At the intersection of Guangming Street and Nursery Road, Nursery Street, Zhuhui District, Hengyang City, there is a newly built Hengyang Railway Cultural Square. The square focuses on promoting the culture of Hengyang Railway, and the central part here is the Hengyang Railway Museum built by the Guangzhou Railway Group. It was rebuilt on the site of the former Hengyang Railway Administration office building.
Hengyang Railway Museum.
On May 18, the Hengyang Railway Museum was fully opened to the public, and the reporter entered the exhibition hall to visit and explore the glorious years that were not well known in the history of hengyang railway.
After 40 years of difficult start
In October of the 22nd year of the Qing Dynasty (1896), the Qing government began to prepare for the construction of the Cantonese-Han Railway, and appointed Sheng Xuanhuai as the Minister of Railway Supervision, thus beginning the 40-year period of arduous construction of the railway.
On April 28, 1936, after hardships and hardships, the 1095.6-kilometer railway from Wuchang to Guangzhou of the Guangdong-Hankou Railway was completed. Hengyang is in the middle of the line and has since entered the railway era.
Hengyang Railway Transport Brigade completed the task of repairing and transporting materials on the whole road to commemorate the group photo.
Due to the needs of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Guangdong-Han Railway Administration was moved from Wuchang to Hengyang in August 1938. From September 1937 to September 1938, the Hengyang-Guilin section of the Xianggui Railway was specially built for the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the Xianggui Railway Administration bureau was established in Hengyang. A city has two railway bureaus, which is unique in the country, and Hengyang has become the center of the Central South Railway.
An underground party lurking in the Hengyang Railway
After Japan's surrender, the Kuomintang undermined the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists, and civil war broke out. The Kuomintang adopted party-oriented railways to serve the old regime. The Underground Party organization of Hengyang of the CPC is tit-for-tat, secretly recruiting Party members and establishing organizations among Hengyang railway workers, leading Hengyang railway workers to carry out underground struggles.
Su Dongwen, former director of the Party and Group Office of the Hengyang Housing Construction Apartment Section, has been continuously collecting relevant historical materials of the underground party of the Hengyang Railway since 2016. Over the years, he interviewed a number of former underground party members. Su Dongwen told reporters that before liberation, there were 5 underground party organizations on the Hengyang Railway. Among them, the most complete preservation and the one that plays the biggest role is the General Branch of the Guangdong-Han Railway Party, which was first led by the Hunan Provincial Working Committee and then handed over to the Guangdong-Han Railway Party Under the leadership of the Hengyang Working Committee.
Former member of the underground party branch of the Guangdong-Han Railway Works Office.
In the spring of 1946, the Hunan Workers' Committee sent people to Hengyang to carry out party activities and restore local party organizations. From the beginning of 1947 to June 1948, 6 party members were recruited in the organs of the Guangdong-Han Railway Bureau, and then the Guangdong-Han Railway Party Branch was established, with Tong Qianrui, who served in the Public Works Department of the Guangdong-Han Railway Bureau, as the secretary. By July 1949, more than 20 party members had been developed, and the General Branch Committee of the Guangdong-Han Railway Party was established in late July of that year. Tong Qianrui is the secretary, and there are 4 party branches under the public works, machine maintenance, accounting, and railway machinery factory, and there is also a party group for electrical materials.
There is also an important underground party organization in the history of the Hengyang Railway, whose leader is Zhou Bingjie, the pioneer of the hengyang workers' movement and a proletarian revolutionary fighter.
In December 1946, the Communist Party of China's Shonan Men sent Zhou Bingjie to form an underground party organization as a typeseter in the Hengyang Railway Printing Factory to the Guangdong-Han Railway Administration. It has successively developed 20 underground party members, 11 league members, and 16 members of the party's peripheral organization "Democratic League", and created party branches at stations, nurseries (where the organs of the Guangdong-Han Railway Bureau are located), railway machinery factories, and road police. Subsequently, the Jiangdong District Working Committee of Hengyang City was established, and Zhou Bingjie served as the secretary of the District Working Committee, responsible for the leadership of the Party organization of the Guangdong-Han Railway and the Tongwen Printing Factory.
At the end of 1948, the Kuomintang government issued gold yuan coupons, resulting in soaring prices, the people's livelihood, and the hardships of railway workers. With the consent of his superiors, Zhou Bingjie decided to organize a "year-end wage strike" for railway workers, demanding that the railway authorities pay double salaries and arrears of wages at the end of the year, which received a positive response from the workers along the line. In the early morning of January 27, 1949, Zhou Bingjie led a group of workers to surround the Railway Administration according to the predetermined plan of action. Then, underground party member Li Maolin led more than 3,000 workers into Hengyang Station to prevent the train from being delivered, paralyzing the entire station. More than 2,000 workers simultaneously announced strikes at various sections, stations and factories of the Hengyang Railway in response. At major stations such as Chenzhou, Leiyang, Hengshan, and Changsha, the railway workers also participated in the strike. In total, more than 6,000 people took part in the strike. After more than 50 hours of fierce fighting, the authorities were finally forced to accede to the workers' demands, and the strike struggle was won. On May 31 of the same year, strike leaders Zhou Bingjie and Li Maolin were arrested by the Kuomintang reactionary military police for informing traitors, and on August 7, they were brutally killed outside the Xiaoxi gate of Hengyang, when Zhou Bingjie was only 35 years old.
Road protection factory to meet liberation
In early July 1949, with the progress of the Liberation War, the former Kuomintang Ministry of Communications decided to move the organs of the Guangdong-Han Railway Bureau from Hengyang south to Guangzhou. In order to preserve the railway belongings of Hengyang after liberation, the general branch of the Guangdong-Han Railway Party organized an anti-migration struggle. As a result, less than one-third of the entire railway bureau was relocated to Guangzhou, and almost all the technical data was preserved.
Comrades-in-arms engaged in underground work in the Party on the Guangdong-Han Railway.
In order to prevent the enemy from sabotaging, the General Branch of the Guangdong-Han Railway Party organized the staff and workers to use a semi-open and secret method to evacuate and hide technical data and equipment as much as possible. In the bureau, the public works branch collects the drawings of the lines and bridges of the whole line, the locomotive branch collects the locomotive drawings of the whole road, and the accounting branch keeps the accounting files and the bill library. For the equipment that is inconvenient to transfer at various stations, sections, and factories, the general branch of the party adopts a flexible strategy and tries to reduce losses. In the end, except for a few locomotives whose cylinders were blown up on one side, all 21 locomotives in the locomotive section were retained.
On October 8, 1949, Hengyang was liberated, and the railway workers warmly welcomed the People's Liberation Army into the city in the nursery railway area to celebrate the victory. At this point, the history of Hengyang Railway has turned a new page.
Five thousand warriors crossed the Yalu River
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out in full swing. In this great struggle of "resisting US aggression and aiding Korea and defending the family and defending the country," the Hengyang Railway Administration Bureau once again rushed to the forefront.
In 1951, the staff and family members of the Hengyang Railway Administration donated 566 million yuan (old currency) to comfort the Chinese Volunteer Army. A year later, they donated 2.0003 billion yuan (old currency) again to buy the fighter jet "Hengtie Workers No. 1" to support the volunteer army.
From March 1951 to May 1954, 33 batches of 5,264 volunteer workers and medical teams rushed to the Korean battlefield. In addition, the 23,000-strong reserve team for resisting US aggression and aiding Korea and the family service team of 7,400 people were organized.
Group photo of the "second-class model locomotive" awarded by the Dprk Railway Military Management Bureau.
In December 1952, Guo Weicheng, director of the Hengyang Railway Administration, was ordered to join the DPRK and successively served as the director of the New Railway Command Bureau of the Chinese Volunteer Army and the commander of the Volunteer Army Railway Command Post, leading the railway soldiers and railway workers to play an important role in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In the ranks of railway workers of the Hengyang Railway Administration, a large number of advanced collectives and individuals have emerged.
On February 15, 1954, at the Tonghua Port in Jilin Province, Li Shizhong, who was about to return to China, took a group photo with all the locomotive drivers from all over the country who volunteered to participate in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, with four locomotives as the background.
On February 15, 1954, all comrades at the Tonghua Port of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea successfully concluded their commemoration.
At the age of 18, Li Shizhong, along with eight colleagues in the Hengyang locomotive section, drove a steam locomotive across the Yalu River to North Korea on August 25, 1951. The transportation of weapons, ammunition, food, medicine, equipment and other materials needed to support this large-scale war, as well as the delivery of some of the volunteer army's troops, were transported by rail from the country to the Korean front.
Commemorative album celebrating the second anniversary of the Chinese Volunteer Army's departure abroad.
"After arriving in Korea, our main task is to rush transportation and support the war ahead." Li Shizhong, 88, recalled that there were 500 locomotives from all over the country at that time, and 5,000 organic car attendants, of which 50 locomotives were rated as model locomotives. Li Shizhong's 993 charter group was awarded the second class model locomotive and rated as the collective third class. "That is to say, we are good at work, we are not afraid of suffering, tiredness, and death, and we are the first to send military materials to the forefront." At the end of 1951, Li Shizhong's locomotive group was responsible for transporting military supplies on the Shunchuan Bridge. "Although it was two or three o'clock in the middle of the night, we were still shelled by the US military, and the three comrades who were on duty were killed."
The charter group won the third class meritorious service group photo.
According to statistics, on the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the Hengyang Railway Administration Bureau received 172 individual meritorious awards, 634 collective meritorious service, and 75 glorious sacrifices.
A hundred wastes to be revived, change forward
At the beginning of 1950, the Hengyang Railway quickly resumed production. In 1958, millions of migrant workers were involved in the construction of the Beijing-Guangzhou-Fuxing Line and other railways. Hengyang railway staff and workers, especially party members, have played an important role.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, in the work of repairing the railway, Wang Yongxiang, an old worker of the Hengyang Machinery Factory, was rated as a national model railway worker, and in 1951 he was invited to participate in the National Day ceremony and was cordially received by Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou.
In October 1966, the Hengyang locomotive maintenance section formed a crew combat group, and under the condition of transportation interruption in some areas, it has pulled trains across bureaus more than 20 times. Driver Tang Shengyi was elected as a delegate to the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh National Congresses of the Communist Party of China.
With the strong support of the state for railway construction, Hengyang Railway has also ushered in a period of rapid development. From the restoration of the line to the construction of the double line, from the electrification transformation to the construction of the new line, from the six major speed-ups to the opening of high-speed rail, the Hengyang railway hub has continuously broken through the bottleneck, expanded the capacity and accelerated, and developed day by day.
For more than 80 years, Hengyang Railway has gone through an extraordinary journey. In the years of war and peace, many revolutionary heroes and models of the times have emerged, which are worth remembering for future generations.
On the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China
The Hengyang Railway will surely carry it
A more glorious mission
Heading for a better future
Produced by China Railway Guangzhou Bureau Group Co., Ltd. Rong Media Center
Text: Zhou Jian, Su Dongwen, Luo Biqi, Liu Jun'an
Editor: Wu Fan