【Haichuan Chemical Industry Site】The ruins of the Yongli Alkali Factory in Wutongqiao, Leshan
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This post was last edited by Desert Fish on 2018-10-25 at 15:39. The former site of the Leshan “308” Third Front Military Industrial Complex and Yongli Chuan Factory was originally the Yongli Tanggu Alkali Factory. It was established in 1917 by the renowned patriotic industrialist Mr. Fan Xudong, who is regarded as one of the four great industrial pioneers of modern China, along with Dr. Hou Debang, a famous scientist and inventor of the Hou process for alkali production. The factory’s \"Red Triangle\" brand of soda ash was hailed as a \"symbol of China’s industrial progress,\" and it won gold medals at the 1926 World’s Fair in Philadelphia, USA, and the 1930 Belgian Industrial Exhibition, gaining fame both at home and abroad. After the July 7th Incident in 1937, Tanggu in Tianjin was seized by the Japanese forces. Fan Xudong and Hou Debang refused to cooperate with the enemy, and they moved to Sichuan to rebuild a chemical industry base. They named the factory there “New Tanggu”; the roads within the factory area were named after provinces and cities along the coast, in order to carry on Yongli’s legacy in Tanggu and to remember the national humiliation forever. During the War of Resistance against Japan, the people of Yongli, driven by a strong sense of patriotism and national integrity, endured great hardships to continue soda ash production, supporting the national resistance effort as well as the industrial and civilian needs in the rear areas; it was here that the world-famous \"Hou’s process for soda ash production\" was developed. The former site of the Yongli Chuan factory bears witness to the relentless efforts of a generation of national elites during a particular historical period marked by national crisis and existential danger; it possesses great historical, scientific, artistic, scarcity, and uniqueness values.
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In 1914, Fan Xudong, known as the \"Father of China’s National Chemical Industry\" and who had studied in Japan, founded the Jiuda Salt Company in Tianjin. He located the factory in Tanggu, a place with excellent transportation facilities and easy access to raw materials and fuel. In 1917, building on the foundation of Jiuda Salt Works, Fan Xudong founded Yongli Alkali Company. He invited Hou Debang, who had returned from the United States, to serve as the chief engineer, and a Yongli Alkali Plant was established in Tanggu, becoming the earliest alkali production plant in China. “The Hou’s alkali production method was developed right here. Alkali is an essential item for daily life, and it is also a raw material indispensable for various industries such as petroleum, metallurgy, papermaking, and textiles. ”Wei Yixiong, an expert in literature and history, told reporters that pure soda could not be produced domestically at that time; once the import of \"foreign soda\" was interrupted, industries that relied on soda as a raw material would have to cease operations. It was against this backdrop that the Yongli Alkali Plant successfully produced \"Red Triangle\" brand soda ash, breaking the monopoly of foreign-made alkalis on the Chinese market. After the July 7th Incident in 1937, Tanggu in Tianjin was occupied by the Japanese forces. Fan Xudong refused to cooperate with the invaders, and together with elites from the Yongli Alkali Factory such as Hou Debang, he traveled to places like Hunan and Sichuan to find a suitable location. Eventually, they purchased over 700 acres of land in Laolongba, Wutongqiao, where the Yongli Sichuan Factory was established. “The salt produced in Wutongqiao is the main raw material for producing soda ash. ”Wei Yixiong told the reporter. The location of the Yonglichuan factory at that time was within what is now Dongfeng Electric Machinery Co., Ltd. of Dongfang Electric Group (hereinafter referred to as Dongfeng Electric Machinery). “Geological surveys were conducted at that time, and the strata here consist of a single mass of rock that is extremely solid and hard. To defend against enemy air raids, the factory had local bluestones quarried and used to build its workshops. ”At the Yonglichuan factory site, Zhu Lian, an employee of Dongfeng Electric Machinery who provided information there, told the reporter that the depressions formed after quarrying the bluestone were filled with water by the factory to create a \"100-mu lake\" that supplied industrial and domestic water for the entire factory, thus making full use of everything available. Entering the national chemical industry heritage site of Dongfeng Electric, the reporter saw what the Yonglichuan factory looked like back in those days. The water treatment room, built of wood and stone, is now used as a museum showcasing the history of Dongfeng Electric. It was once used for the \"softening\" of water; wide underground passages connect this room to various areas where water is used, running all the way through the production facility to the banks of the Min River ； The brick-and-wood structure factory was established in 1941; it served as the main processing site at the Yonglichuan plant for providing supporting services and spare parts for alkali production equipment. With a total area of 3,296 square meters and a span of 221.4 meters, it was the factory with the largest span in Asia at that time ； The on-site command post, marked with the Wynn “red triangle” symbol, was built in 1939 and served as the office space for senior officials such as Fan Xudong, Hou Debang, Zhang Kezhong, and Xie Weijie. Although the red triangle has faded over time, the building is still well-preserved... The stone carvings in Xintanggu – back then, the names of streets in the factory, such as Shandong Road, were derived from the names of provinces and cities that had been occupied, reflecting a spirit of patriotism. ”Zhu Lian told the reporter that after the Yongli Chuan factory was completed, Fan Xudong personally inscribed the words \"Xintanggu\" and had a stone plaque erected on the rocks at Hukou Bay in Laolongba, as a reminder of Yongli’s endeavors in Tanggu, with the inscription meaning \"To keep Yanyun in mind as a symbol of never forgetting.\"
After the Yongli Chuan plant was established in Wutongqiao, Hou Debang, who served as both the plant manager and chief engineer, developed the renowned \"Hou process for soda production\" through more than 500 cycles of testing. “The United States, **, and Wutongqiao – Hou Debang conducted experiments in these three locations, analyzing over 2,000 samples and carrying out 500 cycle tests in total. ”Zhu Lian told the reporter that in the end, Hou Debang successfully developed a new process for producing soda ash. This new process innovatively combines the ammonia-alkali method and the synthetic ammonia method to produce both soda ash and ammonium chloride simultaneously, improving the utilization rate of salt, shortening the production process, reducing environmental pollution, lowering the cost of soda ash, and overcoming the shortcomings of the ammonia-alkali method. This process raised the technical level of soda production in China and throughout the world to new heights; it is known as the \"Hou’s method of soda production\" or the \"combined soda production method,\" and it enjoys a high reputation worldwide as well as being widely adopted. This alkali production method was also granted China’s first invention patent in 1953. Within the Dongfeng Motor’s national chemical industry heritage site, the reporter saw the soda ash factory that had developed the \"Hou’s soda ash production method\" at that time. The soda ash plant, with its wooden and stone structure, has a construction area of 5,965 square meters. The gray-colored buildings are surrounded by lush trees, giving it a dignified and grand appearance. Built in 1941, the soda ash plant’s walls are 1.2 meters thick, making them strong and sturdy, and they also served as air defense measures during wartime. In front of the experimental center for soda production back then, a stone tablet and sculpture titled \"Hou Debang and the Hou Process for Producing Soda\" were erected to document the development process of that time.
I haven’t been to Wutongqiao yet. . .