The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 153 First Visit to Mountain City
In the blink of an eye, three days passed quickly.

The mountain city exudes a unique charm.

Liu Tao looked at the Jialing River, where there were many small boats parked. He didn't know whether they were for fishing or ferrying passengers.

About two or three kilometers further down is the confluence of the Jialing River and the Yangtze River.

As the temporary capital and permanent secondary capital of the Nationalist government during the period of resistance, and also the seat of the Southwest Region in the early days of the Republic, Shancheng can be said to be an important town in the central and western regions, with a population of 260 million, of which the urban population alone is as high as 190 million.

This is also an industrial base with a large number of factories!
During the resistance period, as the temporary capital and permanent secondary capital, more than 400 industrial, commercial and financial enterprises moved to the mountain city, which promoted the first leap-forward development of the mountain city and formed an industrial structure centered on the production of weapons and military supplies, with machinery, light textiles, metallurgy, mining, electricity, etc. as the main body, with both light and heavy industries and a relatively complete range of categories.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, based on national defense and security considerations, Shancheng received further state investment. During the "First Five-Year Plan", the state arranged a number of energy and machinery construction projects in Shancheng. During the "Second Five-Year Plan", Shancheng's metallurgy and coal were developed as a priority. During the "Third Line Construction" period of more than ten years, it was a production base for weapons and civilian machinery, medicine, chemicals, and instrumentation industries, forming large and medium-sized backbone enterprises with obvious characteristics of heavy industry structure and supporting scientific research and development institutions, making Shancheng an important industrial system in the country.

It is precisely because of the large number of factories that the urbanization rate of the mountain city reached an astonishing 73.1% at this time!

In comparison, the total population of Kunming is only 140 million, and the urban population barely reaches one million, which is almost exactly half of the mountain city.

In terms of various conditions, Shancheng is far superior to Kunming.

When the tank manufacturing plant was first being built, there were actually other opinions internally. The Yunnan Province also expressed its own suggestions, wanting Liu Tao to place the tank manufacturing plant in Kunming City.

After all, that was a huge investment of over 1 billion yuan, while the country's total investment in Yunnan Province was less than 1 billion yuan a year.

Moreover, the total investment is not just one time of over 1 billion yuan. After the factory is built, it needs to continue to produce, and coupled with the workers' lives, the driving effect will be much greater.

However, after several discussions and communications, it was finally decided to place the tank manufacturing plant in the mountain city.

Firstly, no matter what, Yunnan Province is still on the front line, and the Polar Bear has always been supporting Annan. Annan is not reconciled to last year's failure and is preparing for war. But Shancheng is different. Shancheng is the real rear area.

Secondly, the mountain city is a national industrial base with a large number of skilled workers and university research facilities.

Finally, the mountain city can form a strong supporting system. Whether it is a steel mill or other factories, it is very convenient, which is unmatched by Kunming City.

You know, whether it is a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun or a tank, there are hundreds of thousands of parts involved, and many of the materials used are new materials.

If we rely on ourselves to produce everything, the efficiency will be too low.

It’s okay in the short term, but in the long term we must support the construction of supporting factories.

Mountain city, suburbs.

Close to the Yangtze River, a large area of ​​land has been cleared.

The original village has been relocated and the woodlands and fields have been cleared.

More than 10,000 acres of farmland and forest land have been leveled.

The tank manufacturing plant is to be built here.

Sand, gravel, steel, etc., a lot of them have been piled up like mountains.

In addition to the tank manufacturing plant, a dock will also be built here, and water transportation will become an important mode of transportation for transporting goods to the tank manufacturing plant in the future.

The tanks and armored vehicles produced will be loaded directly at the dock and transported directly through the Yangtze River. At this time, Liu Tao and other leaders of Panshan Machinery Factory, leaders of Shancheng, leaders of Sichuan Province, and leaders of the Fifth Ministry of Machinery gathered here to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the tank manufacturing plant.

As the project with the largest single investment this year, the construction of the tank manufacturing plant has attracted much attention.

The leaders above even telegraphed the local authorities, asking them to ensure the smooth completion of the project.

To this end, Shancheng and Sichuan provinces not only organized a large number of construction workers, but also deployed rare engineering vehicles.

In a simple house, with a map hanging on the wall, a middle-aged man named Pang Yong in a green military uniform is introducing the military security facilities.

This place is easy to defend but difficult to attack. The width of the Yangtze River is about 1.5 kilometers. The land is oriented east-west and is roughly rectangular as a whole. The terrain becomes narrower at the eastern and westernmost parts, only about meters wide, and is connected to a mountain on the north.

As a military factory, military defense facilities are of paramount importance. For example, it is necessary to consider setting up some bunkers along the river, setting up sentry-style gates at the east and west ends, and setting up sentry posts and fortresses on the mountains.

These military defense facilities are needed to ensure that in the face of enemy attacks, the factory's armed forces can rely on these military defense facilities to fight the enemy and hold out until reinforcements arrive.

The military's responsibility for this aspect of military defense lies naturally with the military. After all, they are professionals in marching and fighting.

They are not only responsible for guiding the construction of military security buildings, but the factory's armed forces will also receive their training and even at critical moments, the factory's armed forces will accept the leadership of the troops.

About fifteen minutes later, everyone walked out of the house because the groundbreaking ceremony was about to begin.

Looking at those people with light in their eyes, Liu Tao secretly sighed in his heart. Although there was a lack of construction equipment and the construction efficiency was a little lower, man can conquer nature. This group of people with faith can burst out unimaginable power.

China's initial industrialization and the Third Front construction were miracles created by this group of people who fought against nature and the earth.

The construction of a tank manufacturing plant is very difficult, especially the final assembly workshop, which has very high requirements. All of them use steel structures, which were determined through calculations by a large number of technicians. After all, the largest lifting equipment can reach 70 tons and can lift a fully manufactured Type 80 tank.

Many types of steel have to be specially cast in steel mills.

They need to complete the construction within one and a half years, or at most two years.

In this era, this is a key project and must be done at all costs.

Otherwise, under the current conditions, it would probably take ten years to build a tank manufacturing plant.

Moreover, this was just the initial stage of land acquisition and resettlement, which was all completed in less than three months. If it were thirty or forty years later, it would probably take three years to acquire so much land and resettle people, and it might not even be completed.

In this era, as long as the government is determined to do something, it can concentrate its efforts on accomplishing major tasks. The people also support the party and the government, and there are no such things as nail households.

In this era, land is collective, and ordinary people believe that land belongs to the government.

What Liu Tao said was very simple. He said that he made a promise on behalf of Panshan Machinery Factory that during the construction period here, the workers' wages would be three times higher than before, that is, 1.5 yuan a day outside and 4.5 yuan a day here.

It was this promise that made the workers applaud excitedly.

4.5 yuan a day, even if you work for a full month without rest, it’s actually only 135 yuan a month.

But even so, it's already very exciting.

(End of this chapter)