#抗战时的 "Yellow Cliff Cave" is a production rifle? #
"On the high hill, there are countless good brothers of ours. There is no food, no clothing, there is the enemy to send to the front; no guns, no cannons, the enemy makes us..." This song, composed in 1937, "The Song of the Guerrillas" reflects the extreme lack of logistics support, weapons and equipment of the Eighth Route Army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and to a large extent needs to be obtained from the enemy.
In order to solve the shortage of guns and ammunition, the Eighth Route Army successively set up a number of arsenals to produce guns and ammunition using the indigenous method, laying a solid foundation for the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Among them, the largest arsenal is the Huangyadong Arsenal.
At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army established the earliest arsenal in the Taihang Mountains in Hanzhuang Village, Yushe County, Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province, the Hanzhuang Armor Repair Center of the Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army. In July 1939, after the Japanese army invaded Yushe County, the Hanzhuang Armament Repair Center of the Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army was seriously threatened. In order to create a long-term and stable military production base, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army decided to move the Hanzhuang Ordnance Repair Center.
Zuo Quan, deputy chief of the general staff of the Eighth Route Army, was responsible for the address chosen for Han Zhuang's repairs. Zuo Quan was a high-caliber student who graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in the Soviet Union and had a strong military vision. He conducted a field site selection in the Taihang Mountains, and finally chose huangya cave.
Huangya Cave is located in the mountains northwest of Chiyu Village in Dongyadi Town, 45 kilometers north of Licheng County, Changzhi City, Shanxi. The steep cliffs here are all yellow, and the east cliff is named after a natural stone cave in the middle of the air. At that time, the only way to enter the Huangya Cave from the outside world was through a narrow "s" shaped passage, which was about 1.5 kilometers long and lined with thousands of walls. Set up a barrier on the channel, easy to defend and difficult to attack, can be described as "one husband when the pass, ten thousand people can not open".
The aforementioned natural stone cave, located on the mountainside of the Taihang Cliff, is 25 meters high, 20 meters wide and 40 meters deep, and can be equipped with more than 200 troops. It is dry and cool, suitable for storing arms and weapons, and can be used as an arsenal for arsenals. In a valley called "Water Kiln" near Huangya Cave, the forest is dense and very hidden, suitable as a factory for the production of weapons.
In September of that year, Liu Peng, director of the Military Industry Department of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters, Cheng Minglei, director of a company, and Chen Zijian, chief engineer of a company, came to Huangyadong to measure the area and started the construction of the Huangyadong Arsenal. Due to the lack of time, the soldiers on the front line were in dire need of guns and ammunition, and they built factories while using machines to produce guns and ammunition.
Initially, the Huangyadong Arsenal relocated more than 10 obsolete machine tools, planers, drilling machines and a three-section boiler from Hanzhuang Village. Without precision instruments, craftsmen could only take leek leaf equivalent gauges; without modern machine tools, workers had to use files to make guns. However, the enthusiasm of the workers for production was very high. At that time, the workers heard many slips of the tongue, one of which said: "All by virtue of a clay file, the Taihang Mountain is heroic." The Seal of the Border Region was seized, and the Xinhua Daily floated every day. This is to praise the craftsmen and workers in the arsenal for overcoming the simple production conditions and becoming model workers in the border areas.
Zuo Quan racked his brains for the development of the Huangyadong Arsenal, tried every means to raise machinery and equipment from outside, and also transferred a precision equipment from Yan'an. By 1940, it had developed into a large arsenal with more than 40 machines and equipment, with a full range of machine tools such as cars, planers, drills, punches, cuttings, and cutting, as well as a 10-kilowatt DC generator. There are 12 houses in the water kiln valley, with a total area of more than 6,000 square meters. Among them, the largest fitter's workshop, with more than 1,000 square meters, is divided into a two-story structure. Upstairs is the workers' dormitory, downstairs is the production workshop.
To make guns and ammunition, a large amount of steel and gunpowder is required. The Eighth Route Army did not have a steel smelting plant, and the steel was mainly made of captured shell casings, steel helmets, rails, etc. At that time, after the Eighth Route Army fought a battle, the soldiers developed the habit of picking up shell casings. These collected shell casings are all handed over and sent to the Huangyadong Arsenal to make our own bullet casings.
Of course, relying on shell casings and helmets alone is far from enough raw materials for large-scale production. What to do? In the movie "Railway Guerrilla", the guerrillas often pulled down the tracks of the enemy's railways. On the one hand, it can destroy the enemy's lines of communication, and on the other hand, it can send rails to the arsenal, which can be used as raw materials for the manufacture of guns and ammunition.
The raw material for gunpowder is mainly charcoal. There are many trees around the Yellow Cliff Cave, and these trees can be cut down, burned into charcoal, and then ground into powder.
In the heyday of The Huangyadong Arsenal, there were more than 3,000 workers in the whole factory, with a factory department, under which there were 3 administrative sections, namely the General Affairs Section, the Equipment Section, the Engineering Section, and 4 departments, namely the Lathe Department, the Fitters Department, the Fitters Ii Department, and the Forging Department. In 1940, after the production of the Huangyadong Arsenal was on the right track, the weapons and ammunition produced each year could be equipped with 16 regiments.
Not only that, the Huangyadong Arsenal has also developed our army's first standard rifle, the "Bayi" rifle, and the Eighth Route Army's first self-produced "grenadier," which has trained a large number of outstanding technicians for the production of the people's army.
In just six years from 1939 to 1945, Huangyadong produced 580,000 grenades, 2,500 mortars, more than 260,000 shells and more than 10,000 "Bayi Horse Rifles", which effectively supported the front line.
The existence of the Huangyadong Arsenal was a huge threat to the Japanese army. On November 11, 1941, the Japanese 36th Division dispatched more than 7,000 people from the 4th and 6th Mixed Brigades to attack the Huangyadong Arsenal. The Eighth Route Army launched the Battle of Defending Huangyadong with inferior troops and rudimentary weapons, and at the cost of more than 160 casualties, achieved brilliant results in killing and wounding nearly 1,000 enemy and 6:1 casualties between the enemy and ourselves.