The process of China's independent two-bomb and one-satellite project is very arduous, and it is also full of dangers, including hostile forces conspiring to strike China nuclearly, leaving China's atomic bomb project stillborn. Marshal Chen Yi personally encouraged the scientists who studied the atomic bomb and said: My foreign minister's waist is not too hard now. You get the atomic bomb out, and my waist is hard!"
The choice of site for nuclear tests is complex, and many factors need to be assessed: first, it is sparsely populated. The second is to be secretive enough to prevent being spied on. The last point is that the terrain is flat and there is no cover, which is related to observing the effects of nuclear tests. At first, the test site chosen was Dunhuang, and later settled on the Lop Nur area, and there was an important reason for this change: the Dunhuang test function was relatively small, with only 20,000 tons of tnt equivalent. Previously, the United States completed a hydrogen bomb test on Bikini Island, with millions of tons of tnt equivalent. China believes that since nuclear tests have been chosen, they should be used in multiple places, not only for low-yield atomic bomb tests, but also for large-yield hydrogen bomb tests.
The environment in the Lop Nur area is very harsh, with only bare deserts and no people in a radius of hundreds of kilometers. Fresh water is scarce, and limited drinking water is bitter and salty rainwater pulled from afar. Employees have no bath to wash, can only use "dry cleaning" to clean, the ugly point is to rub by hand. Here the wind blows once a year, from spring to winter. Due to the wind and the sun, people's hands and faces are cracked like the skin of a cantaloupe.
Moreover, the difficulties come not only from Lop Nur but also from abroad. The Kennedy administration of the United States has received the wind of our nuclear tests, and has constantly used U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and "Corona" spy satellites to reconnoiter our country, and even wants to join hands with the Soviet Union to take military action against our country. Since 1961, the United States has used U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance planes taken off from the bay to repeatedly fly to Lanzhou and other places for reconnaissance, and has also used spy satellites to take photos of nuclear facilities. In late 1961, the U.S. military reported that China might test atomic bombs in 1962-1964, small atomic bombs in 1965, and hydrogen bombs in five years.
In January 1963, at a meeting of the U.S. government to discuss a nuclear-test-ban treaty, Kennedy made it clear that his focus was on how to prevent China from possessing and using nuclear weapons. Kennedy claimed that even a small number of nuclear weapons in China's hands would be "very dangerous for all of us."
In February 1963, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nietzsche reported to the Joint Chiefs of Staff requesting the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the possibility of "using persuasion, pressure, and threats to force China to sign a test ban treaty," and was supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which listed a variety of possible means of attack.
The Kennedy administration has developed a military action plan called "outlaws" in an attempt to attack our nuclear bases. The plan consists of four options. The first is that the US military openly carries out conventional aerial bombardment. The second is aerial bombardment by Chiang Kai-shek's army, and the third is the secret ground attack by spies sent to China. The last one was to airdrop a hundred special forces of Chiang Kai-shek's army to sabotage.
As a result, the plan failed for two reasons: the United States considered that the political and military risks were too great, and the U.S. policymakers later believed that using preemptive military strikes to prevent or delay China's becoming a nuclear power would be costly, if successful. After all, america's main adversaries in the Cold War were the Soviet Union, and if the United States had launched an attack, China's hatred of the United States would have been long-term and could have pushed China back to the side of the Soviet Union.
Another reason was the assassination of Kennedy in November 1963, a year before our country's first atomic bomb test. On November 22, 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, accompanied by his wife Jacqueline and Texas Governor Connery, was assassinated when a bullet flew in an open-top sedan through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.
But the U.S. government still held frequent secret talks with the Soviet government, and the outcome of their discussions remains a mystery to this day. It wasn't until the new U.S. President Lyndon Johnson put an end to these nuclear strikes against China, who believes that a military strike that is unknown from a division will pay a heavy diplomatic price and that the United States needs to adopt a more flexible policy toward China. In fact, the main role here is that China has successfully exploded the atomic bomb and has become a de facto nuclear power.
Chairman Mao has been paying close attention to the performances of the United States and the Soviet Union, and he believes that the more the United States is eager to move, the more it shows that it is afraid that China will possess atomic bombs. He said solemnly: The atomic bomb is going to explode! These words played a role in inducing the birth of the atomic bomb in our country. My country has greatly accelerated the process of nuclear testing.
On October 16, 1964, China officially began atomic bomb testing. Here's a very thrilling story, that is, a comrade kicked a key kick and saved the test. At that time, the nuclear test was carried out by the ground tower explosion. The atomic bomb needs to be loaded in a hanging basket and sent to the 102-meter-high tower. When the hanging basket had just risen to a height of more than ten meters, there was an unexpected wind and clouds in the sky, and Lop Nur blew up a strong wind of six or seven levels, the tower swayed left and right, and the steel wire trembled up and down. At the moment of crisis, the wire rope jumped out of the groove of the pulley, and the hanging basket containing the atomic bomb was stuck on the tower, which was simply a live version of the movie "Death is Coming". At the first moment, Comrade Wang Huanrong, who was in charge of the lifting task, climbed the tower at an unusual speed, and kicked at the wire in a hurry at the top of the tower, but he did not expect that this foot kicked the wire back to its original position and successfully sent the atomic bomb to the top of the tower. This kick, it is estimated that the Chinese men's football team will not be able to kick it for a lifetime.
It was 15:00 on the same day. Golden light erupted, fireballs flew in the air, and in the loud sound of the mountain roaring tsunami, a huge mushroom cloud rose and went straight into the sky. China's first atomic bomb test was successful.
That evening, the Great Hall of the People was hosting a gala, with more than 3,000 actors present. Chairman Mao smiled and said to Zhou En: Do you want to tell them the good news? Zhou Enlai nodded his head in understanding, and announced to everyone at the end of the party: "Tell everyone two good news, the first is that Khrushchev has stepped down, and the second, our first atomic bomb was successfully tested today."
The whole hall was full of joy, and the funny Premier Zhou said: "Comrades, you must be careful, you must not collapse the floor!" "This news quickly spread all over the world. According to the memories of Chinese Americans: After the news reached the United States, even American passers-by watched me as a Chinese because of this news, which made people very proud!