In Hubei, there is a mine, which is the first large-scale open-pit iron mine in modern China to be mined using machines; there is a mine that was once the "steel granary" of New China, the only iron mine that Chairman Mao Zedong inspected, a place he said he would go to even if he had to ride a donkey; there is a mine that, from its reconstruction in 1958 to 2012, produced iron ore equivalent to the steel needed for 220 sections of the Beijing-Kowloon Railway, the copper extracted could be made into wires stretching from the Earth to the Moon, and the gold extracted could be made into 1.5 million necklaces weighing 10 grams each... providing valuable wealth for the country's industrial revival and economic development, this is the Daye Iron Mine. It has experienced three historical periods: the late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China, and the People's Republic of China, recording the process of industrialization and modernization in late Qing and Republican China, leading the tide of industrial civilization in China. It has been affiliated with six economic entities: the Hubei Iron and Steel Bureau, Hanyang Iron and Steel Works, Hanyeping Coal and Iron Company (hereinafter referred to as "Hanyeping Company"), "Nippon Steel Daye Mining Company", Central China Iron and Steel Company, and Wuhan Iron and Steel Company, creating many industrial categories and having pioneering significance in Hubei and even China.

 

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

 

Daye Iron Mine open-pit mine

Weathered through the years

 

Daye Iron Mine is located in the Tieshan District of Huangshi City, adjacent to the first mountain of Sanchu—Dongfang Mountain to the east, and bordered by one of the eight scenic spots of Daye, "Zhishan Misty Rain"—Baizishan to the west. It is 25 kilometers east of the center of Huangshi City and 15 kilometers southeast of Daye City, serving as the junction of Huangshi, Daye, and Ezhou.

 

The mining of Daye Iron Mine can be traced back to 226 AD, with a history of nearly 2000 years. During the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Quan cast swords and daggers here, and Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty cast coins here. According to the "Records of Ancient and Modern Swords" compiled by the Liang scholar Tao Hongjing: "In the fifth year of Huangwu, King Sun Quan mined copper and iron in Wuchang to make thousands of swords and tens of thousands of daggers, each three feet and nine inches long, with square heads, all made from southern copper and Yue charcoal." At that time, Wuchang included present-day Daye and Echeng, and the copper and iron mined in Wuchang referred to the mines in Daye and Echeng. The "Taiping Yulan" ancient edition records, "On Baizishan in Daye County, there is a Furong Peak, with Shililing in front and Jinjishi behind, gold comes from the west, copper from the south, and since the Jin, Song, Liang, and Chen dynasties, furnaces have been established for smelting." The "Geography Records" states, "In Tieshan, Daye County, there is an iron mine forty miles north of the county, where furnaces were established during the Tang and Song dynasties for smelting gold and iron." The national hero Yue Fei of the Southern Song Dynasty was ordered to garrison Ezhou in 1124 AD, where he forged the "Sword of Daye" and defeated the Jin army.

 

　　After the Ming Dynasty, this place fell silent for hundreds of years.

 

In 1890, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Hubei and Hunan, was ordered to construct the Luhan Railway and deeply recognized that "iron is the root of great undertakings. Today's tracks, tomorrow's machines, all depend on this." He also "discovered that the iron mine in Tieshan, Daye County, is indeed rich in quality, inexhaustible, and only fifty miles from the Huangshi Port by the river, with manganese iron produced in Xingguo Island, which is especially necessary for steelmaking, suitable for the boundary with Daye." Thus, he initiated steel production.

 

During its initial construction, Daye Iron Mine used German equipment and technology, introduced talent, and became the first large-scale open-pit iron mine in China to be mined using machines. To cope with the obstruction from local conservative forces during mining and construction, Zhang Zhidong heavily relied on mine gentry to participate in land acquisition, demolition, factory construction, and other tasks, coordinating relationships with villagers and the government. The mine gentry also took the lead in hiring and managing non-technical workers. The mining operations gradually expanded.

 

The "Mining Weekly" published on August 14, 1928, recorded that in 1893, Daye Iron Mine officially began production, yielding over 3,000 tons of ore that year. In the following years of 1894 and 1895, it produced about 10,000 tons each year.

 

Before the establishment of Daye Iron Mine, there were neither railways nor roads in the area, and the only means of transportation were horseback riding and sedan chairs.

 

In April 1891, Zhang Zhidong appointed Lin Zuoheng, who had served as the magistrate of Daye twice, to work with German engineer Shiveili to start the construction of the railway. In 1892 (the 18th year of Guangxu), the first railway in Hubei was opened. The railway started from Tieshanpu and ended at Shilime, with a total length of 31 kilometers. The railway equipment and locomotives were purchased from Germany, and advanced communication equipment such as telegraphs and telephones were also installed. The ore transport train ran back and forth daily from Tieshan to Shilime, stopping at stations such as Tieshan, Shenghongqing, Xialu, and Shibao along the way. A passenger car was attached behind the ore car. Later, as the production scale of the mine expanded, the number of trains increased, with each locomotive pulling more than 20 ore cars, running several trains daily, each train carrying 2 passenger cars and 1 flower car.

 

At that time, the Daye Mining Bureau (the predecessor of Daye Iron Mine) was located at Shilime, where more and more outsiders and experts were coming, along with a group of German technicians and Japanese residents at Daye Iron Mine, attracting attention from both domestic and foreign business circles.

 

Daye Iron Mine had a direct impact on the development of various aspects of society, economy, and culture in the region. The local people praised: "Encountering extraordinary people, building extraordinary achievements, taking the essence and using it broadly, ... opening up unprecedented wonders."

 

From 1890 to 1896, Daye Iron Mine was state-owned, under the jurisdiction of the Hubei Coal and Iron Mining Bureau. After the First Sino-Japanese War, Sheng Xuanhuai merged Hanyang Iron Works, Daye Iron Mine, and Pingxiang Coal Mine to establish the "Hanyeping Coal and Iron Company." Daye Iron Mine became the raw material base for Hanyang Iron Works, the supporting enterprise of the earliest modern steel and coal-coke joint enterprise in China—Hanyeping Company. Daye Iron Mine entered the commercial operation period, lasting until 1938.

 

During World War I, the suppression of national industry by foreign capital eased, steel prices in the international market soared, and domestic and foreign demand surged, leading to a significant improvement in economic benefits. At that time, to meet the growing demand for ore, Hanyeping Company continuously increased investment and expanded production. In 1915, the ore production capacity of Daye Iron Mine increased from 300,000 tons to 600,000 tons, setting a historical record. The iron ore produced in 1920 reached its peak.

 

In the 1920s, the Daye area formed a mining area centered around Daye Iron Mine, including ironworks, cement plants, power plants, and coal mines, with the number of industrial workers reaching over 13,000 at its peak, earning the title of "Eastern Pittsburgh."

 

Also suffered from Japanese occupation

In October 1938, Japan occupied Wuhan. Subsequently, the Japanese invasion forces occupied Daye. The Japanese government announced "military management" of the Hanyeping Company, taking it for itself.

 

 

Subsequently, Nippon Steel Corporation sent a team of 6 engineers led by Kawai Mitsunori to form an investigation team, arriving at the Daye Iron Mine with the army, and announced that Nippon Steel Corporation would directly operate the Daye Iron Mine.

 

On December 15, 1938, the "Nippon Steel Daye Mining Office" (hereinafter referred to as "Nippon Steel") was established at the Daye Lime Kiln. "Nippon Steel" renamed the Daye Iron Plant of Hanyeping Company to "Daye New Plant," serving as a workshop for repairing mining equipment and a transfer station for ore as well as a living base. "Nippon Steel" set up two departments: the General Affairs Department and the Mining Department, and also established a local office by the riverside of the lime kiln. The world-famous Daye Iron Mountain was occupied by Japan.

 

After the establishment of "Nippon Steel," it forcibly occupied the Elephant Nose Mountain Iron Mine, which originally belonged to the Hubei Provincial Government Mining Bureau, and forcibly mined the old mining areas of Jianshan, Shizishan, Jianlinshan, Longdong, Tiemenkai, Dashimen, Yejiping, and Laoshuwai, as well as the Xishan Iron Mine and Leishan Iron Mine in Echeng.

 

During this period, the Japanese invaders occupied a total of 377 hectares of mountainous areas, fertile fields, and large tracts of land along the railway from Daye Iron Mountain to the lime kiln, and transported all of the more than 60,000 tons of iron ore stockpiled at the Daye Iron Mine back to Japan for military production.

 

After the establishment of "Nippon Steel," due to the impact of war and the relocation orders of the Kuomintang government, a large number of iron mine workers fled, resulting in the Daye Iron Mine being unable to operate normally. To meet the needs of iron ore mining, "Nippon Steel" resorted to all means to recruit iron mine workers, destroying all 27 villages near the mine, and conscripting thousands of farmers in the Daye area who had lost their land due to the demarcation of the mining area to become workers; recruiting a large number of handicraftsmen and small business owners who had become unemployed and bankrupt due to Japanese occupation in Hubei to work at the Daye Iron Mine; and luring a large number of farmers from Shandong, Henan, and Anhui to work at the Daye Iron Mine... In April 1939, the ore transportation railway from Daye Lime Kiln to Daye Iron Mountain resumed operation, and in October, the Daye plant officially resumed production.

 

"Nippon Steel" also formulated a mining plan for the Daye Iron Mine, which was designed to last until 1948, and required that after 1945, the Daye Iron Mine must produce 2 million tons of iron ore annually.

 

In order to maximize the plunder of Daye's mineral resources, "Nippon Steel" completely disregarded the safety of the mines and the lives of Chinese workers, using extremely brutal means to force workers to work desperately, working up to 12 to 13 hours a day, limiting mining workers to extract 0.88 tons of ore daily, and ore transport workers (about 400-500 people) to transport 180 tons of ore to the ship per hour, with no rest days, and often working overtime, even without the freedom to go to the toilet.

 

Between 1938 and 1945, during the 7 years, "Nippon Steel" plundered over 5 million tons of iron ore from the Daye mine, exporting over 4.27 million tons of ore, accounting for 9.66% of the total 46.3 million tons of iron ore plundered by Japan during its invasion of China. Moreover, the iron ore from the Daye Iron Mine not only had an iron content as high as 60%, but also contained important metal elements such as copper and cobalt needed for military manufacturing. This iron ore became an important guarantee for Japanese imperialism to launch aggressive wars, exacerbating the difficulties faced by the Chinese people in the War of Resistance Against Japan. The barbaric development and destruction of the mineral resources of the Daye Iron Mine by "Nippon Steel" through over-exploitation and short-term gains greatly shortened the mining lifespan of China's mineral sites. According to incomplete statistics, during the 7 years of "Nippon Steel" rule from 1938 to 1945, more than 1,000 workers died in accidents at the Daye mine.

　

Sowing the seeds of revolution

The activities of Daye Iron Mine workers to safeguard their rights evolved from non-existence to existence, from partial to whole, from spontaneous to organized, gradually breaking through the limitation of merely focusing on their own interests, and developing a revolutionary consciousness against exploitation and oppression.

 

The "Daye Iron Mine Chronicle" records: "In the eighth year of the Republic (1919), there were 181 fixed workers, with a total of about 3,000 employees, and registered workers accounted for only about 6% of the total employees, distributed among the machine factory, railway, wharf, and various repair shops in the mining area. Their mining and transportation were all temporary workers, and the number was unstable, with more farmers available during the slack season and fewer during the busy season.

 

After Sheng Xuanhuai took over the Hanyeping Company, in order to solve the problem of insufficient funds, he borrowed money from Japanese merchants multiple times and gradually fell under Japanese control. To repay the debts to Japanese merchants, in July 1914, Hanyeping Company requested the Daye Iron Mine to increase the output of iron sand.

 

Based on the original ore price, the Daye Iron Mine implemented a so-called "excess reward" system, stipulating that the monthly mining quota of iron sand would be set based on the highest mining amount in the same month since the Daye Iron Mine began operations, as the minimum quota for the same month of that year. If workers wanted to earn more wages, they had to work hard every day, but once the production quota reached a new level, the iron ore bureau would raise the quota, and workers would have to pay a greater labor cost to maintain their wages, while capitalists would gain more profits.

 

After the May Fourth Movement, Marxism began to spread in the Huangshi area, and the proletariat in Huangshi transitioned from spontaneous to conscious, with struggles becoming more resolute.

 

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

 

In February 1922, Li Fusheng (originally named Lin Yuying, also known as Zhang Hao) came to Daye at the request of the Wuhan District Executive Committee of the Communist Party of China, and established two workers' study groups at the Daye Steel Plant and Daye Iron Mine to promote Marxism-Leninism and awaken workers' consciousness.

 

In March 1922, the first Communist Party organization, the Daye Iron Plant Party Group, was established locally. In May, a special branch for the Daye mining area was established based on the party groups from nearby coal mines and cement plants.

 

At the end of October 1922, under the guidance of representatives sent from the Anyuan Road Miners' Club, the Daye Iron Mine Workers' Club was officially established in Dalu Bay, with 505 members participating. Subsequently, the workers' organizations of Daye Iron Mine and Daye Iron Plant proposed to organize the Hanyeping General Trade Union, which was established on December 10, 1922, in Hanyang, consisting of the Hanyang Iron Plant Union, Hanyeping Lighter Union, Anyuan Road Miners' Club, Daye Iron Plant Union, and Daye Iron Mine Workers' Club. Li Lisan delivered a speech at the meeting. At that time, the old street of Hanyang was filled with red flags, and the sound of thousands of workers celebrating the establishment of the general trade union was deafening. Liu Shaoqi served as the chairman, with more than 30,000 members, making it the largest industrial union in the country at that time.

 

In January 1923, just three months after its establishment, the Daye Mine Workers' Club began to lead a workers' strike. All transportation vehicles on the railway stopped operating, and the mining workers in Da Dao Wan also ceased work. The Daye Special Committee reported to the Han Ye Ping General Trade Union seeking national support. On January 16, the Han Ye Ping General Trade Union issued a declaration to host the strike, actively negotiating with the company's senior management and supplementing it with national public opinion propaganda to exert pressure.

 

The strike ended with a compromise from the mining side. The victory of this strike changed the isolated and disadvantaged position of workers in previous labor disputes, as the grassroots party organization of the Communist Party of China united the workers within the enterprise into a collective interest group, supporting each other and acting in unison, and gained support nationwide in a short time.

 

In May 1923, the Party Branch of Daye Iron Factory and the Party Branch of Hua Ji Cement Factory were established. By January 1926, the Daye Special Committee had more than 20 party members. On the eve of the Northern Expedition, the number of party members in the Daye Special Committee was about 150, and they had formed an armed workers' patrol team of 200.

 

In June 1929, the dock workers at the Yekang River spontaneously organized a strike, refusing to load ore for the Japanese. Later, due to the landing suppression by the Marine Corps on Japanese warships, the mining company dismissed more than 60 dock workers, and the strike failed.

 

According to the Huangshi Party History, in June 1930, after Peng Dehuai led the main force of the Red Army to attack Huangshi Port and Lime Kiln and successfully stationed in the area, a mass meeting was held at the Lime Kiln, calling on the workers and peasants to unite, overthrow the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang, establish a red regime, and achieve the final victory of the Chinese revolution. The workers of Daye Factory collected a box of military tools and 200 kilograms of steel for the Red Army's arsenal, solving the urgent needs of the arsenal. In addition, a group of skilled workers joined the Red Army, strengthening the technical capabilities of the arms factory.

 

The mine is reborn from the ashes.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Central People's Government decided to restore production at Anshan Steel while simultaneously building China's second steel center in Central China. To build a new steel center, it is first necessary to clarify the iron ore resources.

 

In early 1950, the Ministry of Heavy Industry sent geological experts including Wang Wenbin to the Daye Iron Mine to understand the geological conditions of the ore deposit. In December of the same year, the heads of the Ministry of Heavy Industry and its Steel Bureau invited Soviet experts to investigate the Daye Iron Mine and assess the amount of steel resources. Soon after, the Ministry of Heavy Industry held a resource meeting in Daye, proposing to form a Daye resource exploration team to conduct geological surveys of the Daye Iron Mountain and surrounding areas.

 

On May 1, 1952, the China Geological Work Planning Guidance Committee (the predecessor of the Ministry of Geology) established China's first large-scale geological exploration team, the 429 Geological Team, based on the Daye resource exploration team, and invested more than 70 drilling rigs. Centered on Daye Iron Mountain, they conducted comprehensive exploration of iron ore in the Daye mining area and the surrounding areas of Lingxiang, Jinshandian, Tonglushan, and the western mountains of Echeng, Leishan, and Chengchao. In March 1954, the exploration team completed its exploration tasks and submitted a report: it was confirmed that the iron ore reserves of the Daye Iron Mine were about 103 million tons, and the metal copper reserves were 602,000 tons, still a large open-pit iron mine, which could serve as the main raw material base for the Central China Steel Center. Based on this, the reconstruction of the Daye Iron Mine as the main ore supply for the newly established Central China Steel Center - Wuhan Iron and Steel Company began, and it was decided to transform the long-abandoned mine into a modern mine with large-scale mechanical operations and joint production of mining and selection. On July 1 of the same year, the reconstruction of the Daye Iron Mine commenced. 72 factories from 13 provinces across the country provided various equipment for the mine's infrastructure, and 18 provinces transported a large amount of materials to the mine; local farmers demolished houses totaling 50,309 square meters, yielding 1,199 acres of paddy fields and 2,522 acres of dry land. The state imported a large number of mining, mineral processing, and transportation equipment from the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. From then on, the mine was filled with the sounds of blasting and machinery. On August 15, the stripping of Shizishan began; on August 25, the stripping of Jianshan commenced. The workers at the Daye Iron Mine initially used small machinery to drill and blast, loading by hand, and transporting soil and rock to designated locations via light rail. Subsequently, the mining and transportation equipment imported from abroad arrived one after another, and workers began to use electric shovels and drilling machines, achieving mechanized mass production.

 

On July 1, 1958, the Daye Iron Mine officially began production, synchronizing with the blast furnace of Wuhan Steel six months ahead of schedule.

 

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

 

After reconstruction, the Daye Iron Mine quickly formed a comprehensive production capacity of 4.4 million tons of raw ore and 4.3 million tons of selected ore per year, capable of producing iron concentrate, copper concentrate, cobalt-sulfur concentrate, lump ore, powder ore, and other ore products, directly and indirectly recovering metals and non-metals such as iron, copper, sulfur, cobalt, gold, and silver, becoming one of the top ten iron ore production bases in the country.

 

Since then, the Daye Iron Mine has continuously introduced new equipment, new materials, new processes, and new technologies, transforming the mining area and the selection plant. By 2004, a total of 114 million tons of raw ore had been mined, producing 73.21 million tons of iron concentrate, 340,000 tons of copper, 2.06 million tons of cobalt-sulfur concentrate, and 3.08 million tons of pellet ore.

 

Today, the Daye Iron Mine has become a subsidiary of China Baowu Steel Group. Its infrastructure is well-matched, management methods are advanced, production processes are refined, and technological strength is robust, having successively obtained titles such as first-level safety standardization enterprise, excellent mining enterprise for mineral resource conservation and comprehensive utilization, green mine pilot unit, and advanced collective for greening.

 

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