Source: Economic Daily
In 1927, a scientific expedition from Northwest China, headed by Professor Xu Bingchang of Peking University, came to Baotou for the first time to work. At that time, Baotou was a vast grassy beach Gobi, a small water and drought wharf, and the geologist Ding Daoheng first discovered the Baiyun Obo large iron ore. However, a hundred years ago, the people's livelihood was withering, and the old China was stormy. No matter how rich the Baiyun Obo mineral deposits are, they can only sleep on the wasteland. It was not until the "First Five-Year Plan" period after the founding of New China that it began to revitalize.
At the end of January 2021, the reporter climbed the main peak of Baiyun Ebo. Looking at it, after more than 60 years of mining, the mine has formed a deep pit of 296 meters. The first batch of unmanned mining heavy trucks produced by Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd. are racing in the world's first intelligent mine under 5G conditions built by Baotou Iron and Steel (Group) Co., Ltd.
No. 7 blast furnace of Baotou Iron and Steel (Group) Co., Ltd. In recent years, Baotou Steel has driven energy conservation and emission reduction into a new stage with cost, environmental protection and structural advantages. (File photo)
Major projects settled In the rise of industrial cities
During the "First Five-Year Plan" period, 5 of the 156 key national construction projects settled in Baotou. Coupled with the new projects in 1958, a total of 6 projects, including Baotou Iron and Steel Company, Inner Mongolia First Machinery Factory, Inner Mongolia Second Machinery Factory, Baotou First Thermal Power Plant, and Baotou Second Thermal Power Plant, were started intensively.
Ge Guilin, an 86-year-old retired cadre of Baotou Steel, is from Shanxi and is the first generation of Baotou steel people, "At that time, Baotou's economy was very backward, and the guiding ideology of the municipal party committee was very clear, to build a modern industrial city."
In 1958, the construction of the No. 1 blast furnace entered a critical period, but due to the remote geographical location of Baotou Steel at that time, the transportation of equipment was lagging behind, and the construction materials were becoming increasingly scarce, the blast furnace construction was facing the danger of stopping work and waiting for materials. To this end, Chairman Mao Zedong made an important instruction to "find a way to solve difficulties for Baotou Steel", and the Party Central Committee decided to increase support for Baotou Steel.
On January 19, 1959, The People's Daily published an editorial entitled "Ensuring The Key Points, Supporting Baosteel", proposing the slogan of "Baosteel is the whole country, the whole country is Baosteel". The call of the Party Central Committee was quickly responded to and implemented throughout the country, and on average, more than 10 trains loaded with materials and equipment supported by various places were continuously transported to Baotou Steel every day. Professionals from all walks of life have also come to Baotou to support construction.
After arduous efforts, on September 26, 1959, Baotou Steel No. 1 blast furnace was released and presented to the National Day 5 days in advance. On October 15, 1959, Premier Zhou Enlai came to Baogang Steel to cut the ribbon for the No. 1 blast furnace. This shear cuts off the history of the grasslands not producing inches of iron; this shear cuts off the lament of the old society of exchanging a bag of needles for a sheep.
At present, Baotou Steel has become an important steel industrial base and rare earth industrial base in China. Among them, the steel industry has more than 16.5 million tons of iron, steel and material supporting capacity, becoming the world's leading high-speed rail production enterprise in the level of equipment; the rare earth industry has formed an industrial structure based on resources, smelting as the core, new materials as the focus, and terminal applications as the direction of expansion.
The TR35 and TR50 mine trucks produced by Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd. North Co., Ltd. are sent to Anhui Conch Group in batches. Mining vehicles produced by Beizhong Group are exported to more than 60 countries and regions. Photo by Zhu Wenjun
The factory is in the border city of Cyprus, which is a military parade ceremony
A Type 59 tank that participated in the military parade for the tenth anniversary of the National Day told the world its extraordinary trajectory in the exhibition hall of Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group Co., Ltd. At the beginning of the founding of New China, China's tank industry was in a state of "zero", and foreign experts asserted that it would take at least 20 years for New China to build its own main battle tanks. And they never expected that on the tenth anniversary of the National Day, Baotou manufactured and Chinese their own main battle tanks made a wonderful appearance.
In May 1953, the preparatory group for the construction of the tank factory was formally established, known as "Inner Mongolia First Machinery Manufacturing Factory", referred to as "One Machine Factory". In order to support the construction of the new factory, a group of outstanding scientific researchers, skilled workers, and college and secondary school graduates from the north and south of the great river gathered in Baotou with the ambition of serving the national defense cause. If there is no transportation, it is necessary to take a car by foot, and if there is not enough dormitory, you will set up a tent. Under the guidance of the factory construction policy of "building infrastructure, installing while installing, and trial production at the same time", a machine man began the trial production of main battle tanks.
December 25, 1958 was a day worth entering the annals of China's national defense history – China's first T-54A medium tank was successfully trial-produced at a machine factory. On October 1, 1959, at the military parade marking the tenth anniversary of the founding of New China, 32 medium-sized tanks forged by the workers of the whole factory with their painstaking efforts and sweat, carrying the hopes and trust of the people of the whole country, rumbled through Tiananmen Square to be inspected by the party and state leaders.
"Every National Day military parade, as long as there are tanks from one machine factory, there must be artillery from two machine factories." Recalling the years of that year, Yu Zhengxin, Chen Hao, a 86-year-old old employee of the Inner Mongolia Second Machinery Factory, are still very excited. "We left the southeast coast and came to the outer border city of Saiwai, the environment is harsh and the conditions are harsh, needless to say. But every time I saw our products at the military parade, I felt that 'say nothing, the motherland knows me', and a sense of pride as a soldier worker came out of nowhere. Yu Zhengxin said.
Today's second machine factory - Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd. has become a large-scale comprehensive enterprise specializing in the development and production of related military products, special steel, mining vehicles and other industry influence in China. Today's first machine factory - Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group Co., Ltd. has not lost a year since statistics, and during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the main business income increased from 13 billion yuan to 16 billion yuan, and the profit increased from 400 million yuan to 785 million yuan.
In 1960, steelmaking workers in charge of the production of the No. 1 large open furnace of Baotou Steel observed the rise in furnace temperature. Photo by Cui Xiaohua (Xinhua News Agency)
Achieve technological breakthroughs and support the construction of a strong country
On January 9, 2021, the first batch of products of the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor nuclear fuel element production line with completely independent intellectual property rights in China was launched at CNNC North Nuclear Fuel Component Co., Ltd., which aroused widespread concern at home and abroad.
Upon learning of this, the 85-year-old Yu Xiande was very proud. As the first generation builder of China's first nuclear fuel component factory, the predecessor of CNNC North Nuclear Fuel Component Co., Ltd., 202 Plant, he remembers that when he first came to Baotou, there was a local rumor that "rats during the day and wolves at night, and strong winds blow away sheep". Entrepreneurs, under the condition of no factory and no equipment, started from scratch and worked hard to start a business. In the simple warehouse, the technical personnel tried to produce key components in the absence of information, which made great contributions to the successful development of China's first atomic bomb. The employees of the 202 factory once proudly said: Our 202 factory is amazing, eating yam eggs and building atomic bombs!
Today, CNNC North Nuclear Fuel Components Co., Ltd. has achieved the leap from the experimental line to the industrial scale production line of the fourth generation of nuclear power technology - high-temperature gas-cooled reactor component manufacturing, providing strong support for China's transition from a "nuclear power" to a "nuclear power".
Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the old industrial base in Baotou has regained its youth. At present, it has built a special industry with the advantages of steel, rare earth, aluminum, equipment manufacturing, coal chemical industry, new energy, etc., with 1 national rare earth high-tech industrial development zone and 8 autonomous region-level industrial parks, which is an important national equipment manufacturing base and the world's largest rare earth research and development base.
During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, baotou's gdp increased by an average annual rate of 5.7%, reaching 278.7 billion yuan in 2020. The industrial structure continued to be optimized, and the added value of strategic emerging industries increased at an average annual rate of more than 15%.
"The construction and development time of the Baotou industrial base is short and the efficiency is high, as if it came out of nowhere, which fully reflects the institutional advantages of concentrating forces on major events." Zhang Haijiang, former director of the Party History Office of the Baotou Municipal CPC Committee, said: The development of Baotou from a water and drought wharf in the past into a modern industrial city is a strong evidence of the tremendous advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. (Economic Daily-China Economic Network reporter Chen Li Yu Jian)