Steam locomotives, Dongfeng brand trucks produced by the former First Automobile Manufacturing Plant, gantry planers, molten steel ladles... At the Guizhou Third Line Construction Museum, I saw these precious cultural relics, evoking infinite nostalgia for that fiery era.
Guizhou Third-line Construction Museum is located in the old town of Hecheng Street, Zhongshan District, Liupanshui City, Guizhou Province, and is the first museum in China with the theme of "third-line culture". The museum covers an area of 26,813.47 square meters (40.22 acres) and a building area of 10,136 square meters. The exhibition area of the main building of the museum is divided into three major areas: the preface hall, the people's auditorium and the exhibition hall of the main building, and the exhibition area of the three-story main building is divided into seven exhibition halls. On display are 9502 pieces of literature, 1128 pictures, 1380 pieces of physical objects, more than 200 archival materials, and 1080 minutes of audio-visual materials. In September 2019, the museum was named the "National Patriotism Education Demonstration Base" by the Central Propaganda Department. On November 12, 2019, the State Nationalities Commission announced the "Sixth Batch of National Ethnic Unity and Progress Education Bases", among which the museum was listed.
The construction of the third line is a large-scale construction of basic facilities for national defense, science and technology, industry, and transportation carried out in 13 provinces and autonomous regions in the central and western regions of the mainland since 1964 with war readiness as the guiding ideology, and is an extremely large-scale industrial relocation process in the mainland's economic history.
The museum shows the fighting spirit of the third-line builders at that time, millions of technical management talents from the interior, brought advanced technology, advanced culture, industrial civilization, and transportation convenience to the poor and white western region at that time.
The construction of the third line has laid a solid foundation for the prosperity of Liupanshui today, and high-rise buildings have risen from the embrace of the mountains to build a modern city. At present, the economic base coal of Liupanshui is based on the results of the construction of the third line of the Liupanshui Coal Industrial Base built that year. It can be said that without the third-line construction of that year, there would be no Liupanshui today. Nowadays, people build this museum to reminisce about that period of history and to pay high tribute to the people who participated in the construction of the third line!
Qujing Daily reporter Yang Xuerong text/photo