Spring Breeze Twenty Years

Chapter 818 Going to Ice City

Wednesday.

Xiao Wei, Xiao Hong, Xia Maosheng, Geng Hui, Chen Hui, Chen Xiao, Xiao Wei's mother, Aunt Wang, Xia's mother, twelve people carrying two children arrived at Taoxian Airport.

Uncle Wang booked the plane tickets in the name of his work unit. Xiao Wei, carrying a letter of introduction from the Provincial Construction Bureau and the ID cards of twelve people, paid and collected the tickets. In 92, although a letter of introduction was still required, the management was not strict; as long as you had one, you were fine, and they wouldn't check its authenticity or identities. By 98, a letter of introduction was no longer needed; ID cards were sufficient. However, by then, plane tickets had risen to several hundred yuan.

In 92, traveling by plane was similar to traveling by train. There weren't the kind of security checks that involve stripping people naked like in later years. You could even bring lighters and matches on board. Large airplanes had dining tables, and they even provided free Moutai liquor and handicrafts. The food, drinks, and other amenities, as well as the service, were much better than they are now.

Before the mid-1970s and 1980s, it was even allowed to smoke on airplanes.

Back then, domestic airlines didn't have economy class or first class; they were all the same. Later, as people had more money and more people flew, and with the increase in airline routes and flights, first class started to appear. But now there's a commotion about canceling first class, and I don't know what they're really trying to achieve.

The prices at the airport shops and restaurants drove Xiaowei's mother, Aunt Wang, and Xia's mother crazy. They grabbed their children and walked away, shaking their heads as they went, saying, "It's insane, insane, absolutely insane."

Xiao Hong and Chen Xiao, who had originally planned to eat some fast food, had to give up and pitifully boarded the plane.

However, the airplane food is pretty good right now. It's filling and you can eat well. There are different flavors to choose from, and it's plentiful.

After more than an hour, the plane landed at Yanjiagang Airport. Perhaps due to discomfort from the landing, Xia Gensheng's cries echoed throughout the plane. Two flight attendants came over to help take care of him, rubbing his ears and pinching his nose with meticulous care. Little Hui, on the other hand, didn't utter a sound, only his face twitched a few times before he started looking around nervously.

In 92, Harbin was still quite small. The city proper hadn't even crossed the Yangtze River to the north. To the south, it reached the area of ​​Northeast Forestry University. The north wasn't much different from now; once you passed the train station, you were out of the city. The eastern part was also largely unchanged, except that there were more people and houses now, while back then it was relatively empty. From the sky, the city proper of Harbin at that time looked somewhat like a tilted equilateral triangle.

The city is divided into three main areas by the railway: Daoli, Daowai, and Nangang and Xiangfang. The most famous are Sun Island Park and St. Sophia Cathedral. In fact, Harbin has many churches, including several large ones, but St. Sophia is the most famous.

It wasn't until 96, when the Songhua River region was incorporated into Harbin, that Harbin became the largest provincial-level city in China.

Ice City is an exotic city that took shape in modern times. In 1897, the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway began, and the city began to take shape here. By 1903, the Chinese Eastern Railway was completed and opened to traffic, giving rise to four cities: Manzhouli, Fularji, Zhalantun, and Ice City.

The Middle East Railway forms a T-shape within China, extending eastward to Vladivostok and southward to Dalian.

Because of its location at the intersection of railway lines, Harbin has become a hub for trade and commerce along the Middle East Railway, and has developed rapidly. More than 16 expatriates from more than 30 countries live here, and 19 countries have established consulates and banks here.

Harbin, relying on its railway and using trade as a medium, opened up to become the largest international city in Northeast Asia, renowned worldwide. The men here were once considered the most representative of Asians, the most elegant men in Asia.

The prosperity brought by the railway aroused the envy of the Japanese, who were so poor at the time that they couldn't even afford trousers. As a result, the Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904, and the Russians eventually sold the lower half of the T-shaped Chinese Eastern Railway, the Xidu-Dalian section, to Japan, including the attached land along the line.

Indeed, from Harbin to Fengtian and then to Dalian, all were planned and managed by the Russians. After the Japanese took over, they built Xidu. With the efforts of these two developed countries at the time, Northeast China became the richest region in Asia, attracting a large influx of gold prospectors.

The reason why Harbin is the city with the most Russian flavor is because it was under Russian control for the longest period of time, from 1890 to 1958 when the Russians withdrew. Only for ten years, from 35 to 45 years, was it under Japanese control. For the rest of the time, Harbin and Dalian were under Russian control. Even after liberation, it was under joint Sino-Soviet administration.

In 29, the Sixth General attempted to regain control of the Chinese Eastern Railway, but the Northeast Army was defeated by the Russians and suffered heavy casualties. Chiang Kai-shek pretended not to know this.

Historically, Harbin was a commercial city, Xidu was a financial city, and Fengtian was an industrial city. Centered around these three cities, they created an Asian miracle. At that time, Harbin was a gathering place for foreigners, Xidu was as famous as London, and Fengtian was known as the Ruhr of the East.

In 45, the founding father said that even if they couldn't conquer the interior, they should seize the Northeast at all costs to establish the country, because with the Northeast, they would have the whole country. Therefore, the first battle of the Liberation War was the Liaoshen Campaign, and then, using the Northeast as their rear base, they used its financial and material resources to unify the country.

Harbin was the first major city in China to establish a people's government.

Harbin's strength lies in trade, while its weakness is industry, with only a small amount of light industry such as textiles and food processing. In the early days of the People's Republic of China, a large number of industrial enterprises moved here from Liaodong, and by 57, Harbin's industry ranked seventh in the country.

In 64, the policy changed again, and the Third Front construction was vigorously promoted. What is the Third Front construction? It means to select the best industrial enterprises in Northeast China and move them to the thirteen provinces in central and western China. The entire factory, along with the people and equipment, was moved, leaving not a single screw behind.

The third-tier region refers to the area south of the Great Wall, west of Shaoguan in eastern Guangdong and the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, and east of the Wushaoling Mountains in Gansu and Jiangsu. It mainly includes provinces such as Sichuan (including Chongqing), Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai, as well as parts of Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi, and eastern Guangdong.

From 1964 to 1980, spanning sixteen years, the country invested a massive 2052.68 billion yuan in 13 provinces. Four million workers, officers and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, and tens of millions of migrant workers trekked through mountains and rivers, endured wind and rain, and carried loads on their shoulders and backs. With hardship, sweat, and lives, they built more than 1100 large and medium-sized industrial and mining enterprises, scientific research units, and colleges and universities.

Then, this sprawling construction, which was ridiculed by later generations as a sheep droppings, resulted in 90% of the projects being far from the city. They were scattered here and there, and could not be effectively organized. In many areas, information was blocked, and they were cut off from the world as soon as it snowed. So, hospitals, schools and shops were built there, turning the area into an independent small country.

By 84, it was found that things were not going well, so a new round of relocation and transformation began, with a focus on developing several key areas, among which the Bayu region benefited the most.

Most of these nearly 1,000 companies have gone out of business, some have been merged or shut down, and of those remaining, 26 are still surviving and doing well, 11 of which are in Chongqing. There are "Northeast villages" everywhere in Chongqing, where people speak Northeastern dialect and eat Northeastern food, but they are not actually from Northeast China.

In Hubei, a city was created through sheer hard work: Shiyan. In Guizhou, it's Anshun.

The greatest legacy of this great migration was the establishment of a preliminary railway network in the central and western regions. Before 90, China's railway network resembled a fishbone, densely packed in the northeast, while the central and western regions had virtually nothing.

The only contributor here is Northeast China. The money was taken away, the factories were moved away, and the people were relocated. After more than forty years, it was finally drained of its resources, turning from the richest region in Asia into a backward one.

The migration to Northeast China (1903-2003) left its mark, becoming a symbol of that century. History books describe this period as the relocation of large numbers of factories and equipment from developed coastal areas to the central and western regions, causing stagnation and regression in the development of the coastal areas. Haha.

Let's not even talk about Liaodong, which suffered the most losses. Just in Harbin alone, there are factories that have relocated but survived to this day, such as Xi'an Aluminum Plant, Lanzhou Welding Electrode, and Great Wall Instrument. There are more than 380 projects in Liaodong.

Many factories that were doing well were dismantled and their operations were relocated. They managed to set up operations in other places, but never managed to resume production until they went bankrupt. A lot of equipment was left idle and abandoned, and many workers lost their jobs when they moved to other places and couldn't come back even if they wanted to.

Many of the cutting-edge industries of that time have since disappeared without a trace.

There was a popular saying at the time: "I dedicate my youth to the motherland, and after I finish my youth, I will dedicate it to my children and grandchildren."

(End of this chapter)