What is China's first domestic car, many people will blurt out - Jiefang brand truck!
Liberation truck off the line
On July 13, 1956, the first car in New China, the Jiefang brand truck, rolled off the production line in Changchun City, Jilin Province.
The car is modeled after the Guise-150 truck from the Stalin Automobile Plant in Moscow, Soviet Union. It is equipped with a 6-cylinder gasoline engine with 90 horsepower and a top speed of 65 kilometers per hour with a load capacity of 4 tons. It is a major milestone in the new Chinese automobile industry and even the machinery industry.
Soviet Gis-150 truck
Since then, this type of CA10 truck has been produced for more than 30 years and has endured for a long time. Jiefang brand cars have also become the absolute originator of domestic cars in the hearts of Chinese.
Jiefang CA10 truck
However, the Jiefang truck is not the first domestically produced car in China. China's first self-produced car dates back to 1931. On May 31, 1931, China's first self-produced car, the Minsheng brand Type 75 gasoline truck, was launched at the Fengtian Automobile Factory, which was then the Liaoning Mortar Factory.
The car uses a 65-horsepower six-cylinder water-cooled gasoline engine with a wheelbase of 4.7 meters, all four wheels are single tires, a top speed of 40 kilometers per hour, and a design load of 2.5 tons.
Among the 666 kinds of parts in the whole car, 464 kinds are self-made, 202 kinds rely on imports, and the localization rate has reached 70%, and it is completely tailored according to Chinese roads.
And in terms of technology, it also has its own characteristics, such as the water tank is divided into four parts, one part is damaged, and the car can still drive as usual.
Therefore, although it borrows foreign technology and uses some foreign parts, the Minsheng 75 truck can already be regarded as a domestic car without compromise.
In 1931, when the entire Asian automobile industry was still in its infancy, how did the Republic of China give birth to this car? Before studying this issue, let's first study the automobile environment of the Republic of China.
China's association with automobiles dates back to the 29th year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1903. At that time, China's first imported cars entered the Qing Dynasty from Shanghai
In 1914, the first automobile company "Holley Automatic Dealership" appeared in Changchun, but this company did not produce cars, but imported cars from Britain and then engaged in bus services. The Republic of China in this period had just ended the Xinhai Revolution, poor and weak, and could not even make a match, let alone build a car, and the entire Asian automobile industry had just entered the embryonic stage.
By the end of 20 years, the number of cars in the country was less than 10,000 units. Let's take an interesting case: How much does it cost to repair a car during this period? The answer is a gold bar!
A trumpet 15,000 oceans
At that time, chen Cheng, a first-class general of the Kuomintang Army, he had a Ford car, the car was broken, he had to go to the shop at that time to repair, he needed a gold bar to repair once, and it took 15,000 oceans just to change a horn!
A first-class general in the Kuomintang Army, Chen Cheng
This was the automobile consumption market of the Republic of China at that time, but there was a person who did not believe in evil, this person was the young marshal Zhang Xueliang, Zhang Xueliang, who can be said to be the "originator" of Chinese automobiles.
Because China's first self-produced car, the Minsheng brand cargo car, was born from the Liaoning Mortar Factory under his jurisdiction.
The Zhang family loved cars, and in the 1920s, the young marshal already owned a Harley motorcycle and a Buick Century sedan.
His father, Zhang Zuolin, personally customized the world's first 12-cylinder Führer-class bulletproof sedan "Fengtian No. 1" at that time.
Zhang Zuolin's "Fengtian No.1"
The Fengtian-1 has a maximum horsepower of 90 and a height of two meters.
The interior is expensive mahogany and expensive blankets. There are also two firing holes in the rear window to make it easy to fire on enemies around. Coupled with the solid armor, it was simply a light tank at the time.
It is said that at that time, it was customized in the United States, and it cost a total of thirty-five thousand DOLLARs, which was equivalent to fifty thousand silver dollars. It took more than a year to build it, and Chiang Kai-shek and Puyi, who later ascended to the peak of power, both customized the car.
During the puppet Manchukuo period, Puyi's car
In 1928, Zhang Zuolin was killed by the Japanese Kwantung Army at Huanggutun, and the young marshal Zhang Xueliang was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the security of the three eastern provinces.
Zhang Zuolin was killed by the Kwantung Army on a train in Huanggutun
Then a week later, Zhang Xueliang announced his obedience to the Nationalist government in Nanjing, ushering in a brief period of peace in the three eastern provinces.
At that time, the National Government attached great importance to the development of the domestic automobile industry, Zhang Xueliang, and was passionate about cars, so in 1929, the then Fengtian Mortar Factory was changed to the Liaoning Mortar Factory, and set up a subsidiary civilian supplies industrial manufacturing office, that is, the Minsheng Factory, which was mainly to develop automobiles.
*Note: The Northeast Yearbook contains: In May 1929, "Liaoning Mortar Factory, due to the peaceful reunification of the country, the military ended, the ordnance needs to be sharply reduced, the director of the factory intends to use the inherent machinery and equipment, trial production of cars, first from the chassis, now testing." Turning soldiers into work, sincerity is also a policy. ”
Moreover, the young marshal invested 740,000 yuan for the start-up funds. At that time, 740,000 yuan, because it could not be converted, I estimated that it was equivalent to at least tens of millions of yuan today (this is a fool's guess).
Because the funds are relatively sufficient, so at that time, the American Miles was also hired as the chief engineer, and a large number of professional and technical personnel were also recruited to form a technical team, and at that time, the Minsheng factory had a total of 207 employees and 30 technical and management personnel.
"Republic" brand trucks
When people are in place, they are poor technology. Li Yichun, the director of the young marshal, bought back the "Republic" brand truck from the United States and studied its style and principle through disassembly.
At the same time, Li Yichun also sent technicians from the Minsheng Factory to advanced automobile factories in the United States for internships, including large factories such as Ford and GM.
After studying the Republic brand car, the Minsheng factory decided to plan to produce two models of Minsheng brand trucks. One is the Type 55, which has a maximum cargo capacity of 2 tons, which is more suitable for areas with better road conditions in cities and towns. The other type 100 can carry a load of 3 tons, adapting to the more complex driving environment in the countryside.
Minsheng Factory disassembled and tested the whole vehicle of the Republic brand truck to find out the wearable parts in it, and designed and manufactured separately in combination with the actual situation in China. For structural parts with simple structure and low difficulty in processing, the factory can directly imitate the production.
For a small number of redesigned and difficult to produce parts, Minsheng Factory draws its own drawings and entrusts foreign factories to process and manufacture them.
Of course, for the most core engine, transmission system, electrical system and tires, etc., you can only buy back the original parts from the United States.
In June 1931, the Minsheng Factory announced the successful development of the Minsheng Brand 55 car, because the load capacity exceeded the expected 2 tons and reached 2.5 tons. Therefore, China's first "domestic car" also changed the model from the original Type 55 to type 75, and the Minsheng 75 type early middle car was born.
*Note: According to the "National Daily" at the time, "Except for a few single pieces and engines, rear axles, electrical devices and tires, etc., or with more complicated equipment or no raw materials, in fact, the difficult period of production, the rest of the pieces are designed and manufactured by the factory itself." ”
According to statistics, the first Minsheng brand car has a total of 666 kinds of parts, of which 464 have been domestically produced, and the rest are imported. In this way, if you only look at the quantity, more than 70% of the parts of minsheng brand cars are domestically produced, which is really a miracle.
In addition to excellent performance, minsheng brand 75 truck has many innovative designs. For example, the re-improved buffer rear axle and the four-part split water tank are reasonable improvements combined with reality.
Factory director Li Yichun drove Minsheng 75
On September 12, 1931, Shanghai held the 10th anniversary exhibition of the National Road Construction Association.
As the highlight of the exhibition, minsheng brand cars are placed in the center of the exhibition hall, which is particularly eye-catching in many foreign brand vehicles such as Ford, Buick, OzMobil, Renault, etc., and naturally become the focus of everyone's discussion.
The successful development of minsheng brand automobiles was highly valued and highly praised by the National Government at that time. At that time, there was even a wave of automobile manufacturing, but before they could put it into action, tragedy occurred.
On September 18, 1931, the Japanese Kou launched the "918" incident, and many military and private enterprises, including the Liaoning Mortar Factory, were forcibly occupied.
At that time, all the semi-finished products of the Minsheng factory fell into the hands of the Japanese army, and the Japanese army immediately made it into a Toyota 31C truck, and only the Minsheng car exhibited in Shanghai was spared from the catastrophe and has been preserved to this day.
Toyota 31C truck
Later, the Ministry of Industry of Manchukuo, in accordance with the will of the Japanese Kwantung Army, changed the Minsheng Factory into Tonghe Automatic Vehicle Industry Co., Ltd. The budding Chinese national automobile manufacturing industry came to an abrupt end, the legend of the Minsheng brand automobile ended, and the short spring of the automobile industry of the Republic of China also ended.
Ministry of Industry of Puppet Manchukuo
The Japanese army changed the Minsheng 75 to Toyota 31C, and later there was a saying: the Japanese army plundered the production line and parts of the Minsheng 75 truck and shipped them back to China, and handed them over to Toyota Boshoku, after which Toyota began the road of automobile industry.
At first, I thought so, so I went to the historical data to support this view, only to find that it was not. Because the time is not right at all. Let's take a look at Toyota's history at that time:
In 1896, at the age of 26, Sakichi Toyoda invented the "Toyota-style pneumatic loom". It was the first automatic loom ever built in Japan that did not rely on human power, so Toyoda Sakiyoshi was also known as the textile king.
At the end of 1929, the patent right to use the Toyota-style steam loom was sold to the British Prade Company, the world's number one textile machinery factory at that time. Kiichiro Toyoda, as Sakichi Toyoda's plenipotentiary representative, traveled to the Uk to sign a patent assignment agreement.
During this trip to the United Kingdom, Kiichiro Toyoda was deeply attracted by the automobile industry in Europe and the United States, personally inspected the automobile industry in Europe and the United States for 4 months, and decided to start research and development of automobiles after returning to China.
In 1930, Kiichiro Toyoda began researching and developing small gasoline engines.
In 1933, Kiichiro Toyoda established an automobile department at the Toyota Automatic Loom Manufacturing Plant. A GI truck was built in August 1935.
Toyota GI truck
In 1936, the AA type sedan was developed.
On August 28, 1937, the Automotive Division became independent from Toyota Automatic Loom and became Toyota Motor Industries.
Therefore, Toyota in 1931 did not start to build cars, and the GI trucks that were later built were also imitations of German DKW brand front-drive cars, which was inconsistent with the Minsheng 75 or Toyota 31C at that time.
Moreover, at the time of the 918 Incident, Toyota was not a military enterprise and did not directly participate in the war, and it was Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that directly participated in the war at that time.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a veteran military enterprise that has been producing transport trucks for the Japanese army since 1930, and some of the trucks it manufactures are directly used in the various units of the Japanese army that invaded China, especially the 3rd Front, the 5th Front, and the epidemic prevention and water supply unit of the Kwantung Army.
Later, Mitsubishi became a major supplier of Japanese aircraft.
Mitsubishi G3M bomber
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was the main force of 918 at that time, so it was supposed that the spoils of war belonged to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which made no sense to Toyota, Toyota had not yet built a car at this time, and Mitsubishi built a Model-A model in 1917, which was also the first mass production car in Japanese history.
The Mitsubishi Model-A is the first production car in Japanese history
So the Toyota 31C should be Mitsubishi transformation factory, the reason why it will be written Toyota 31C, it may be Fengtian 31C. Fengtian, the local place name; 31, refers to 1931; C refers to China. This makes sense, and it may have been passed down later, becoming the Toyota 31C.
Toyota began to participate in the war of aggression against China in 1937 after the Lugou Bridge Incident, supplying military trucks to the Japanese army invading China.
As I looked up this information, my heart grew heavier. Again, the political environment is the development environment, and when we talk about the automobile industry, we always habitually say: aside from politics, we only talk about cars.
As everyone knows, the automobile industry is only an appendage of politics, and only when the country is strong and the political economy is independent can there be fertile soil and let the automobile industry take root and sprout.
I hope that the strength of the country is getting stronger and stronger! Let domestic cars have a good development environment! Our country will definitely get stronger and stronger!
We also hope that we ordinary consumers can remember the history and unswervingly support our own things:
If you want to use money to support it; if you don't want to use verbal support with money, you should first win the battle of public opinion; if you don't want verbal support, don't slander it, let alone worship the foreign world.
You can buy a joint venture car, buy an imported car, and there is nothing wrong with the consumption itself, but you can't turn around and scold the domestic car when consuming the joint venture car and the imported car.
I hope that these companies really want to fight for some gas! Don't let your supporting compatriots chill!
I hope that our domestic car companies can get better and better! Let's let these "domestic blows" no longer blow!