Chapter 12 Chapter 3 The country is broken (1)

1 The original site of Yuhua Spinning Mill is located on Linhe Road, Wuchang, which is today's Linjiang Avenue in Wuchang. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was still a desolate tidal flat. The first British built an iron factory on the riverside, and later investors competed for it. Xiaoyou, my grandfather Zhang Songqiao was one of the first batch of Chinese people to start a business by filling land and building factories on the wasteland.According to "Historical Materials of Yu Dahua Textile Capital Group" (Hubei People's Publishing House, 1984 edition): In the 10th year of the Republic of China (1921), Zhang Songqiao left the government-run Hubei Cotton Cloth and Linen Bureau. million, a total of 500,000 yuan... Wuchang Yuhua Spinning Mill was established in the following year.

At the beginning of the establishment of the factory, the Yuhua Spinning Mill was of a medium scale, with 10,000 spindles and 200 cloth machines. This was the predecessor of "Wuhan Yudahua Textile Group Co., Ltd." .At that time, the spinning mills used old-fashioned steam engines to generate electricity, and the factories produced a large amount of carbon residue, iron slag and industrial waste every day. The usual way of disposal was to dump the waste directly into the Yangtze River and let it be washed away by the rolling river.Of course, Zhang Songqiao cannot have advanced environmental awareness. His Yuhua Spinning Mill also dumps garbage into the Yangtze River like other factories, and it repeats itself year after year.But then one day, the restless factory owner suddenly made a surprising decision. He wanted to use industrial waste to build a fence.

According to his plan, the height and width of this future factory wall are more than ten feet, almost equivalent to a city wall.In the eyes of many people, this decision was obviously a whim. Although the factory was built by the river, weren't other factories also built by the river?Why don't other factories build walls?Although it does not cost money to use the carbon slag and iron slag produced by ourselves, the cost of a large amount of labor required for construction is calculated.But Zhang Songqiao is stubborn. Once he makes a decision, it is difficult for others to change it, let alone he is the boss.

Two years later, a large-scale factory wall stood on the river beach, looking like a majestic ancient castle from a distance.There was an episode: Originally, the civil engineer wanted to design the wall as an ordinary fence, but Zhang Songqiao disagreed. He found various hydrological data, asked someone to calculate the highest water level in the history of the Yangtze River, and then asked the engineer to modify the drawing.Zhang Songqiao said, if the wall can't prevent the flood that happens once in a century, what's the use of spending a lot of money?As a result, Yuhua Spinning Mill became an industrial castle, an independent city within a city.This unique cultural landscape was a sensation in the three towns of Wuhan at that time, and citizens rushed to visit it. A local newspaper published a reporter's article sarcastically saying: This mud-legged capitalist from Baiquan Township probably wants to build a thousand-year-old castle... and advised him Take the money thrown into the water and build a few more thatched houses for the poor.

No matter how the public opinion differs, Zhang Songqiao, who is in the center of the vortex, will not be moved and will go his own way. He is by no means the kind of person who is easy to compromise and follow the crowd. ".I understand that my grandfather, as an entrepreneur in the old days, was born at the end of the troubled times and started a business with hardships. He must always be careful not to be negligent, otherwise his life's hard work will be in vain. Unfortunately, Zhang Songqiao's "Umbrella Theory" came true. "Hubei Literature and History Materials" contains; in the 20th year of the Republic of China (1931), the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River encountered a catastrophic flood that had not happened in a century. The top of the pagoda and today's shantytowns along Hanzheng Street were swept away by the flood.The torrential flood covered the sky and covered the earth, and the land of Jingchu was completely transformed into a country. Three towns in Wuhan were cut off from electricity and food, and the victims were crying in a miserable state.In Hubei Province alone, 200,000 people died in the floods, and millions of victims were affected.

My father said that at that time, the first floor of the building in Xian'anfang, Hankou had been flooded, and the whole family retreated to the second and third floors to hold on. Fortunately, the flood did not continue to rise, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable. The only miracle happened in Yuhua Spinning Mill. When the whole city was trapped by floods and lifeless, only the chimneys of Yuhua Spinning Factory still billowed with thick smoke, the walls were brightly lit and machines roared, and workers worked overtime in an orderly manner, presenting a scene of steaming production.The factory not only sent boats to take the employees' families to the factory to settle down, but also sent dozens of boats of steamed buns and cooked food to relieve the local victims.

As a result, Yuhua Spinning Mill became famous, and its production capacity and capital expanded rapidly.Later, "Zhang Songqiao's Autobiography" mentioned this matter, and Ziyun's construction of the factory wall was one of the things he was most proud of in his life. 2 Although the wall blocked the torrential flood, it failed to stop the Japanese devils who were more vicious than the flood. At that time, China's national industry had just started, and foreign goods came in overwhelmingly, especially Japanese textiles called "Oriental goods" aggressively attacked the Chinese market, and once formed a monopoly trend.Japanese businessmen had abundant funds, adopted advanced textile machinery, and produced high-quality and low-cost products. They soon pushed domestic gauze into a desperate situation, and many spinning mills declared bankruptcy one after another.

Zhang Songqiao's Anti-Japanese War started from this. As early as the end of the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zhidong, the leader of the Westernization School, founded the Four Bureaus of Yarn, Cloth, Silk and Hemp in Hubei, which pioneered the modern Chinese textile industry.Zhang Songqiao once served as the director (factory director) of the government-run yarn bureau. He first realized that the way of business warfare is actually a battle of quality, and in the final analysis it is a battle of technology. Therefore, he set his sights on the world at the time when he founded Yuhua Yarn Factory. The most advanced European and American textile industry in the world.