Chapter 7 The Fall of the Tungsten Delta

In the metal family, there is a "black-skinned boy" who doesn't look very beautiful, but is very popular with humans. In the middle of the 19th century, when someone invented the electric light, this "dark-skinned young man" suddenly became popular and became an indispensable partner for people to obtain light.Entering the 20th century, especially in World War I, World War II, and today after World War II, it has become the "baby lump" second only to gold, and is used to make guns, firearms, and armor-piercing bullets.Satellite...it has a melting point of 3,410°C.The reason why the filament uses it is because it has a melting resistance three times higher than gold.

Tungsten with the symbol W is very popular in the international market because of its high military and civilian value.China is a big country in the tungsten industry, and its annual tungsten output accounts for more than 2/3 of the world, and it plays a pivotal role in the international market.Since the 1950s, tungsten has been the leading product for my country's export earnings.Among all exported metal products, tungsten is far and away the leading one.It is said that the earliest tungsten mining in China began with a British businessman specializing in arms business.He went around Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Hunan in my country, and wrote a report to Queen Elizabeth when he returned, claiming that "if South Africa's gold is compared with China's tungsten, I will choose China's tungsten without hesitation. A tungsten delta the size of our Great Britain"!

Ordinary Chinese people know that they have two rich grain-producing deltas - the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, but they don't necessarily know that there is such a Tungsten Delta.But if you ask previous prime ministers, maybe they will tell you unequivocally: If the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta are two bright pearls, then the Tungsten Tribe Delta is a more attractive night pearl! The Tungsten Tribe Delta makes the Chinese proud and makes the heads of government speak harder on the international stage! China has always been in a monopoly position in the international tungsten industry market, which has made many businessmen in the western world envious!However, in the 1980s, this situation changed drastically. The price of tungsten sand fell again and again. In the 1970s, the price of tungsten sand per ton was above 70 US dollars. In 1983, it was reduced to 65 US dollars. According to the international market price announced on January 9, 2010, the price per ton of tungsten sand is only US$59.50.Due to the drop in tungsten prices, China loses more than 20 million foreign exchange earnings every year.There is no new discovery of tungsten mines on the earth that can be compared with China!In response to such a changing situation, the relevant departments of the Chinese government specially sent a delegation to investigate the international market of tungsten products.Because according to the forecast of the international market, the amount of tungsten ore planned to be produced in China is in an unsaturated state, and this is the period when the price is most stable and the best benefits can be obtained.But the current situation is not like this. The domestic planned tungsten output is decreasing year by year, while the international market price is declining at the same time.This abnormal state of affairs has puzzled even the most famous market forecasters.

Chinese tungsten ore market research experts went to the international trading market with the most concentrated tungsten products with the determination to dig out a "monkey grandson".It was thought that there must be a representative of a country that had newly discovered a large tungsten mine hiding far away, but this was not the case.Seeing the arrival of the Chinese officials, Western businessmen flocked to surround them, and smiled and extended their thumbs: "Thank you, the Chinese are friends!" How is this going? Ok?Don't you understand? "Foreigners" were amazed: it is you who put a large amount of high-quality tungsten sand into the market, and the price has been repeatedly reduced, which has made us a big profit!

Strange, China's national plan for tungsten sand export has not increased at all in recent years!The Chinese officials in the inspection team were puzzled.After a "digging three feet" investigation, it turned out that in addition to the country's legitimate exports, mainland tungsten sand exported through Hong Kong, Taiwan and other illegal channels has actually doubled into overseas markets in recent years. Earn cheap.It is none other than the Chinese themselves that caused China, a big tungsten industry country, to fall into trouble! Chinese officials are full of wimps!After returning to China, he wrote a report to the Ministry of Metallurgy and the central leadership. "Go to the field to check and find out, and try to put an end to such things!" The central leadership instructed.

The investigation team originally planned to complete the trip in a week, but if they didn't think about it, they wouldn't be able to come back!The Beijing side thought that something had happened, and sent a telegram, and received a call back from the person in charge of the investigation team on the third day, with a line written on it: "The Tungsten Tribe Delta has fallen, and it is urgent! The investigation team requests an extension of the date." In fact, it's not that the higher-ups don't know anything about what happened in the "Tungsten Tribe Delta", but they just don't see it.

At this point, it's time for us to reveal the secrets of China's Tungsten Delta. The Tungsten Delta refers to the area of ​​about 130,000 square kilometers at the junction of Hunan, Jiangxi, and Guangdong provinces.The mountains here are undulating and steep, and it has always been regarded as a "poor mountain and remote place" during the period of "learning from Dazhai in agriculture".Later, people gradually realized that this is a unique treasure land.One-fifth of the world's tungsten reserves are buried here.By 1985, there were 15 state-owned large-scale tungsten mines here, many of which were old mines with a history of 70 to 80 years, and there were also new mines built in the 1980s.

This place was originally a peaceful world, nicknamed "Little Kunlun in the South", which means that few people care about this place.But from the day people knew "one stone for two hens", this "small Kunlun in the southern country" suddenly boiled.The local people described it like this: "In 1980, groups of people went to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and in 1985, there was a lot of traffic to Yaogang Xianru City." Yaogangxian and Rucheng are two mines in the tungsten delta. Yaogangxian is located in southern Hunan. Although it takes less than seven or eight hours to get to Guangzhou, the Cantonese who were busy doing business with Hong Kong and Macau in the past few years seem to have completely forgotten about it.Maybe it was because the business was dead, but suddenly one day, a group of Hong Kong businessmen who were said to have just returned from Paris presented a bill to the "Cantonese" who specialize in smuggling here, and there was only one word on the bill: W!

The smuggled "Cantonese" stared wide-eyed: "Why, you want Zorro!" "Zorro? Hahaha! Yes, Zorro! It is as popular as the well-known Zorro in the international hard goods market in Paris! You provide tons of power every month!" The Hong Kong businessman raised his big belly and held a tall brandy glass , made a cross in the air. "Guangdong boy" realized later: W is tungsten ore. "Where can I pick this thing?" They were familiar with the streets and alleys of Yangcheng, but they didn't know where W came from. "The immortals of Yaogang in Hunan! There are also inexhaustible resources in the mountains of Guangdong and Jiangxi!" Strange to say, many things in China are always known to outsiders.

Several "Guangdong boys" took a trip to Yaogangxian and returned with a full load. The first shipment was 40 tons, equivalent to 500,000 yuan, but they only spent 130,000 yuan when they went to the mountains to purchase!With a slight change of hands, 370,000 yuan went to the pocket. "Guangdong Boy" was so jealous, he went home and picked up a mat, and came to Yaogang Fairy again. At this time, there were not many Caimin in Yaogang Fairy.But the surrounding farmers had keen eyesight. Seeing a few foreigners coming, they rented three private houses and set up camp the second time they made a move. They knew that the "stones" they got on the mountain were very lucrative!Several townships in the Yaogangxian area have sent people south.These people patted their thighs when they came back: "Fat! Fuck! Yaogangxian is going to make a big bang. It turns out that they not only learned that tungsten ore is a popular commodity in overseas markets, but also directly got in touch with several Hong Kong companies. Much higher than the "two-way dealers". The township cadres took out small electronic calculators from their pockets, and they didn't have to worry about it. The numbers on it told them all: If... then you can... Damn, it wasn't like that during the land reform. Come back!

"Come on, this mountain is not their state-run mine!" The farmers' theories are almost the same, but sometimes with a touch of the times: "If there is no small family, there will be no family; if there is no Yaogang fairy, there will be no state-owned mine!" At the negotiating table, the person in charge of the state-owned mine took out the newly promulgated "Mineral Resources Law of the People's Republic of China" in 1986, and read it to the township and village cadres sentence by sentence. "Okay, okay, you don't need to scan the literacy class we took during the land reform." The chief representative of the peasants is the village chief, who participated in the revolution 15 years earlier than the mine manager.He bundled the hookah pipes on the table without saying a word: "No matter how many reasons, no matter how big the documents, I have seen and heard them all. Now there is only one sentence: Will you give up a piece of land to our township?" "Hehe. The old town chief has something to say, something to say. Let's talk while eating, please! Please!" The file was moved away, and what came up was roast piglet, roasted mandarin fish, sea cucumber, prawns, crispy rice... … "Don't be so busy! I'm full alone, what should I do with the 23,000 people in the township?" The village head pushed aside the dishes and wine glasses, and said in one sentence: "Be happy, okay or not?" Several leaders of the mine looked at each other, not knowing what to do.Give it, it's tantamount to putting your own neck on the rope of the law; don't give it, the temper of the old village head is not good.At that time, "agriculture learned from Dazhai", Yaogangxian wanted to build terraced fields, and the labor force in the village was not enough. The old village head took the "Chinese Communist Party Membership Card" issued in the 1940s to find the party secretary of the mine, and said: "All the party members in the world are For a common goal, to realize communism, so everyone should care for and help each other. At present, the township responds to Chairman Mao’s call and learns from Dazhai, but there is not enough labor, so we come here to move 300 generals from the expensive mine. Please support the mine.” "How can this work! Our mine's mission is still heavy, we have to keep the mission!" Going around, the secretary of the mine's party committee still said two words: "No!" Without saying a word, the fellow village chief turned around and called the Minister of Armed Forces of the commune, and issued an "order".That night, the state-run mine was pitch black, and all power sources were cut off. Support or not?No support, okay-wait for the candles!There is a squad of militia guarding all the fallen telephone poles.Reluctantly, the secretary of the mine party committee honestly took the workers down the mountain to help the old village head build terraced fields, but the number of people at this time was not 300, and it had to be doubled! In this response, taking the initiative is the best policy to learn from a pitfall, and put aside the laws and regulations for the time being. The state-run mine cut off an "ear" in pain.The taste is good, and the mining income of the whole township in the first year was used to rebuild a township government building, two middle school buildings, and build a bridge. Now that one ear has been bitten off, what is the use of keeping the other?Yaoling Township got another "ear" easily. After eating the "ears", the appetite increased greatly.It can't be like this for a long time, just have a good taste but not fat!Now the old township chief came to make a move first, and sent five basic mining teams to bite the "back meat" of the state-owned mine-this year's target is 800,000, the first-level salary of the township cadres, the repair of the two streets of the town where the township is located, A water station and a post office all depend on the money on the mountain!Thinking about this, can he loose this piece of meat? Helpless, the state-run mine begged the county and the city to come forward to make a rescue.The fellow village chief smiled secretly: Our township is a model township for counties and cities to get rich. I heard that it is reporting to the province now! Let it go, you won't be able to delay one year's production tasks if you lose a piece of land.We are different, if we don't generate income this year, we will be scolded by others next year! OK, thank you for letting me go!At the end of the year, a huge drum band composed of 300 people led by the fellow village chief came to the mine manager's office with extraordinary momentum. Like a family, let's celebrate my wealth and your prosperity.The mine manager's smile is uglier than crying. The Yaogangxian Tungsten Mine lost its exclusive status as a state-owned mine in the "peaceful and friendly evolution".In comparison, it is much less troublesome than Rucheng Tungsten Mine. Rucheng, this small county in the southeast corner of Hunan Province, probably not many people know about it except people from the province.However, in terms of mining people, it is famous. Although Rucheng is small, it has a long history of tungsten mining.As early as 1916, several Dutch and British hired dozens of local villagers to dig their shoulders by hand and started the mining era. In 1949, Wang Xuefeng and Zhang Chunben, military representatives from the Ministry of Heavy Industry of the Central Plains Provisional People's Government, took over the mine from the old government.At that time, the mining area stretched from Longhu Cave in the east, from Zoumaping in the west, to Shanmu Cave in the south, and up to Dabian Mountain in the north, covering a total area of ​​110 square kilometers.After liberation, the state expanded the mine and became one of the key tungsten mine bases in my country. It has paid more than 22.4 million yuan in profits and taxes to the state, and it is a hero for earning foreign exchange.However, this "old hero" has set up new meritorious service in recent years.According to observers, the "old hero" may no longer be able to make new contributions, and it is lucky that it can not "die"! Such a sad fate?It's true. The area of ​​the Rucheng Mine is not large, but there are many villages and towns and individual miners who illegally mine tungsten ore up the mountain.At present, there are many township tungsten mines holding "legal" mining licenses in the mining area, with nearly 3,000 miners. Although Yaogangxian's fellow village chief had the idea of ​​a state-run tungsten mine, he was "upright" and "ruled people with reason".The people from Rucheng were not the same, they took tough actions to make an inch of it as soon as they came up, snatching—exploding—snatching!These are their three sets of offense. When the miners entered the state-run mining area, they were very clever and found that their manual mining method was too primitive and backward.They are envious when they see the state-run mines being mined with big machines.That iron digger and drilling rig are so powerful, a light grab can yield one or two tons of ore!Why can't we use it if they can use it?In the middle of the night, a group of masked men sneaked into the state-run tunnel, and a pair of underpants "huh" covered the workers on duty at the mouth of the pit. defense zone.The next day, several masters were invited from the county agricultural machinery factory to install it, and the motor rang, and the work efficiency increased by 20 times!The villagers are happy to dance "disco" in the hole! This is a group of miners from the north, and the locals have taken up everything that should be occupied. You can't just watch others get rich and starve yourself!A few unlucky youngsters lay face down on the grass in a daze.Suddenly, a lot of black limestone was sprinkled on their faces and bodies by someone.Well, damn it, who is in the mood to joke with me!Looking up, it turned out that the cableway bucket of the mine passed over them. "Hey, there it is!" A clever man suddenly jumped up from the ground, patting his forehead and screaming.He told everyone about his idea, and the buddies hugged into a ball, rolling on the ground with joy.This night, the mine hoppers on the cableway did not stop running once, but few people entered the ore stockyard for loading. No one in the state-run mine noticed this situation.On the fourth day, the road inspectors reported to the mine security office that three dead bodies were found on the hill in the middle of the cableway. On-site verification showed that a mine hopper had fallen.The mine protection team immediately realized that there was a reason for the incident. In the middle of the night, they patrolled along the cableway and found that there were people on three hills who were using wooden and iron rods to turn over the ore bucket.The dead were their accomplices, but no one collected the bodies for them. "No time! Besides, people are dead, that's what happens!" On this point, they can be regarded as complete materialists.According to the mine security department, there are people who are crushed to death for stealing mines like this every year.The highest density is 13 people died in two months.So far, there are still 29 corpses dumped underground in the Rucheng tungsten mining area for stealing ore... Later, some people felt that doing it secretly might cost their lives, so they simply came to explain it.State-run mine workers refused to give up an inch of land in key parts and rich ore blocks, while miners vowed to "fight for every inch of land"! The mining area has long been illegally occupied, and there is only a thin "veil" separating the state-run tunnels from the civilian mines, and the miners are unwilling to let it stay at this time.The mountain people with a tradition of making gunpowder took homemade gunpowder as weapons and exploded all state-run facilities that hindered them from mining and robbing rich ore areas.The state-run mine invested millions or even tens of millions in tunnels, wellhead equipment, and precautionary measures built with great efforts, but was completely collapsed and paralyzed by a few packs of explosives from the miners.Take the Dapu pit mouth of this mine as an example. There are 11 middle sections in the pit, and the main transportation roadways in 7 middle sections were blown up or blocked. There are not many 232 mining areas left, with a loss of more than 350,000 tons of ore and 924 million tons of metal. Ton, equal to 8 million yuan. A worker who escaped death described the scene of miners savagely blowing up the pit mouth of the state-run mine: "...that day, we were mining underground, and a team of about thirty local farmers forcibly occupied our pit mouth. We who were working said: "Big brothers, you have been working here for several years, now it's our turn to do it!" Then we were forced out of the tunnel one by one. At this time, someone put A few packs of homemade explosives were loaded, and after being ignited, there was only a loud noise, and the partition wall between the tunnel they built and the tunnel we were working on was blown through. Before the smoke receded, about a hundred miners ran into our mining tunnel. When we saw tungsten mines, we started digging them. Some of our workers couldn’t bear it, so we said to them: “You only want to mine sand, but you’ve destroyed all our equipment, and it will take at least three months to resume production. This is too immoral. up! They kicked the damaged motors and ventilation equipment with their feet, and said with a nonchalant smile: "This is what we want, otherwise what would we pick if you took all the light?"As for the equipment, you should make a report to the higher authorities and install it when you have money. If you don’t have money, it’s better to stay at home.Anyway, the salary is paid. "On the way back, when we passed a quarry, a group of miners suddenly shouted: "The devil is coming!let go!Let it go-! "We haven't seen what's going on yet. We only heard a few loud noises, and rocks the size of raindrops poured on us without thinking. It turned out that these people thought we were here to stop their illegal mining. The mine guards used explosives to prevent us from getting close to them. Only after dark did these people stop putting explosives, and we had a way to pass. Today’s life was barely recovered, and we don’t know what will happen tomorrow...” The "explosives war" completely paralyzed the Rucheng State-owned Tungsten Mine. It not only caused the burial and destruction of a large number of pit safety facilities and underground machinery and equipment, requiring a lot of financial resources and time to clean up and repair, but also many of the work sections that were not directly destroyed by the bombing. , due to the bombing of other supporting workshops, a flash flood came down, causing damage to the entire mine, and accidents of well flooding and pit burial occurred repeatedly.The only thing the state-run mine can do is to keep saving itself.Because this kind of self-rescue and self-protection is always in a passive position, it does not work at all.Do you want to "take the initiative"?That's even worse.Once, the secretary of the party branch and the chief of the security section of a certain pit, held high the banner of "We are members of the Communist Party, and we have a heart to heart with the people", and went to Mining Mining to persuade them not to blow up millions of yuan for the sake of tens of thousands of small profits. state-run facilities. "Stay there!" Before he could say a few words, the other party pushed the two Communist Party members into a dark and damp deep cave, which lasted for more than seven hours without even giving them a drink of saliva.This is the attitude towards the "officials". As for the general workers in the mine and those mine guards who are looking for trouble, the situation will not be like this. Do you think they can be dealt with once a petition is sent to the court? "It's a joke, our place is high and the emperor is far away, and I sit on the mountain as the king!" They tell you like this.They have their own "law" on this mountain, that is, it is good to allow mining, and they will be fined if they block mining.Do what you say, and never relent. The fate of Rucheng is a microcosm of the entire Tungsten Delta. In addition to Yaogangxian, Daji Mountain, Xihua Mountain, Kumei Mountain, Huameiao, Xiaolong, Gaoping, Piaotang, Xialong, Hukeng in Jiangxi, Chuankou in Hunan Large-scale tungsten mines such as Shitouzhang, East Hunan, and Shitouzhang in Guangdong are basically similar to being swallowed up by aggressive miners and state-owned mining areas. Among them, Daji Mountain, Xihua Mountain, and Huameiao in southern Jiangxi are even worse.There are more than 9,200 miners gathered in one tungsten mine in Kumei Mountain alone.After three or four years of indiscriminate mining, the life of this mine has been shortened by 11 years. The yin and yang decline between the state-run mines and private mines in the tungsten delta will inevitably lead to the backflow and landslide of my country's tungsten industry's export earnings.Since the state-run mines have been unable to curb the rapid development and spread of private mines, the tungsten sand business market in the tungsten delta area is also in chaos.There are many individual buying stations run by the industrial departments of the county government and the villages of the township government, and they are all close to the state-owned mining areas.Miners sell illegally mined tungsten as easily as selling vegetables on the street.The smugglers took the opportunity to make a fortune.Since 1985, two workers of a selection factory in Guiyao, Hunan have smuggled more than 600 tons of tungsten sand from a small tungsten mine in Jikeng District alone. Ren, a farmer in Ningxiang County, has evaded 320,000 yuan for tax evasion alone!According to incomplete statistics from more than a dozen key mining areas in the Tungsten Delta, more than 12,000 tons of tungsten sand were lost through such illegal purchases in 1987 alone, accounting for more than 1/3 of the annual output of tungsten sand here.It is no wonder that such a huge amount of unplanned production of tungsten sand has flowed into the international market without causing confusion.Taking 1987 as an example, the total income of farmers in the "Delta" through illegal mining was about 54 million yuan, while the country's foreign exchange earnings from tungsten exports in the international market decreased by 30 million U.S. dollars in this year alone. Due to the impact of oversupply in this year, the price of tungsten plummeted in 1988 and 1989, and the actual loss was nearly 100 million US dollars.The predatory mining by farmers and miners this year shortened the life of all tungsten mines by two years, equivalent to a loss of 450 million yuan.In addition, the cost of destroying pits and other mine equipment caused by farmers and miners to state-run mines in this year is equivalent to 30 million yuan. The sum of the three losses is a huge amount of 780 million yuan. The actual income earned by the farmers miners is negative 12 times the losses caused by the state! The earth is tilted for it, can the tungsten delta not fall because of it?