Now, shuimogou, known as the "Textile City", was a tourist attraction on the outskirts of Urumqi in the early years. At the foot of the east mountain and the tail of the red mountain, the ditch is a one-kilometer-long canyon and mountain stream. The ancient trees in the ditch are towering in the sky, and hundreds of springs gush, converging into a long river with an annual runoff of 60 million cubic meters, and the river flows out of the ditch from south to north, irrigating the farmland and gardens of "Yongfeng Fort" (now Qidaowan) and "Huilaibao" (present-day Liudaowan).
There are also hot springs in the ditch that flow in all seasons, and the hot spring mineral water can be bathed and boiled water to cook rice. The "repatriated prisoners" exiled to Urumqi during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty once mined and smelted iron near the hot springs. Ji Xiaolan wrote in the "Urumqi Miscellaneous Poems": "The fire on the east bank of the hot spring is glowing, and the wind and iron in the mountains are fishy." In 1816 (the twenty-first year of Qing Jiaqing), during his exile in Urumqi, Shi Shanchang once wrote a poem entitled "Youshui Mill ditch", in which it was written: "Whoever touches the heart will grind it, and the snowflake jade chips will be used to make a surplus device", which can be seen that before this, the residents of Urumqi used the rushing "Longkou" water source to set up mills and process flour.
Some people also say that at the same time that Urumqi was built as a city, some people built a water mill in "Longkou"; Pan Xiaosu, the governor of Xinjiang, changed the name of "Longkou" to "Musheng Spring", compared the clear and turbid spring water to the "holy virtue" of the Qing Emperor, and borrowed the spring "Musheng" to do his best.
In 1900 (the 26th year of Qing Guangxu), the Qing court noble Zailan was exiled to Urumqi by Empress Dowager Cixi because of the depravity of the Eight-Nation Alliance. It is said that as soon as he arrived in Urumqi, he went to visit the "Musheng Spring" and built a beautiful long pavilion under the dragon mouth of the "Musheng Spring", naming it "Xiao Cao Pavilion", under the pretext of the story of Xiao He and Cao San's allegiance to Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, to express his dissatisfaction with Empress Dowager Cixi's obedience to the government. The appearance of "Xiao Cao Ting" in Longkou adds a more beautiful scenery to this mountain stream canyon.
Then, a "Yidou Pavilion" was built across the stream and a "Bagua Pavilion" hidden in the green jungle. In 1907 (the 33rd year of Qing Guangxu), Wang Shunan, the governor of Xinjiang Province, used the natural water power here to build an "official water mill" to process flour for military supplies, and from then on, the "Longkou" of Baiquan Baotu became a concentration of water mills. In 1896 (the 22nd year of qing guangxu), the local authorities also used the water conservancy resources here to set up a machine bureau near the hot springs.
After the Xinhai Revolution, Yang Zengxin allocated the original guanshui mill to the Hui mill merchant Ma Zhengyuan privately. By the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the number of private mills opened in Shuimogou had increased to as many as eighteen. Due to the continuous increase of private water mills, not only the commons of the original scenic areas have gradually been encircled as private, but also many primitive ancient trees have been cut down. The "Xiao Cao Pavilion", which attracts people to watch, has also been eclipsed. What's more, because the flour merchants in Shuimogou monopolized the flour market in Urumqi, the price of flour continued to rise, especially during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the millers who made "national hardships and wealth" demanded prices at will and arbitrarily extorted money, causing great difficulties to the lives of the working people. "Merchant mills turn day and night, and the people rarely have bran noodles", this folk song that has been handed down is a realistic portrayal of the scene at that time.
Since Comrade Mao Zemin became the director of the Xinjiang Finance Department in early 1939, in order to stabilize prices and improve the people's living standards, he has established a "consumer cooperative for public servants" to distribute daily necessities to workers at the lowest prices. The rice noodles eaten by Comrade Mao Zemin were all bought monthly from the "Public Servants' Consumption Cooperative", and when he found that the quality of the rice noodles had decreased, he always went to the cooperative himself to investigate and study and help improve. In September 1941, he took advantage of his sick leave to live alone in "Xiao Cao Ting", recuperating from illness and investigating the situation of the water mill merchants, helping them formulate the Pact on Support of the War of Resistance. After 1945, the kuomintang reactionary army was stationed in Shuimogou, the original pavilion buildings, flowers and trees were destroyed, and many springs were filled with garbage and sewage, so that the water source was reduced, and the annual runoff of the river was only about 20 million cubic meters.
After liberation, the People's Liberation Army in Urumqi worked hard to build Xinjiang's first modern cotton textile factory by using the water sources here. After years of expansion, the textile factory has become a large textile printing and dyeing factory; around the textile factory's new power plant, hospital, cinema and buildings, Shuimogou has been built into a modern textile city.
Source: Urumqi History