"If there is no group of people in China who are willing to calm down, do not take advantage of the heat, do not worry, are not confused by the fame and wealth of the world, and are committed to creating new academic skills for China, China will never be able to produce new life."
This sentence was said by Fan Xudong. Who is he? He is a famous patriotic industrialist in the mainland and the founder of the modern chemical industry, and he single-handedly founded China's first soda ash plant "Yongli", China's first refined salt plant "Jiuda" and China's first chemical industry research institution "Huanghai Society", which can be called "the only chemical lifeline of our country" in the thirties and forties of the 20th century.
Fan Xudong (1883-1945)
In 1945, Fan Xudong died of illness. Mao Zedong sent the couplet "industrial leader, the merit is in China", and Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei jointly presented the couplet "struggle for three years, the original Yongli is long-lasting, and the hatred of Bohai is left behind; Peace is beginning, and we are looking forward to working together to build it, and we are deeply saddened by the loss of Mr. China." The elegiac couplet written by Lu Zuofu is "Tanggu is completed, Qianle is also completed, and the immortal Qing glow is shixian; For the founding of the country, for the people, is it not just a private cry Mr."
"Yanyun in Sight: The Westward Migration of "Permanent Huang" 1937-1952" records the most important but little-known past events in the development history of "Permanent Huang" (Yongli + Jiuda + Huanghai Society) that occurred in "Tanggu" (Tianjin) and "Qianle" (Sichuan) mentioned in Lu Zuofu's Lianlian.
Group photo of the backbone of the "Permanent Yellow" group before the Anti-Japanese War
Entrepreneurship
In August 1924, the Yongli Alkali Factory in Tanggu officially produced alkali, creating the first page in the history of alkali production in China and even East Asia. Under the painstaking management of the founders Fan Xudong, Hou Debang and others, China's basic chemical industry has a situation where salt, alkali, acid and fertilizer go hand in hand. However, after the "77 Incident" in 1937, Wynn was occupied by the Japanese invaders, and the Jiuda Refined Salt Factory and the Huanghai Chemical Industry Research Society, which were in the same vein, also suffered heavy losses. In order to preserve the national chemical fire, more than 1,000 employees and their families of the "Permanent Yellow" group moved west to Sichuan with machinery and equipment, completing an unprecedented feat in the history of China's chemical development. They successively built the Yongli Chuan Factory, the Zigong Jiuda Model Salt Factory, and more than a dozen small factories on the sparsely populated and desolate land to make a living and support the anti-Japanese war. The area of Laolongba, where the Yongli Sichuan factory is located, was named "Xintanggu" in order to "Yanyun is in sight and will not forget".
In 1938, the staff of "Perpetual Yellow" was on the Minsheng steamer heading west, which can be called the "Dunkirk Retreat" in the history of Chinese industry
The cover photo of this book shows the construction site of the Yongli Chuan plant under construction in early 1939
Rebuild
The reconstruction of "Permanent Yellow" has not been without its challenges. As we all know, the history of the mainland's independent alkali production is less than 100 years. Before Wynn, the manufacturing technology of high-quality soda ash had been monopolized by Westerners. In 1921, Fan Xudong invited Hou Debang to return to China to serve as the chief technician of Yongli Alkali Factory, and introduced the most advanced "Sulvay alkali method" at that time. However, after Wynn moved westward, it could not continue to be used due to equipment and raw material restrictions. After hundreds of tests, Hou Debang finally developed the "combined alkali method" (i.e., "Hou's alkali method") in 1941, which increased the utilization rate of salt to more than 98%, reduced the equipment by one-third, and reduced the manufacturing cost of soda ash by 40%, leaving the foreign "Sulvay method" and "Cha'an method" far behind, and also making China's chemical industry occupy a place in the world market.
The innovation of the alkali production method is only a small episode of the westward migration of "permanent yellow". In the 13 years since entering Sichuan, "Fan Xudong" has faced a series of difficulties such as shortage of equipment and funds, lack of industrial raw materials, transportation obstacles, and turbulent political environment. In this brand-new land of salt and brine, in addition to operating their main business, they also insisted on compiling publications, engaging in scientific research, running education, building equipment, and even mining coal mines...... From 1937 to 1952, "Xintanggu" made an indelible contribution to the preservation of the chemical industry fire of New China.
Fan Xudong once set up four tenets specifically for the "Perpetual Yellow" group, and his good partner Hou Debang also copied these four tenets neatly to warn future generations. To this day, this is still one of the benchmarks of Chinese corporate culture.
Leave a mark
Writer Gong Jingran adopts a non-fiction historical writing method, based on first-hand archives, documents and oral accounts of witnesses, supplemented by more than 80 precious historical pictures, to clarify the context and restore the details, presenting readers with an epic of the westward migration of national industry during the Anti-Japanese War. The book shows the great achievements of "Xintanggu" in the history of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the history of China's science and technology, reveals the westward migration of "Yongli Chemical" that has been dusty for more than half a century, outlines the struggle of patriotic scientists and industrialists in the war, and praises the entrepreneurial spirit of "knowing that it cannot be done".
Published in August 2024
As he says in the preface: "This work continues my pursuit of a simple, concise, and accurate narrative style. I've always believed that historical writing can't be whitewashed, and although the original appearance is not necessarily flattering, flowery rhetoric is more likely to be deceitful...... I would like to thank each and every one of the 'Permanent Yellow' fanfics who appear in my book, who are devotees of this tumultuous history. Their greatness lies in the fact that in the midst of hardship and hardship, they also emit even a faint light of life. ”
It has been 100 years since the establishment of Yongli Alkali Plant, Tanggu is now part of Tianjin Binhai New Area, and Yongli Alkali Plant has also been merged into Bohai Chemical Group and moved to the new area as a whole. Today, located on the site of Wynn is Ziyun Park, and the hill in the park is made of alkali residue from the past. Located in Wutong Bridge, Leshan, Sichuan, "Xintanggu" still retains the factory equipment of the Sichuan factory and the dormitory where Fan Xudong lived today, and has become an important industrial site...... The vicissitudes of life, suddenly. What has changed is the landscape of mountains and rivers, and what has not changed is the entrepreneurial spirit and patriotic feelings of the "Permanent Yellow" group, which deserves to be written and remembered.
The three words "Xintanggu" originally engraved on the mountain wall are now taken down and displayed at the former site of Yongli Chuan Factory