Mao Zedong set the home of Dongfanghong tractor in Luoyang

Mao Zedong set the home of Dongfanghong tractor in Luoyang

The China Tractor Manufacturing Plant is one of the 156 key projects under construction in China during the five-year plan. In the 1960s and 1970s, the “Dongfanghong” tractors produced by the company were well-known and well-known, and were printed on the third set of RMB in the 1962 edition. Until today, the “Dongfanghong” tractor can still be counted. A representative symbol made in China.

The author of this article is engaged in the work of the CPPCC literature and history. He once made a special trip to the Political and Historical Committee of the Political Consultative Conference of Luoxi City, Luoyang City, Henan Province, and the first interview. The relevant information provided by local comrades and teachers has enabled us to have a comprehensive understanding of the Chinese tractor manufacturing plant and the “Oriental Red”. The story of the tractor.

On July 20, 1958, an oriental red tractor opened the factory.

Site selection

Mao Zedong chooses the oriental red tractor

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there is a lot to be done. The new people's political power is very limited, and the funds are seriously scarce. However, under such difficult conditions, the central government has taken a lot of more than 400 million yuan and imported 28,000 tractors from abroad. State farm use.

These tractors are undoubtedly a drop in the bucket for the more than 800,000 villages in New China at the time. Hundreds of millions of peasants who have just been reborn are, together with the land that has just been liberated, eagerly aspire to the great era of "cultivating fields without cattle."

When China formulated a five-year plan for the development of the national economy, it began planning and decided to use the Soviet aid to design and build a tractor manufacturing plant in China. However, it took some troubles to solve the problem of site selection.

As early as February 1953, the Automobile Industry Administration of the Ministry of Machinery Industry (referred to as the Ministry of Machinery) set up a new factory preparatory office. The preparatory team of the new factory preparatory office tractor factory, based on the opinions of the Ministry of Agriculture, considered that the agricultural mechanization should be first The development of the northeast, north and northwest regions has initially selected Harbin, Shijiazhuang and Xi'an as potential locations for the construction of tractor factories.

In August of the same year, the Party Central Committee clearly pointed out that it should choose a site in Henan Province in the Central Plains region from the perspective of industrial layout and national defense security. Then, in the Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Yanshi, Xin'an, and Shaanxi counties in Henan Province, they carried out surveys and collected information.

In December of this year, Li Fuchun, deputy director of the State Finance and Economic Committee, went to Luoyang to inspect and establish conditions. After consulting over 80 cities and more than 100 villages and towns across the country, Comrade Li Fuchun encountered a big problem: Harbin, Cities such as Shijiazhuang, Xi'an, Zhengzhou and Luoyang hope to build Chinese tractor factories on their own land.

According to the records of "One Tow Factory", on January 8, 1954, when Li Fuchun returned to Beijing to report on the location of Chairman Mao Zedong, Chairman Mao Zedong said humorously: "The emperors of the nine dynasties of Luoyang have lived (Luoyang has The name of the ancient capital of the nine dynasties --- editors, can't you put up a tractor factory?" So, according to Mao Zedong's instructions, the National Planning Commission quickly issued a letter 116 on February 20 to formally decide China. The tractor manufacturer was selected to build in the western part of Luohe City.

The “Oriental Red” tractor produced by Yituo was put on the third set of RMB 1 yuan with a face value of 1962.

Building a factory

Luoyang West is boiling up

At the same time as the selection of the site, the preparations for the construction of the Chinese tractor manufacturing plant are also intensifying.

According to the instructions of the Ministry of Machinery, on July 12, 1953, the China Tow Preparation Office was established. On August 1, the Ministry of Machinery and Industry submitted a report to the State Planning Commission on the “Planning Tasks for State-owned Tractor Manufacturing Plants”. Beginning for confidentiality, the external code is called 081 factory, and the preparation office is called 081 preparatory office. On November 28th, the State Planning Commission approved the decision to build a Type 54 tractor. In February 1954, survey and design began, and terrain mapping and geological drilling were carried out. In July, the party committee of the China Tractor Manufacturing Plant was established with the approval of the CPC Henan Provincial Committee.

On October 4, Yang Ligong, deputy director of the preparatory office, as the representative of the general orderer, officially signed the “Preliminary Design Approval Protocol for Tractor Plants” in Moscow and the Soviet Union. On November 12th, the Ministry of Machines appointed Yang Ligong as the director of the company according to the nomination of Premier Zhou. At the end of the year, the factory preparatory office sorted out various materials needed for design according to surveys of more than 80 cities and more than 100 villages and towns.

The design scale of Yituo is 15,000 sets of 54 type crawler tractors per year. As early as the National Planning Commission approved the decision to build a plant in Luoyang, preparations for the pre-construction began in the first half of 1954. According to the unified arrangement of the Ministry of Construction and Engineering at that time, selected excellent construction teams from all over the country, gathered in Luoyang for construction, building more than 20,000 people at the peak of the army, the whole Luoyang West is boiling, and the site is full of people. ,Crowded.

In August 1954, 14 production workshops for casting and engine were set up. At the same time, functional management departments were added and the basic construction management institutions were strengthened.

On October 1, 1955, in the western part of Luohe, Luoyang, a grand opening ceremony was held. More than 70,000 people from all walks of life in Luoyang attended the conference. The vice governor of Henan Province, Xing Wei, cut the ribbon, and he and the auto department. The bureau chief Zhang Fengshi et al. carried out a groundbreaking ceremony and buried a groundbreaking commemorative card.

Since then, China has entered the period of construction and construction in a comprehensive and rapid manner.

"Golden Girl": "Golden Gold" is a special craft produced by Dongfanghong tractor at that time.

Put into production

New China's Taiwan tractors are produced one year ahead of schedule.

The news of the construction of the Chinese tractor manufacturing plant was quickly spread to the north and south of the motherland with the Xinhua News Agency. The factory received more than 2,600 letters of condolence from all over the country. At the same time, all kinds of supporting materials are also continuously coming from all directions: farmers in a village in Huachuan County, Heilongjiang Province, have saved more than 1,000 kilograms of rice to the construction site; the people in Nanyang, Henan Province have bundled 28 tons of carbon. A bundle of land was carried down from the mountain and sent to the construction site to solve the urgent need; more than 10,000 tons of refractory soil and a large number of bricks and stones were sent freely in the Xuzhou area of ​​Jiangsu Province; thousands of "red scarves" in the country exchanged waste for recycling. Change the money to the factory...

Many things that happened during the construction of the construction of the country have become epoch-making events in the history of China's agricultural mechanization. At the beginning of 1958, Mao Zedong once again gave instructions: the tractor model and performance must adapt to China's climate and topography, must be comprehensively utilized, and its cost must be reduced as much as possible.

It was during this year that the installation of one-to-one equipment entered a climax, and 60% of the equipment in the whole plant was installed within one year, and some equipments have begun to debug production. On June 20th, the cast iron workshop cupola furnace was used to produce molten iron. On July 8, a fuel pump was produced. On July 13, a diesel engine was produced. On July 20, the new Chinese Taiwan red "Oriental Red" 54 type crawler The tractor was produced.

According to the old workers, they hanged Chairman Mao’s head on the front of the Dongfanghong tractor. They dressed the tractor like a bride and put on a red flower. The body was covered with colored silk. Knocking on the flag, and happily followed the tractor "long rumble..." opened a door to the factory. The talents of the construction of New China gathered from all directions of the motherland to Luoyang. Under the difficult construction environment and living conditions at that time, they made a hundred times of hard work and thousands of times of courage, and they produced the new Chinese tractors one year ahead of schedule. Come out and create a story in the history of agricultural machinery construction.

On October 12, 1959, Zhou Enlai inspected a trailer.

acceptance

Zhou Enlai has high hopes for "China"

In September 1959, according to the instructions of Premier Zhou Enlai, the National Acceptance Committee for China's Tractor Manufacturing Plant Project was established. Wu Zhixuan, secretary of the CPC Henan Provincial Committee, was appointed as the director of the Ministry of Agriculture, Vice Minister of Agriculture and Machinery, Li Yu, and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Machinery, Bai Jian. director.

According to the "Wuxi Cultural and Historical Materials", on October 12, 1959, Premier Zhou Enlai inspected a drag. He saw the "aircraft carrier" built by the Chinese, and said to the workers masters with kindness and enthusiasm: "You Remember, you are 'China'! To produce 'China' products, to produce 'China' talents, and to create 'China' performance!"

On October 26, Premier Zhou Enlai made an important statement on the "Report on Holding a Falling Ceremony" by the Minister of Agriculture and Machinery, Chen Zhengren: "Please ask Tan (ie, Tan Zhenlin) Deputy Prime Minister to preside over the ribbon-cutting ceremony." October 31, The National Acceptance Committee held a ceremony for the acceptance of the project acceptance certificate, and found that all the projects were qualified and fully met the design standards.

On November 1, 1959, the inaugural ceremony of the China Tractor Factory was held in the square in front of the factory gate. At the meeting, Tan Zhenlin, the vice premier of the State Council, announced: "The great era of 'farming without cattle' that Chinese farmers have longed for has already begun."

Xie Jueyi was very excited to present six poems on the spot at the conference, and warmly congratulated the birth of the tractor manufacturer. The whole poem is headed by “500 million farmers patted the palm”, which first wrote: “Five hundred million farmers want machinery, eyes look at your factory. Quickly produce 'Oriental Red', and 500 million farmers are clap their hands.”

The one-time project was designed and built according to Soviet experts. It was completed at the end of 1964 and fully achieved the original design production capacity. The total investment in the construction of the factory has been completed more than 350 million yuan. At that time, Dongfanghong tractors completed more than 60% of the farming tasks in the country's farmland, and once became synonymous with agricultural mechanization in China.

On November 1, 1959, a scene was dragged into a ceremony.

name

The origin of "Oriental Red"

The naming of the Type 54 tractor produced by the Chinese tractor manufacturer is also very interesting.

According to one of the former comrades of the propaganda minister and the deputy secretary of the factory party committee, Comrade Su Yuan recalled that in the production of a tractor in the early 1958, he specially organized an engineer to write a book called D·T·54 Tractor. Product manual for the performance, use and driving, repair and maintenance of the various components of the tractor.

Shortly after the publication of this book, Yituo Factory received an important instruction from Chairman Mao Zedong: "The tractor model and name are not available for foreign characters." So, one drag began to mobilize all employees to give the tractor a name. At the same time, the relevant central ministries and commissions, the relevant units in Luoyang City have also been launched, and everyone has named the tractors produced by New China.

First, the Automobile Industry Administration of the Ministry of Machinery and Industry nominated the “Iron Bull”. After discussion, the Party Committee of the Tow Factory was not satisfied with the name. Later, the name was given to the 27-horsepower wheeled tractor produced by Tianjin Tractor Factory.

Later, Luoyang City gave the names of local characteristics such as “Longmen” and “White Horse”, because there are some cultural relics in Luoyang, “Longmen Grottoes” and “White Horse Temple”. After the name of "White Horse" was raised, several workers in the one-to-one stamping workshop had specially designed a "white horse" nameplate. The white horse head on the nameplate is facing the left side, and the four hooves are struggling to fly. However, the names such as "White Horse" and "Longmen" are not unique to Luoyang, and the one-off workers feel that they are not a drag.

On the following day, An Daoping, the deputy director of any factory, went to talk with the responsible person of Luoyang City about the name of the tractor. When he returned without results, he heard someone in the factory singing the folk songs of northern Shaanxi. "Oriental Red": Dongfanghong, the sun rises, China has a Mao Zedong... "Oriental Red"! What a good name, both praised Chairman Mao and praised New China. Therefore, this is a special name in the history of Chinese trademarks in the future. It was immediately approved by all the employees, and it was quickly approved by the Ministry of Machinery.

Since then, the three eye-catching red characters of "Oriental Red" have appeared on the tractor heads of all the tractors. The drag-type 54 crawler tractor finally took a resounding and proud Chinese name.

Nowadays

"Oriental Red" is going to the world

From the root steel column into the ancient land of Luoyang West, to today's Luoyang "Tractor City", has experienced vicissitudes and changes. The Chinese tractor manufacturing plant is also the birthplace of China's Taiwanese road roller and Taiwan military off-road vehicle.

Today's China Yituo Group (established in 1987 as China Tractor Engineering Machinery Group) is a multi-shareholding limited liability company that has been transformed from a state-owned company in accordance with the requirements of the modern enterprise system. After nearly 60 years of development, Yituo Group has become a large-scale comprehensive machinery manufacturing enterprise group mainly engaged in the manufacture of agricultural machinery, engineering machinery, power machinery, vehicles and parts. It has a technical center and has strong independent innovation and research and development. Capabilities, product design capabilities and manufacturing levels are at the leading position in China, making an indelible contribution to the mechanization of China's agriculture.

The contribution of Yituo transcends national borders and its products spread across five continents. In order to develop friendly relations between China and the rest of the world, especially to strengthen unity and cooperation between China and the third world countries, we have exported tractors to more than 100 countries and regions including Vietnam, Albania, North Korea, Japan, Russia, Norway and Cuba. , road rollers, bulldozers, technical equipment and tractor accessories, and sent a variety of professional and technical personnel and workers to help the third world countries to carry out economic construction.

One towed more than 500 interns for the relevant countries and assisted Albania to build the Tirana tractor parts factory. In recent years, China has successively established assembly plants in Serbia, South Africa, Poland, Kyrgyzstan and other countries, and entered the markets of South America, Eastern Europe, West Asia and Central Asia, and initially completed the layout of the global marketing network for the world's agricultural machinery manufacturing industry. Development has also contributed.

(Original title: [Shi Hai hook Shen] Mao Zedong selected for the Eastern Red Tractor)