There are many "Chinese business cards". Nowadays, China's high-speed rail, China's aerospace, China's nuclear power and other major power heavy weapons representing China's strength have entered the world stage.
But at the beginning of the founding of New China, all this was zero. The smoke of war has just dissipated, the country is in ruins and waiting to be revived, and the Kuomintang troops who have retreated to the Taiwan region are still stubborn and unchanged, and often threaten the security of the mainland of the motherland. The Central Military Commission has intensified its national defense construction and made a decision to build national defense fortifications on a large scale.
As a special branch of the new China, the sappers are facing an arduous task.
In 1952, Chen Shiyu received an order from the Central Military Commission to serve as the commander of the engineering corps of the People's Liberation Army. Our army engineers were born in 1927, and since then they have gone through the tempering of war at every stage of the Chinese revolution, and now when the motherland is in urgent need, the sappers must also carry the banner.
In September 1953, after extensive investigation and research, chen Shiyu also referred to the experience of the Soviet Union, and proposed to divide 28 engineer regiments into three types according to different tasks: field, boat bridge, and construction, and was approved. Two years later, the sappers were renamed the Engineer Corps.
When Chen Shiyu presided over the Fifth National Defense Engineering Conference convened by the Ministry of Military Construction, Su Yu pointed out in one sentence: "The construction of national defense projects should be focused on preventing atoms and appropriately strengthen and improve fortifications." In 1958, when the Central Military Commission decided to develop the nuclear industry, Qian Xuesen and other experts were excited, and Chen Shiyu also hurriedly asked what his engineers could do.
So, in the middle of the summer of 1958, a secret flight began. Chen Shiyu led more than 30 experts and scholars, as well as several Soviet experts, to Hami, Xinjiang, for investigation. At this time, the engineers shouldered two important tasks: the construction of missile test bases and nuclear bases.
In 1959, Chen Shiyu led the team to Lop Nur to investigate, and everyone agreed that the terrain and geological conditions here were more in line with the requirements for the establishment of a nuclear test site, and a unique nuclear test area was finally finalized! Immediately afterward, a construction team of 10,000 people marched into Lop Nur .
Then, on the land of China, the troops "mysteriously disappeared" one after another, and the soldiers of the engineers received secret orders and quietly set foot in the desert. It was in Lop Nur that a unit code-named "7169" was born.
Since the fall of the ancient kingdom of Loulan, Lop Nur has not been so lively for more than a thousand years. The engineers covered the 700 km long and 100 km wide land west of Lop Nur . Green tents, instruments, and cables have turned the Gobi Desert into a battlefield on standby.
The average altitude of the nuclear test site is 3200 meters, the average annual temperature is -4 °C, and the conditions are very difficult, coupled with natural disasters. Here, the most precious and scarce is water, in the harsh winter, everyone tries their best to collect snow water, wait until they take out the stored water, when the heat is good to drink, the bottom of the cup is still a thick layer of mosquitoes.
Even so difficult, by early 1960, Asia's first nuclear test site had been built by Chinese engineers. They completed the engineering task three years ahead of schedule before the Soviets tore up the contract, and the Soviet Union had to deliver the full set of equipment according to the contract.
In two years, the construction of the base has begun to take shape, 546 kilometers of roads, more than 100,000 square meters of factory buildings, 1,800 kilometers of communication lines have all been built, and an airstop airport has been built, and everyone can't wait for that exciting moment.
In 1964, a tower more than 100 feet high, including 8,467 parts and a weight of 80 tons, was erected at the center of the nuclear base, at the top of the tower, where China's first atomic bomb was stored. On October 16, the engineer soldiers struggled for 6 years, and finally saw a scene that was enough to make people shed tears: just above the sky above their fight, a huge fireball was raised, and China's first atomic bomb exploded successfully!
On the night of New Year's Day that year, Chairman Mao said happily at the party: "We Chinese and we have begun to count when we speak!" You have all done a great job. ”