In Hubei, there is a mine, which is the first large-scale open-pit iron ore mined by machine in modern China; there is a mine, which was once the "steel granary" of New China and the only iron mine inspected by Chairman Mao Zedong. It is a place where he "rode a donkey to see"; there is a mine. The iron ore mined from 1958 to 2012 can be converted into the steel consumption of 220 Beijing-Kowloon Railway, the mined metal copper can be made into wires from the earth to the moon, and the mined gold can be made into 1.5 million necklaces weighing 10 grams ...... It provides valuable wealth for the country to revitalize its industry and economic construction and development, which is Daye Iron Mine. It has experienced three historical periods: the late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China and the Republic of the People's Republic of China. It recorded the process of China's industrialization and modernization in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and led the trend of China's industrial civilization. It has been affiliated to six economic entities, namely, Hubei Railway Bureau, Hanyang Iron and Steel General Plant, Hanyeping Coal and Iron Plant Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hanyeping Company"), Nippon Railway Daye Mining Institute, Huazhong Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., and Wuhan Iron and Steel Company. It has created many industrial categories and has a pioneering industry in Hubei and even China.

 

Some people say that the history of Daye Iron Mine is a history of the rise and fall of China's mining and metallurgical industry.

 

Daye Iron Mine Open Pit

The early years through the wind and frost

 

Daye Iron Mine is located in Tieshan District of Huangshi City, adjacent to Dongfang Mountain, the first mountain of Sanchu in the east, and Baiji Mountain, one of the eight ancient scenes of Daye in the west. It is 25 kilometers east of Huangshi City Center and 15 kilometers southeast of Daye City. It is the intersection of Huangshi, Daye and Ezhou.

 

The mining of Daye iron ore can be traced back to 226 AD and has a history of nearly 2000 years. During the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Quan cast swords here, and Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty minted coins here. According to the records of ancient and modern swords compiled by Liang's Tao Hongjing, "Wu Wang Sun Quan used Wuchang copper and iron for five years to make thousands of swords and tens of thousands of swords, each three feet nine inches long, with square heads, all made of South Tongyue charcoal." At that time, Wuchang, including today's Daye and Echeng, referred to the mining of Wuchang copper and iron, that is, Daye, Echeng and other mines. The ancient book of "Taiping Yulan" records, "There is Furong Peak on Baizhi Mountain in Daye County, with Lion Ridge in front and Jinji Stone in the back. Gold is produced in the west and copper is produced in the south. It has been cooked in a furnace since Jin, Song, Liang and Chen." According to the "Fangyu Minutes", "there is iron ore in Tieshan, Daye County, 40 miles north of the county. In the Tang and Song dynasties, furnaces were set here to make gold and iron." The national hero of the Southern Song Dynasty, Yue Fei, was ordered to work in Hubei in 1124 AD to refine the "Sword of Daye" in Tieshan and defeated the Jin soldiers.

 

　　Since the Ming Dynasty, there has been silence here for hundreds of years.

 

In 1890, the governor of Huguang, Zhang Zhidong, was ordered to build the Luhan Railway, and he deeply realized that "iron is the root of the great event. The rail today and the equipment of the future are all based on this." And "find out that the actual production of Tieshan in Daye County is prosperous and of good quality, and it is inexhaustible. It is only more than 50 miles away from Huangshi Port by the river. Xingguozhou produces ferromanganese, which is especially necessary for steelmaking, and is suitable for connecting with Daye." Then set up steel.

 

During the initial construction period, Daye Iron Mine adopted German equipment and technology, introduced talents, and built China's first large-scale open-pit iron mine mined by machine. In order to deal with the obstruction of local conservative forces in mining and construction, Zhang Zhidong reused the gentry, participated in land acquisition, demolition, factory construction and other work, and coordinated the relationship with the villagers and the government. And by the mine gentry to hire and manage unskilled workers. Ore mining is also expanding.

 

The "Mining Weekly" published on August 14, the 17th year of the Republic of China recorded that in 1893, Daye Iron Mine was officially put into production, and more than 3000 tons of ore were produced that year. In the following years 1894 and 1895 approximately 10000 tons per year were produced.

 

Before the opening of Daye Iron Mine, there were no railways or roads, and the only means of transportation were horse riding and sedan chair.

 

In April, 1891, Zhang Zhidong appointed Lin Zuo, who had served as governor of Daye County for the second time, to contract with Daye Lu Shuling Youqin and German engineer Shi Weili to start the construction of railway. In 1892 (the 18th year of Guangxu), the first railway in Hubei Province was opened to traffic. The road from Tieshanpu in the west to the lime kiln in the east, 31 kilometers. Purchased are German railway devices and locomotives, but also equipped with the then advanced telegraph, telephone and other communications equipment. The mine train runs back and forth from Tieshan to lime kiln every day, stopping at Tieshan, Shenghongqing, Xialu, Shibao and other stations along the way. A passenger car hangs behind the mine car. Later, the scale of mine production was expanding day by day, and the number of trains increased. Each locomotive carried more than 20 large tramcars and drove several trains every day. Each train carried 2 passenger cars and 1 float.

 

At that time, the General Administration of Mining of Daye Yundao (the predecessor of Daye Iron Mine) was located in the lime kiln. The lime kiln was equipped with more and more provinces and experts. In addition, a group of German technicians and Japanese were stationed in Daye Iron Mine. Daye attracted the attention of Chinese and foreign business circles.

 

Daye Iron Mine has a direct impact on the social, economic and cultural development of the region. Local people praise: "meet the extraordinary people, build extraordinary merit, learn from the fine and the great, ...... open unprecedented strange."

 

From 1890 to 1896, Daye Iron Mine was of an official nature and belonged to the Hubei General Administration of Coal and Iron Mining. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Sheng Xuanhuai merged Hanyang Iron Works, Daye Iron Mine and Pingxiang Coal Mine to form "Hanyeping Coal Iron Works Co., Ltd". Daye Iron Mine has become the raw material base of Hanyang Iron Works, a supporting enterprise of Hanyeping Company, the earliest modern iron and steel coal coke joint enterprise in China. Daye iron ore into the commercial period, until 1938.

 

During the First World War, the suppression of foreign capital on national industries slowed down, steel prices in the international market soared, domestic and foreign demand was strong, and economic benefits improved significantly. At that time, in order to meet the growing demand for ore, Hanyeping continued Increase investment and expand production. In 1915, Daye iron ore capacity increased from 300000 tons to 600000 tons, creating a historical record. Iron ore production peaked in 1920.

 

In the 1920 s, Daye area formed five major factories and mining areas with Daye Iron Mine as the center, including iron works, cement plants, power plants, and coal mines. At its peak, there were more than 13000 industrial workers and it was known as the "Oriental Pittsburgh".

 

It was invaded by the Japanese again.

In October 1938, Japan invaded Wuhan. Later, the Botian detachment of the Japanese invading army invaded Daye. The Japanese government announced the "military management" of Han Yeping Company and claimed Han Yeping Company as its own.

 

 

Subsequently, Nippon Iron Co., Ltd. sent 6 engineers headed by Xiangchun Sanshuji to form an investigation team, and arrived at Daye Iron Mine with the army, and announced that Nippon Iron Co., Ltd. directly operated Daye Iron Mine.

 

On December 15, 1938, "Nippon Steel Daye Mining Institute" (hereinafter referred to as "Nippon Steel") was established in Daye lime kiln. "Nippon Steel" renamed the Daye Iron Factory of Hanyeping Company as "Daye New Factory" as a workshop for repairing ore transportation equipment, an ore transfer plant and a living base. "Nippon Railway" has two departments, the General Affairs Department and the Mining Department, and also has a local office on the edge of the lime kiln river. The world-famous Daye Iron Mountain was invaded by Japan.

 

After the establishment of "Nippon Steel", it forcibly occupied the Xiangbi Mountain Iron Mine, which was formerly part of the Hubei Provincial Official Mining Office, and forcibly mined old mining areas such as Jianshan, Shizishan, Jianlin Mountain, Longdong, Tiemenkan, Dashimen, Yejiping, and Mouwei. It also forcibly mined the Xishan Iron Mine and Leishan Iron Mine in Echeng.

 

During this period, the mountain areas, fertile fields and large areas along the railway from Daye Tieshan to lime kiln occupied by the new and old mining areas of the Japanese invaders totaled 377 hectares, and more than 60000 tons of iron ore stored in Daye Iron Mine were also transported to Japan for military production.

 

After the establishment of "Nippon Steel", due to the influence of the war and the internal relocation instructions of the Kuomintang government, a large number of iron ore workers fled, resulting in the failure of Daye Iron Mine to start work normally. In order to meet the needs of iron ore mining, "Nippon Steel" recruited iron ore workers by any means, destroyed all 27 villages near the mine, recruited thousands of farmers in Daye area who lost their land and went bankrupt due to the delineation of the mining area to become workers; recruited a large number of handicraftsmen and small businessmen who lost their jobs and went bankrupt due to Japan's colonial rule in Hubei to go to Daye Iron Mine to become workers; go to Shandong, Henan, Anhui and other places to lure a large number of farmers to go to Daye Iron Mine as workers... In April 1939, the mine transportation railway from Daye lime kiln to Daye Tieshan resumed traffic, and in October, Daye Factory and Mine officially resumed production.

 

"Nippon Steel" also formulated a mining plan according to Daye Iron Mine, which was planned and designed until 1948, and required Daye Iron Mine to produce 2 million tons of iron ore per year after 1945.

 

In order to plunder the mineral resources of Daye to the maximum extent, Nippon Steel, regardless of the safety of the mine and the safety of Chinese workers, used extremely brutal means to force the workers to work desperately, working up to 12 or 13 hours a day, limiting the miners to 0.88 tons of stone mining every day, transporting 180 tons of ore to the ship every hour per shift (about 400 to 500 people), without rest days, and often working overtime, not even free to go to the toilet.

 

During the seven years from 1938 to 1945, Nippon Steel accumulated more than 500 million tons of iron ore from predatory wells in Daye mines and transported more than 427 million tons of ore, accounting for 9.66 of the total 46.3 million tons of iron ore plundered from China during Japan's invasion of China. Moreover, the iron ore of Daye Iron Mine not only contains as much as 60% iron, but also contains important metal elements such as copper and cobalt needed for military manufacturing. These iron ores have become an important guarantee for the Japanese imperialists to launch a war of aggression. It aggravated the arduousness of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japan. The barbaric development and destruction of Daye iron ore mineral resources by "Nippon Steel" has greatly shortened the mining life of China's mineral resources. According to incomplete statistics, from 1938 to 1945, during the seven years of the rule of "Nippon Steel", more than 1000 workers in Daye mine died.

　

Sowing the revolutionary fire

The activities of Daye iron mine workers to safeguard their own rights and interests have gone through from scratch, from part to whole, from spontaneous to organized, and gradually broke through the revolutionary consciousness of anti exploitation and anti oppression.

 

The Annals of Daye Iron Mine recorded: "In the eighth year of the Republic of China (1919), there were 181 fixed workers, with a total of about 3000 employees. Registered workers accounted for only about 6% of the total number of employees, distributed in the repair rooms of machinery factories, railways, docks and stope. Its mining and transportation are temporary workers, and the number of people is unstable, there are many idle people and few busy farmers.

 

After Sheng Xuanhuai took over the Han Yeping Company, in order to solve the problem of insufficient funds, he borrowed money from Japanese businessmen many times and was gradually controlled by Japan. In order to repay the debts of Japanese businessmen, in July 1914, Han Yeping Company asked Daye Iron Mine to increase its ore yield.

 

On the basis of the original ore package price, Daye Iron Mine has implemented the so-called "premium award" system, which stipulates that the monthly mining quota shall be the highest mining amount in the same month since Daye Iron Mine was mined as the lowest quota in the same month of this year. Workers want to earn more wages and have to work hard every day, but as soon as the production quota reaches a new level, the iron ore bureau raises the quota, and if workers want to keep their wages, they have to pay a higher labor price, but capitalists get more profits.

 

After the May Fourth Movement, Marxism began to spread in the Huangshi area, and the Huangshi proletariat turned from spontaneous to conscious, and the struggle became more resolute.

 

In July 1921, initiated by Yun Daiying, Lin Yunan and other young people who believed in Marxism, a revolutionary organization-Coexistence Society was established in Huanggang.

 

In February 1922, Li Fusheng (formerly known as Lin Yuying, also known as Zhang Hao) came to Daye on the entrustment of the Executive Committee of Wuhan District of the Communist Party of China, and set up two workers' study groups in Daye Steel Plant and Daye Iron Mine to publicize Marxism-Leninism and inspire workers' consciousness.

 

In March 1922, the first party group of Daye Iron Factory was established in the local area. In May, a party group including nearby coal mines and cement plants established a special branch of Daye Industrial and Mining Area on this basis.

 

At the end of October 1922, under the guidance of representatives sent by Anyuan Road Mining Workers Club, Daye Iron Mine Workers Club was formally established in Xialu Bay, with a total of 505 people participating in the club. Then the workers' organizations of Daye Iron Mine and Daye Iron Factory proposed to Anyuan Road Mining Workers Club to organize Hanyeping Federation of Trade Unions. The five major trade groups of Hanyang Iron Factory Trade Union, Hanye Ping Ripper Trade Union, Anyuan Road Mining Workers Club, Daye Iron Factory Trade Union and Daye Iron Mine Workers Club held an inaugural meeting in Hanyang on December 10, 1922, and formally established Hanye Ping Federation of Trade Unions. Li Li-San addressed the meeting. At that time, the old street of the three wharves in Hanyang was full of red flags, and thousands of workers were jubilant to celebrate the establishment of the Federation of trade unions. Liu Shaoqi was the chairman of the Federation of trade unions, with more than 30000 members, making it the largest industrial trade union in China at that time.

 

In January 1923, the Daye Iron Mine Workers' Club, which had just been established for only three months, began to lead the workers' strike. All the transport vehicles on the railway stopped moving, and the mining workers in Dwaywan stopped working. Daye Special Branch reported to Hanyeping Federation of Trade Unions for national support. On January 16, the Han Yeping Federation of Trade Unions issued a declaration to preside over the strike, actively negotiating with the company's senior management, supplemented by national public opinion propaganda to exert pressure.

 

The strike ended in a compromise by the miners. The victory of this strike has changed the isolated and weak position of workers in labor conflicts in the past. The grassroots party organizations of the Communist Party of China united the workers within the enterprise into a whole of interests, supported each other, acted in a unified manner, and gained support nationwide in a short period of time.

 

In May 1923, the Party branch of Daye Iron Plant and the Party branch of Huaji Cement Plant were established. By January 1926, Daye Special Branch had more than 20 party members. On the eve of the Northern Expedition, the Daye Special Branch had about 150 party members and already had a 200-strong armed workers' picket.

 

In June 1929, miners at the metallurgical river bank wharf spontaneously organized a strike and refused to load ore for the Japanese. Later, due to the suppression of the landing of Marines on Japanese warships, the mine fired more than 60 dock workers and the strike failed.

 

According to the history of the Huangshi Party, in June 1930, after Peng Dehuai led the main force of the Red Army to attack Huangshi Port and lime kilns and successfully stationed in the area, he held a mass meeting in the lime kilns, calling on the workers and peasants to unite, overthrow the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang, establish a red regime, and win the final victory of the Chinese revolution. The workers of Daye Factory and Mine raised a box of ordnance tools and 200 kilograms of steel for the Red Army Armory, which solved the urgent need of the armory. In addition, a group of skilled workers joined the Red Army, enriching the technical strength of the arsenal.

 

Mine bath fire rebirth

After the establishment of the the People's Republic of China, the Central People's Government decided to build my country's second steel center in Central China while resuming Angang's production. To build a new iron and steel center, we must first find out the iron ore resources.

 

In early 1950, the Central Heavy Industry Department sent a geological expert Wang Wenbin and others to the Daye Iron Mine to understand the geology of the deposit. In December of the same year, the heads of the Central Ministry of Heavy Industry and its Iron and Steel Bureau invited Soviet experts to inspect the Daye Iron Mine and investigate the amount of iron and steel resources. Soon after, the Central Ministry of Heavy Industry held a Daye Resources Conference and proposed to form a Daye Resources Exploration Team to carry out geological surveys in Daye Tieshan and surrounding areas.

 

On May 1, 1952, the China Geological Work Plan Steering Committee (the predecessor of the Ministry of Geology) established China's first large-scale geological exploration team, the 429 Geological Team, on the basis of the Daye Resource Exploration Team, and invested more than 70 units. With Tieshan in Daye as the center, the Tieshan mining area and the Lingxiang, Jinshandian, Tonglushan and Echeng iron ore mines were comprehensively explored. In March 1954, the exploration team completed the exploration task and submitted the exploration report: it was proved that the iron ore reserves of Daye Iron Mine were about 0.103 billion tons and the metal copper reserves were 602000 tons. It is still a large open-pit iron ore and can be used as the main raw material base of the Central China Iron and Steel Center. On this basis, the reconstruction of Daye Iron Mine as the main ore supply site of Wuhan Iron and Steel Company, the newly built Central China Iron and Steel Center, began to start, and decided to build the mine that had been abandoned for many years into a modern mine with large-scale mechanical operations and joint production of mining and dressing. On July 1 of the same year, Daye Iron Mine started reconstruction. 72 factories in 13 provinces across the country provided various equipment for mine infrastructure, and 18 provinces transported large amounts of materials to mines; local farmers demolished a total area of 50309 square meters of houses, giving up 1199 mu of paddy fields and 2522 mu of dry land. The country imports a large number of mining, mineral processing and transportation equipment from the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. From then on, the mine guns rumbled and the machinery rolled. On August 15, Lion Rock began stripping. On August 25, Jianshan started stripping rocks. The workers of Daye Iron Mine have just started to drill holes and fire guns with small machinery, load cars by manpower, and transport the earth and rock to the designated place through the light railway. Subsequently, Daye Iron Mine's mining and transportation equipment imported from abroad arrived successively, and employees began to use electric shovels and perforators to operate, realizing mechanized large-scale production.

 

On July 1, 1958, Daye iron ore stope was officially put into production, and was put into operation simultaneously with WISCO blast furnace half a year in advance.

 

On September 15, 1958, Chairman Mao Zedong inspected Daye Iron Mine and instructed the mine to make comprehensive use of mineral resources.

 

After the reconstruction, Daye Iron Mine has rapidly formed a comprehensive production capacity of 4.4 million tons of raw ore and 4.3 million tons of mineral processing. It can produce iron concentrate, copper concentrate, cobalt sulfur concentrate, lump ore, powder ore and other ore products. It can directly and indirectly recover metal and non-metal elements such as iron, copper, sulfur, cobalt, gold, silver, etc., becoming one of the top ten iron ore production bases in China.

 

Since then, Daye Iron Mine has continuously introduced new equipment, new materials, new processes and new technologies to transform stope and concentrator. By 2004, a total of 0.114 billion tons of raw ore had been mined, 73.21 million tons of iron concentrate, 340000 tons of copper, 2.06 million tons of cobalt and sulfur concentrate and 3.08 million tons of pellets.

 

Today, Daye Iron Mine has become a subsidiary of China Baowu. Its infrastructure is well-equipped, advanced management methods, sophisticated production technology, and strong scientific and technological strength. It has successively won the titles of safety standardization first-class enterprise, mineral resource conservation and comprehensive utilization special excellent mining enterprise, green mine pilot unit, and greening advanced collective.

 

In May 2020, the deep mining project of the mine entered the trial production stage, marking the transition of this millennium ancient mine from shallow mining to deep mining.