In modern China, because it did not catch up with the world's second industrial revolution, resulting in the backwardness of the manufacturing industry to the West, especially in the field of weapons, it can be said that it directly made the great powers look at us with a tiger's eye, so the western affairs movement in the late Qing Dynasty was, to a large extent, to learn from foreign advanced manufacturing technology and defeat the invaders by making weapons by themselves.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, many heroes who bravely killed the enemy in front of them emerged, and they became idols in the minds of countless people. However, the red flowers need green leaf lining, not only the front line soldiers to be brave, but also the rear to provide advice, material support, many people silently give support, especially the basic of the soldier should have a gun, enough ammunition, the worker wants to do good, must first use the weapon.
In this regard, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there was a man named Li Chenggan, who although he had never been on the battlefield, he worshipped lieutenant generals and had the title of "Father of the War of Resistance.". During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, more than 60 percent of the country's weapons were provided by him, especially the Ningzao 24-type Makqin heavy machine gun and 82 mortar he developed with excellent performance, which were well-known in the military industry circles, became important weapons and equipment on the anti-Japanese battlefield, and played an important role in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Li Chenggan, also spelled Zhiqing, was born on May 28, 1888 (July 7, 1888) in Qingtai Town, Changsha County, Hunan Province, to a well-off family. At the age of six, he entered a private school for seven years. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court was corrupt, the trend of restoration was surging, and a group of people of insight founded a new-style school with the concept of "education to save the country", and the teenager Li Chenggan entered the Hunan Provincial Industrial School to study.
At that time, just as the influence of the anti-Qing revolution of Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of the democratic revolution, was expanding, another pioneer of the democratic revolution, Huang Xing, was a native of Changsha, and the "Xinghua Society" he founded put forward the slogan of "expelling the Tartars and restoring China", which also coincided with Sun Yat-sen's concept of democratic revolution. This kind of environment has a profound impact on Li Chenggan and inspires his ambition of "saving the country through industry".
Subsequently, Li Chenggan obtained the opportunity to study in Japan with his achievements. When the Xinhai Revolution broke out in 1911, Li Yiran returned to China to join the revolutionary army led by Huang Xing and fought against the Qing army. In 1912, Li returned to Japan to continue his studies. The following year, he was admitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tokyo Imperial University, and after graduating, he returned to his home country after more than a year of internship.
After returning to China, Li Chenggan first worked as an engineer in firearms and weapons at the Hanyang Arsenal, and was also responsible for teaching cadets, and then entered the Jinling Machinery Bureau as the chief of the public works section. Jinling Machinery Bureau under the operation of Li Hongzhang, is a relatively powerful arsenal in the late Qing Dynasty, during the Republic of China period, Jinling Machinery Bureau operated poorly, once in a state of suspension.
At that time, the Jinling Machinery Bureau operated and stopped production, mainly related to internal corruption and perfunctory workers, in the process of producing weapons, many workers are not manufactured according to scientific drawings, are blindly manufactured according to their own experience. Li Chenggan was in the Public Works Department at that time, which was the core department of the Jinling Machinery Bureau, and as soon as Li Chenggan took office, he began to explore standardized production methods.
Then the Outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the craziest move of the Japanese army was to ask for the arsenal, at this time under the overall command of Li Chenggan, the arsenal was smoothly moved to Chongqing, and all the four thousand tons of equipment and materials in the factory were shipped out, and production was quickly resumed. At that time, the factory building was very simple, and Li Chenggan was a pioneer, and he ate and lived with the employees. Incredibly, the arsenal resumed production in just one month.
Li Chenggan, who became the director of the arsenal, actively transformed the equipment and increased the production capacity, while focusing on the improvement of technology, he not only designed the rifle, but also modified the Mark heavy machine gun, and at the end of the War of Resistance, he also designed a one hundred and twenty-millimeter mortar with a range of six kilometers. The 82mm caliber mortar shell also developed reduced the cost from 12 yuan per import to 6 yuan per each, so that the shell could be produced in large quantities and widely used on the anti-Japanese battlefield.
By the end of 1944, the Twenty-first Arsenal had 11 branches under it, including heavy machine guns, light machine guns, rifles, mortars, heavy mortars, shells, tools, machines, power, pharmaceutical factories, and gun repair, with more than 3,000 pieces of various machinery and equipment, more than 20 kinds of weapons and ammunition produced, and more than 14,300 employees.
As a result of Li Chenggan's significant contributions, his position and rank were also constantly raised, and he was promoted from major general to the rank of lieutenant general. Nevertheless, during his tenure as the director of the factory, Li Chenggan's annual expenses were calculated in hundreds of millions of yuan, but his life was extremely difficult, because he had been in the front line of the factory for a long time and was bent on creating weapons with superior performance, Li Chenggan had been fighting in the arsenal for a long time, and believed that "the Xiongnu are not destroyed, how to be home", and has not fallen in love for nearly twenty years, let alone the desire to start a family.
Someone commented on Li Chenggan: "He does not marry a wife, does not sit on a slippery pole, half of his salary is handed over to the orphanage, and his favorite thing is to go to the staff dormitory to chat with the workers." "During the War of Resistance Against Japan, more than half of China's light weapons were produced under the command of Li Chenggan, and the annual cost of passing through his hands was not only tens of millions, but this factory director only had two pieces of clothes to change and wash.
Due to the delay in his work, Li Chenggan, who had never had a family, did not want to use the weapons he produced for cannibalism with his compatriots after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, resolutely resigned from the post of director of the Kuomintang arsenal, and did not follow Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan.
Li Chenggan, who became the director of the bureau, insisted on living with the workers in a 12-square-meter single dormitory, and when he suffered from high blood pressure in his later years, he carried a suicide note on his work card. "I have high blood pressure in my old age, and I am in danger of fainting at any time. To this end, I will leave a few words for my friends and my younger siblings as follows: My body can be sent to Union Medical College Hospital or Beijing Medical College students for internship dissection, or cremated on the spot, without burial, and not hanging.
In December 1958, 71-year-old Comrade Li Chenggan suddenly suffered a heart attack during the meeting, and the rescue was ineffective, such an admirable hero left, although he did not go to the battlefield, did not kill the devil, but his contribution to China's War of Resistance Against Japan was unmatched, he dedicated all his graduation energy to the country, and he was indeed a respectable hero.
References for this article: Li Chenggan of Jinling Arsenal