"Little Tianjin on the Taihang Mountains"-Huangya Cave Arsenal

During the Anti-Japanese War, the main difficulty of the Eighth Route Army fighting behind enemy lines was the extreme lack of weapons and ammunition. Zhu De once compared the bullet to "our lifeblood". In order to strengthen the leadership of the military industry, the Eighth Route Army Headquarters established the Sixth Section in March 1939, which was soon changed to the Military Industry Department. In July 1939, the Ministry of Military Industry moved from North Village, Lucheng, Shanxi to Huangya Cave, a hidden terrain in Licheng County, Shanxi, and built a water kiln arsenal, which soon developed into a large-scale military base for the Eighth Route Army in the anti-Japanese base. The Huangyadong Arsenal attached great importance to the training and training of scientific and technological personnel and management personnel in the revolutionary military industry, and created and promoted the military industry in the anti-Japanese base areas.
The largest arsenal in the Taihang Revolutionary Base. The fundamental reason why Huangya Cave in the north of Libei, Shanxi Province has become an important base for the Eighth Route Army factory is its superior geographical location. The Eighth Route Army factory located in Huangya Cave is high in the deep valleys and mountains, where the rock gaps are roads, curved and rising, so narrow that only one person can pass through, it is easy to defend, and it is not easy to be discovered or bombed by the enemy. Huangya Cave Ordnance Factory is also a military engineering institute of the Eighth Route Army headquarters. Because the military engineering institute was built in the ravine opposite Huangya Cave and the surrounding cliffs were steep, the Ministry of Military Industry called the military engineering institute here "Water Kiln Institute". In November 1941, the Japanese army attacked Water Kiln Institute, and the special forces of the Eighth Route Army headquarters rose up to fight and started the defense of Huangya Cave. After the victory of the Huangya Cave Defense War, the "Huangya Cave Arsenal" became synonymous with "a water kiln. Under the unified leadership of the Eighth Route Army Military Industry Department, the total number of employees in Huangyadong Arsenal has grown to 680, with a monthly production of 375 rifles. The employees commute to and from work with sirens. The factory's machinery rumbles. During the day, the whole valley is brightly lit at night, showing a vibrant scene. It is called "Little Tianjin on the Taihang Mountains" and is the largest military factory in terms of machinery and equipment and production in Taihang revolutionary base.
Introduce professionals in the military industry. During the construction and production of Huangyadong Arsenal, especially before and after the establishment of the Military Industry Department, the Eighth Route Army Headquarters has transferred a group of senior technicians from Yan'an Anti-Japanese Military and Political University and other units: such as Lu Da, who graduated from the Steel Department of Berlin University in Germany, Cheng Mingsheng, who graduated from the Electrical Engineering Department of Waseda University in Japan, Guo Dongcai, a graduate student of Tokyo Institute of Technology, Zhang Huaqing, tang Yingzhi, who graduated from Tongji University in Shanghai, and dozens of comrades including Zheng Hantao, Chen Zhijian, Gao Yuan, and Tang Chengyi who graduated from the university and studied mechanical, civil, and power engineering. They used the advanced technology learned in universities at home and abroad, combined with the needs of the actual struggle against Japan, to create and develop new technologies and weapons.
Reuse a large number of military technical workers. Among the workers engaged in the ordnance industry, there are also a group of professional and skilled workers. Most of them come from the ordnance factories in Hebei and Taiyuan, Shanxi, such as Li Zuojin, Liu Guifu, Qi Xuanwei, Shen Dingxiang, Bai Ying, Han Zhongwu and other comrades. According to their own work practice in the field of weapons, they are "local" experts trained in actual work, in the machine, pliers, forging, casting, wood and other special processes, they all have superb skills and become a new force in the professional technology of Taihang ordnance. According to the operational characteristics of the Eighth Route Army, the military technicians represented by Liu Guifu designed and manufactured the "Bayi Horse Rifle" at the end of July 1940, which can meet the requirements of guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare in mountainous areas. It is a new standardized rifle designed and manufactured by the Eighth Route Army factory. The design and manufacture of guns also absorbed the advantages of "Czech type", "38 type", "nameless type" and "made in Hanyang". The new rifle designed is light in weight, small in size and high in shooting accuracy, which has changed the history that the people's army has no standard weapons. The emergence of this new type of "light-weight rifle" has brought China into a new stage of light-weight development of rifles, breaking the inherent concept of rifles in the West. The Logistics Department of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters uniformly equipped the "Bayi Horse Rifle" to the troops in the Shanxi-Hebei-Henan, Jinchaji, Jinsui, Central Hebei, Southern Hebei, Hebei-Shandong-Henan, and East China, which played a role in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation. Important role.
In the development of artillery, the strength of military technicians and workers has also been gathered to jointly study and work out a plan. Even so, during the trial production process, the test personnel suffered many casualties. After many improvements, the grenade barrel was finally transformed into a new type of "50 small mortar gun", with both curved and flat fire, with a range of 1000 meters, which greatly improved the actual combat power. For example, Guo Dongcai and Tang Chengyi, outstanding military talents, in order to develop special machines and tools for original bullets and complete sets of equipment for smokeless drug molding, repeated research and experiments have been carried out with the help of old technical workers from the equipment prototype, structural principle, function to various actual parameters required for technical design without the help of relevant technologies, starting from the actual conditions and processing capacity of its own at that time, dozens of special machines and tools with different performance were designed and manufactured, which opened the door for the mass production of original bullets and smokeless drugs. For example, Zhen Rongdian, a lathe worker in Huangyadong Arsenal, is a model representative of military production. With a high degree of revolutionary enthusiasm and drive, he proposes to everyone to complete the one-month task in 20 days, insist on doing one hour of volunteer work every day, and constantly create new records for processing shells. Xinhua News Agency and Xinhua Daily (Taihang edition) publicized his exemplary deeds and praised him as the "king of shells". In August 1938, Zhen Rongdian gloriously attended the comparison and selection meeting of the new laborer movement in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan District, and was selected as the first flag bearer of new laborers in the border area.
Cultivate reserve talents for the military industry. On January 13, 1941, Peng Dehuai instructed the Ministry of Military Industry to complete the plan, improve the quality, fully reserve military raw materials, supplement apprentices, set up industrial schools, improve the political quality of workers, develop 1/3 party members, and develop smokeless drugs and small guns. In 1941, the Taihang Industrial School was established on the basis of the original Taihang ordnance talents. A group of senior intellectuals were transferred from various institutes and factories to teach. In addition to the factories, there were also a group of young soldiers from the army. According to the work needs and cultural level, the students will be organized into two classes of mechanical Junior College, cultural cram school and accounting class. Taihang Industrial School trained a large number of military cadres for the base area during the war years, and these students later played a backbone role in the military factories in North China and Northeast China.
Under the banner of the War of Resistance Against Japan, these outstanding groups of heroes carried forward the spirit of hard work, unity and cooperation in the Huangyadong Arsenal in Licheng, Shanxi, and improved metallurgical technology, the development of gunpowder and explosives, the standardization of rifle production and the development of bullets, Machine manufacturing and other aspects have created a miracle of military production on the Taihang Mountains in the war of resistance against Japan.

Source: Learning Times