Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, also known as "Dongfeng Space City", is one of the launch test bases of scientific satellites, technical test satellites and launch vehicles in China, the earliest and largest comprehensive missile and satellite launch center established in China, and the only manned space launch site in China at present. It is located deep in the deserted Badain Jaran Desert, with a linear distance of more than 211 kilometers from the nearest Jiuquan City. At that time, it was named after "Jiuquan", because the missile satellite launch sites in various countries avoided the real address at that time, and it was difficult to choose a well-known place name because the launch site was located in the desert Gobi, and Jiuquan was the closest to the launch center and was a famous city in history.

Construction of Jiuquan Base started

In March, 1958, a military train stopped at Xin 'an Station in North Korea. There has just been a heavy snow in the local area, and the weather is still gloomy, with no sign of sunny weather.

As usual, there were few people at the station, and a group of grey sparrows flew overhead and turned back, making this area even more deserted.

The train started, and the speed gradually increased. The rapidly rotating wheels were wrapped in a burst of snow and rushed to the other side of the Yalu River.

In the middle carriage, Sun Jixian, acting commander of the 21th Corps of Volunteers, and several of his entourage sat. The fat cotton military uniform wrapped around them made them look a little bloated.

Just one day ago, Yong Yang, commander of the Volunteer Army, informed Sun Jixian to return home from North Korea immediately. Sun Jixian asked what he was doing back home. Yong Yang said that he didn't know, except that it was the name of the Military Commission, and asked him to go to Xiao Hua, deputy director of the General Political Department, after returning home.

After fighting for so many years, it is the first time for Sun Jixian to encounter such a thing that the chief commander could not say clearly when giving instructions. He couldn't help wondering to himself.

when he arrived in Beijing, Sun Jixian hurried to the headquarters to report to Xiaohua without taking a rest.

As soon as they met, Sun Jixian eagerly asked, "Is there going to be another war?"

Xiao Hua smiled and replied, "There will be no war this time. But the task is not light than fighting. Your 21 th Corps will be transferred back soon. "

Sun Jixian habitually took out his notebook from his pocket, ready to write down the new tasks to be received. When Xiao Hua saw this, he waved his hand at him and said, "Don't write it down in your notebook yet, just listen to me."

Xiao Hua paused, and then said, "The Soviet Union has brought more than 41 experts to help us build a missile test range, and we need corresponding personnel to keep up with them. There are several types of missile experts, such as ground-to-ground, air-to-air, ground-to-air, shore-to-ship and the other side of the ship. The Military Commission decided to deploy troops to build a missile test range, so you can do it. "

in this way, Sun Jixian is officially in office.

In April of the same year, in order to speed up the construction of the launch site, it was decided by Huang Kecheng, Zhang Aiping and others:

A corps of the People's Liberation Army was transferred as the basis for setting up the launch site, and a "Special Engineering Command" was established with General Chen Shiju as the commander.

So, the 19th and 21th Corps of the China People's Liberation Army immediately selected good soldiers and generals, and were ordered to March, sending troops south via Shanhaiguan.

Soon, under the personal leadership of Commander Chen Shiju, the engineering corps entered the northwest wasteland. Railway soldiers and special engineering troops have successively drawn their troops out of the mountain and advanced westward day and night. Signatories and motor transport troops also rushed to the northwest to join forces from all directions.

At the same time, artillery academies in Xi 'an, Chongqing, Shenyang and other places also urgently selected capable personnel to assemble in Beijing. The industrial engineering universities of the whole army have also been ordered to send high flyers to this construction army at any time.

For this reason, the American spy agency, which has been tracking China's military movements, submitted an urgent report to the White House:

The 21th Corps of China Volunteers suddenly disappeared and its whereabouts are unknown!

Shortly thereafter, on the Gobi Desert, which has always been cold and lonely, pieces of dark green military tents suddenly stood up overnight, and millions of officers and men immediately kicked off China's journey from the desert to space.

This is the Badain Jaran Desert at the foot of Qilian Mountain, which stretches for thousands of miles. This is an extremely mysterious place that has been repeatedly set foot in and described by countless orientals and westerners.

On this mysterious map, there is a seemingly tiny city, Jiuquan.

according to legend, Huo Qubing, a general of title of generals in ancient times in the Western Han Dynasty, led his troops to the Xiongnu and won a great victory. After his triumph, he stationed in Hexi area. In order to reward his contribution, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty awarded an altar of royal wine.

in order to celebrate the victory with the soldiers, Huo Qubing dumped this altar of royal wine into the mountain spring, and then scooped up water wine to drink with everyone. Later, in order to commemorate Huo Qubing, the local people called this place "Jiuquan".

at that time, the natural conditions and living conditions faced by the construction army in the desert were extremely difficult.

It is recorded in this article:

There is almost nothing on the vast sandy sea except a special railway built by engineers and a lonely expert guest house with baths and dance halls.

The food, clothing, housing and use of tens of thousands of troops are difficult to solve at the moment, and military organs can only spend the night in a Lama Temple.

in p>1961, the situation became more severe. First of all, the Soviet Union withdrew all its aid experts from China, and then natural disasters swept across the country followed.

At the launch site that has just started, all kinds of instruments and equipment are abandoned in the cold sand sea, and the projects that need to be completed are shelved. The project being tested was forced to be interrupted, and the main technical data and drawings of the missile were swept away by Soviet experts.

When some Soviet experts left, they left the following sentence:

If China can make missiles by itself, we will come back to buy your patents.

Thus, camel thorn, Elaeagnus angustifolia leaves, potherb balls, wowotou and salt water have become the "rations" to maintain the life of this rocket unit.

Many people suffer from night blindness and edema due to ration, lack of vegetables and serious water shortage. They dragged their swollen legs in the sand, and every step they took and every time they climbed on the launcher, all they paid was sucking their milk.

in addition, because the data and drawings were taken away by Soviet experts, we had to explore everything from scratch by ourselves.

researchers don't have electric computers, so they have to use hand-cranked computers for 24 hours.

Some soldiers have loose bowels because of eating Elaeagnus angustifolia leaves, and they are working on a launcher several tens of meters high, so they are too late to go to the toilet. In order to catch up with the time, they simply tied their trouser legs with a belt and let the shit flow in their pants.

At the same time, due to confidentiality reasons, the identities and addresses of the construction troops were all replaced or concealed by "mailboxes" and "numbers".

for example, they obviously live in Jiuquan, but their mailing address is "XX mailbox in Lanzhou" thousands of miles away. So that when many family members went to Lanzhou to look for their sons or husbands, they searched all over Lanzhou and no one was seen.

moreover, all the units are not called by their names, but all are called "numbers". For example, the base office is called "No.11", the martyrs cemetery is called "No.9 and a half" and so on.

Even every forest, mound, pond and hollow there is replaced by various numbers.

As a result, the already dull life is even more dull after being linked by these dull codes.

engineers fighting sandstorms rush to build railways

One night in the early summer of p>1958, 6,311 railway soldiers were told the following confidentiality regulations:

Don't tell anyone where to go, don't tell anyone what to do, and don't communicate with their families about their address and work content.

Then, they were pulled by a military column and got off at a small station called Qingshui in Lanzhou.

at the same time, hundreds of railway employees who were transferred from Lanzhou, Beijing, Jinan and other railway bureaus, who were absolutely reliable in politics and technology, suddenly "disappeared" overnight and came here secretly to start the secret construction of the whole railway line.

You can imagine the difficulties and hardships in building a railway on the desolate Gobi Desert. At that time, there were no people along the railway, no water, not even a green leaf.

A sudden black whirlwind can uproot a tent. At this time, in order to keep their nest, the railway soldiers had to lie on the ground for more than a dozen people, and together they grabbed the rope with their bodies and hands to fight the sandstorm.

When eating, because the sandstorm is too heavy and it is in the open air, several people have to gather together and pull up their skirts to block the incoming sandstorm, so that some people can eat quickly and then change to others.

Especially in winter, the temperature is usually 31-41 degrees below zero, and some locomotive attendants are frozen so that the sand in their eyes can stick into a string one centimeter long. But despite this, a year later, a railway extending to the launch site was paved.

Since then, the paved railway has communicated all kinds of contacts between the launch site and the outside world, and the railway line has become the lifeline and hope line of the base rocket soldiers.

in order to maintain the first and only base railway to the outside world, thousands of railway officers and soldiers and railway employees fought against the wind and snow and endured hardships and cold. Ji Chuanxian is one of them.

Ji Chuanxian is an honest railway soldier. One day in 1959, the company commander talked to him and said, "You don't have to wear this military uniform. You should change to a patrol worker. Give you a gun, five bullets and a dog. Is it ok? "

Ji Chuanxian gave a military salute and said, "OK!" So, he took off his military uniform and put on his railway uniform, and began his patrol career.

from then on, all year round, no matter spring, summer, autumn and winter, he always goes out to patrol the road and keeps company with dogs.

along the railway, there is often a sudden gust of wind. At this time, he would hold the dog tightly in his arms, lie on the track, wait for the whirlwind to pass, then get up and shake off the sand in his body, head, ears and nostrils, and continue to patrol the road.

Sometimes when the wind and sand are too heavy and the weather is too cold, the dog will lie on the inside of the railway, and whatever you call, it just won't go.

So, Ji Chuanxian took out the steamed bread he had saved from the only ration, broke off a small piece of mouth to feed the dog, and then let the dog follow him and continue to patrol forward.

There is Shi Weiliang, who is also a road patrol worker. Because he lived in a tent for many years, he was besieged by mosquitoes all day and night.

You know, the mosquitoes in the Gobi Desert are surprisingly large. As someone said, 11 mosquitoes can fry a dish. Once, after he was bitten by a mosquito, he felt itchy, so he scratched his skin with his hand and bled out, resulting in sepsis.

Due to the lack of medical care and timely treatment in the Gobi Desert, at the age of 34, he left his wife and five children and lay on the railway line forever.

In order to bring up five children, his wife first unloaded the car at the station and then worked as a garbage man in the garbage team. Later, she really couldn't hold on, and she left five children and went with her husband.

Meng Chuanfa, a foreman who worked in the engineering section of the aerospace railway in May of 1958. Because his "spot" is desolate and lonely, there is no doctor, and there is no second woman besides his lover.

So, when his wife gave birth for the first time, he had to cut the baby's umbilical cord with a pair of rusty scissors in a panic. Later, he had two more children, who were born by indigenous means.

On one occasion, he took his three children back to his hometown of Dalian to visit relatives. Grandpa and grandma took them to the zoo to play, but they pointed to all the animals in the zoo and called them "camels".

When he got home, his grandparents asked him, "Why are these children so stupid that they call everything a camel? Are they out of their minds?"

Meng Chuanfa wiped her tears and said, "It's not that the children are stupid. It's that the children have stayed in the Gobi for many years, where they have never seen anything except soldiers and camels."

at the end of p>1962, commander Sun Jixian was transferred from Jiuquan base, and Li Fuze became the second commander of the base.

Li Fuze was born in Yantai, Shandong Province in 1914. At the age of 2116, Li Fuze traveled to Peiping alone and began to attend middle school. In 1935, he went to Shanghai Daxia University to study economics.

when he graduated, he sent a telegram home, claiming that he needed funds to study abroad. His father immediately remitted him a considerable sum of money, but he ran to Yan 'an with the money.

After the Lugouqiao Incident on July 7th, he went back to his hometown in Shandong and started a guerrilla war. Since then, Li Fuze has become the head of a regiment of the Eighth Route Army in southern Shandong.

after the liberation war began, Li Fuze went to the four fields and served as the chief of staff of the 41st Army of the Fourth Column. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he went to Guangzhou and became the deputy chief of staff of the Guangzhou Military Region.

As early as when the first missile launch base in China was established, Sun Jixian, who was appointed as the commander of the base, began to line up troops, and the first one named him Li Fuze. Soon, Li Fuze was appointed as the deputy commander of Jiuquan Missile Launch Base. According to the division of labor of the base party Committee, he is responsible for the reception of Soviet experts.

Whenever there is an opportunity on weekends or at ordinary times, Li Fuze always holds a wine bottle and peanuts, and asks Soviet experts to drink with him.

When the other side got drunk and was called "drunk", he began to ask Soviet experts questions about missiles and missile launches.

Needless to say, at this time, confused Soviet experts always answered questions, and the answers were more generous and comprehensive than usual. Therefore, drinking has become an important mission and special work content for him.

But Li Fuze was absolutely sincere to the Soviet experts themselves. Moreover, in order to take good care of the experts in both life and spirit, he can be described as well-intentioned, racking his brains.

For example, Soviet experts don't like frozen meat, but prefer fresh calf meat. So, he ran to Luo Ruiqing, the chief of staff, and asked for a plane captured from the battlefield, which was transported from Lanzhou, Xi 'an, Beijing, Guangzhou and Hainan Island once a week and sent to the expert restaurant.

For all the construction soldiers in the base, Li Fuze did his best and showed ten times of love and care.

as mentioned earlier, in the early 1961s, the base was in the most difficult years. Due to lack of food, the soldiers had to go out and eat Elaeagnus angustifolia leaves.

Li Fuze was heartbroken when he learned this. He got on a plane and flew to Beijing. He rushed into the home of Yang Chengwu, deputy chief of staff, and asked Yang Chengwu to try to solve the food problem of the officers and men in the base.

Later, Yang Chengwu made a special report to Zhou Enlai, which partially solved the food problem.

At the end of p>1966, while building a new launch site, Jiuquan Base also accepted the tasks of overall design, equipment control, infrastructure and organization establishment, management and use of satellite ground tracking observation stations.

at the same time, the tasks of technicians from all systems and positions to study in various research institutes and counterpart factories across the country have all been rolled out.

But at this time, due to well-known reasons, Nie Rongzhen was hit, and the leading organs of the base were also hit soon. In Li Fuze's words, there is a feeling of chaos and leaderlessness.

On October 24th, 1967, the Central Military Commission issued a special instruction to Jiuquan Base on "No Big Four, Adhere to Positive Education".

then, the central military commission issued the "eight orders on" XXXXX "in the army" to the whole army.

as a result, the vast number of officers and men in the base and a group of party members in the base United as one, resisted all kinds of interference, maintained the stability and normal command of the troops, and maintained the normal order of the test tasks and various tasks.