November 1, 1954, the factory was reorganized into the Air Force Supply Command, and on November 1, 1954, it was incorporated into the Air Force's Third Supply Division. At this point, the designation was revoked. The machine gun bunker can fire both internally and externally. There is also an inner wall with a 45° angle in the gun hole. With this design, bullets cannot penetrate. In 1948, when Hunan was peacefully liberated, the Fifth Corps of the People's Liberation Army rested in Zhijiang, Hunan, preparing for liberation. Guizhou. Commander Yang Yong received instructions from Commander Liu and Deng, and mobilized capable cadres to form a team to take over the Dading factory and marched with the army. On November 25, 1949, the 47th Division of the 16th Army of the People's Liberation Army liberated Dading County and took over the aviation engine plant. At that time, the factory left more than 400 employees, more than 400 tons of machinery and various materials.
The watchtower built by the Kuomintang at that time and the watchtower later built by the Communist Party did not have three black stones. The old man at the gate said that it cost 2,500 yuan to replace the three broken stones many years ago. It can be seen that The workmanship at that time was extremely particular. In August 1952, during the war, the aviation engine factory moved from Dading Yangchangba to Chengdu, Sichuan and was reorganized into the state-owned 411 Factory of the Aviation Industry Bureau of the Second Ministry of Machinery. At the end of 1954, Factory 411 was changed to Air Force 5701 Military Aircraft Overhaul Factory, and it overhauled 36 C-46 transport aircraft left by the Chinese army in the mainland. Wang Fuqing, who presided over the vote, was transferred to serve as vice chairman of the Guizhou Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In September 1952, Bijie District Normal School moved to Yangchangba. In April of the following year, several students from Bijie Normal School used linoleum as torches to play in the crow's cave, accidentally causing a fire, which burned part of the wooden floor on the second floor. In 1965, the relationship between China and the Soviet Union collapsed. The former Soviet Union clamored to carry out a "surgical" nuclear attack on our country. The central government decided to move the eastern front-line military and heavy industry enterprises to the third-line areas. Mao Zedong put forward the slogan "Good people are good at the third front". The 011 system Nanjing Jinjiang Machinery Factory moved to Crowdong, Yangchangba, code-named Factory 501, and was known as Jinjiang Machinery Factory to the outside world. At this time, Crow Cave came to life again, and it was rebuilt into a three-story reinforced concrete structure based on the wood and stone foundation of the original aviation development plant. The production area and living area were basically the same as before. In that era of turmoil, countless military industry personnel were willing to dedicate themselves to the national defense industry regardless of reward. Countless products were shipped out of the mountains and equipped in the aerospace field. In order to prevent the rocks from collapsing, more than 50 meters of steel nails were driven through the roof of the cave to reinforce the collapsed boulders, which weighed about 100 tons. In the late 1980s, the Jinjiang factory also moved to Guiyang. It is said that a huge boulder weighing about 100 tons collapsed in the cave, and they reported it to the central government and agreed to move it away. But I think probably with the end of the Cold War, my country's planned economy has transitioned to a market economy, and the historical mission of the third-line military industry has ended. In the overall historical background, countless third-line military industries have moved from the mountains to the city, and some have gone bankrupt. Some continue to produce and develop new military products or transform into civilian products. Postscript: I think there were as many stories and as many unwritten books as there were people and families in Yangchangba. The Chinese miracle born in the crow's cave is also the embodiment of the perseverance of the Chinese nation. The aviation engine plant was born in the era of war and gunfire, and the end of the Cold War. In addition, there is a Japanese child with us this time. He is ignorant whether he can understand the world, war and peace. May the seeds of peace be subtly buried in his heart, or sown in everyone. It takes root in the hearts of people who have been to Crow Cave. The Crow's Hole is silent now and may it remain silent forever.