Author | Rice

Editor | Chemaomao

When you think of Hunan, what do you think of?

Is it Hunan delicacies such as fish head with chopped pepper, stinky tofu, crayfish, Wen Heyou, Cha Yan Yuese, etc. that you have to queue for two hours to eat, or is it Zhangjiajie, Yueyang Tower, Fenghuang Ancient City, Orange Island, etc., which are crowded with people tourist attractions?

Is it the popular variety shows such as Kuaiben, Tiantianxiang, Sister Lang, and Brother Overcoming All Troubles, or is it the Hunan culture and the deeds of great people starting from the Paleolithic Age?

In the era of short videos, Hunan’s food, beautiful scenery, and entertainment have dominated the screen, becoming a province with Internet celebrities.

During the National Day Golden Week in 2020, some netizens posted on Weibo to joke, "This long holiday, 400 million of the 1.4 billion Chinese people will come to Changsha!"

Changsha, perform with strength What is "Internet Celebrity City"?

However, Internet celebrity Hunan also has another side that few people know about - a province with hard-core industries.

In the 2020 GDP ranking list of my country's 31 provinces and cities, Hunan Province, as the largest economic and populous province in central and western my country, ranked ninth in the country with a GDP of 4.178149 billion.

If you dig further, you can find that there is another major contributor behind Hunan's 4 trillion GDP - the "construction machinery industry."

In 2020, the main business revenue of Hunan's construction machinery enterprises reached approximately 252.4 billion yuan, accounting for 27% of the total national construction machinery industry. The total scale has ranked first in the country for 11 consecutive years.

After various internet celebrity labels, it’s time for hardcore Hunan to make its appearance.

01 How strong is Hunan’s construction machinery industry?

If we take Hunan construction machinery giant as an example, then Zoomlion must have a place.

In 2020, Zoomlion's revenue reached 65.109 billion yuan. Comparing the GDP data of various provinces and cities in the same year, 2.6 Zoomlion can support the GDP of a Tibet Autonomous Region.

However, the story of today’s 60 billion giant began with a loan of 500,000.

Zoomlion was formerly known as Changsha Machinery Construction Research Institute. In 1992, after the national science and technology system reform in 1985, the scientific research funding of Changsha Machinery Construction Research Institute was reduced to the original 1/3, how to survive has become an important issue.

"The country proposed the integration of science, industry and trade, and we decided to set up a company," said the then president Zhan Chunxin. "Seven colleagues and I started from scratch with a borrowed 500,000 yuan." Zoomlion That's how Co was born.

Former Construction Changsha Construction Machinery Research Institute

A small workshop of 200 square meters, wrenches, screwdrivers... At that time, Zoomlion had nothing but talents.

For the technology-intensive construction machinery industry, everything comes with talents. At that time, China's economy was booming and there were construction sites all over the country. Zoomlion won the market with a "concrete pump".

From the turnover of 5 million in 1994 to 65.1 billion today, as the company went public, the factory building has grown from 200 square meters to the 14 largest parks in China, with more than 50 permanent institutions around the world... 29 years , Zhan Chunxin led Zoomlion to create a legend.

On the 2021 list of the top 50 global construction machinery manufacturers, Zoomlion ranks fifth in the world and third in China.

Zoomlion is not the only major construction machinery manufacturer in Hunan. On the list, three Hunan construction machinery manufacturers, Sany Heavy Industry, China Railway Construction Heavy Industry and Sanhe Intelligent, also performed very well. Ranking 3rd, 30th, and 32nd respectively on the list, among which China Railway Construction Heavy Industry is the largest professional equipment manufacturer in my country, and its operating profit ranks first in the world.

Looking at the entire list, among the top 5 global construction machinery manufacturers, Hunan Changsha occupies two seats. Among the world's top 50, Hunan Changsha companies sit 4/11 of China, and these four companies have Sales reached 54.2% of the Chinese companies on the list.

On this list, Hunan accounts for half of China's construction machinery manufacturing, and the strength of "China's Construction Machinery Capital" is far more than this:

First of all, it is large in scale.

In the Hunan construction machinery industry chain, there are not only four leading companies such as Sany Heavy Industry, but also more than 600 main engine manufacturing and supporting companies. Among them, only Sany Heavy Industry is located in Changzhu-Zhuzhou There are nearly 500 supply chain companies in the Tan area.

Distribution map of national industrial parks in Hunan Province

Construction machinery manufacturers everywhere make Hunan not only have a large production scale but also a wide range of products in the field of construction machinery:

< p> On the one hand, huge industrial clusters continuously deliver various construction machinery to the country and the world. In 2020, Changsha produced 106,000 excavators, 66,000 concrete machinery, and 4,505 industrial robots. Simply put, for every four excavators produced in China, one was produced in Changsha.

On the other hand, relying on a huge industrial cluster, Hunan Construction Machinery Corps has formed 12 major categories, more than 100 sub-categories, and nearly 500 models and specifications of construction machinery products, covering the national construction machinery varieties. 70%.

Secondly, the benefits are good.

According to Qichacha data, there are currently 6.189 million construction machinery-related companies in my country, of which Shandong ranks first with 720,000 companies, followed by Jiangsu and Guangdong in second and third place. Hunan has only 157,000 companies.

However, Hunan, which ranks 15th in the country in terms of number of engineering companies, achieved an industrial scale of 252.4 billion yuan in 2020, and its operating income accounted for 27% of the national total.

To put it simply, Hunan's construction machinery industry uses 2.5% of its volume to support 33% of the entire industry's volume, and Hunan has held the title of champion in terms of total volume for 11 consecutive years.

Finally, the brand is beautiful:

As the core of the large-scale equipment manufacturing industry, construction machinery is known as the "important weapon of a great country". At present, the global construction machinery industry is mainly distributed in North America, Western Europe and East Asia, and Changsha, Hunan Province is one of the three largest construction machinery industry clusters in the world.

The brand name of Changsha, Hunan has long gone international:

In 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan exploded and a nuclear leakage occurred. The Japanese government requested Sany Heavy Industry to support a 62-meter concrete pump truck to inject water into Unit 1 to cool down;

In April 2021, Doha, the capital of Qatar, Lusail Stadium, the main stadium of the 2022 Qatar World Cup At the capping construction site, eight ultra-high and large-tonnage tower cranes from Zoomlion connected the main cable network weighing 2,300 tons to the steel structure at an altitude of 66 meters;

Moscow Metro At the construction site, China Railway Construction Heavy Industry's large-scale shield machines accelerate their excavation like a "earth-burrowing dragon"; Sunward Intelligent, piling machinery and excavating machinery have entered more than 100 countries and regions around the world...

From the left To the right are: ① China Sany Heavy Industry supports 62-meter pump trucks to Japan ② Zoomlion TC8039-25 tower crane at Lusail Stadium ③ The first tunnel of the China Railway Construction Moscow Metro Project is completed

If every piece of construction machinery made in Hunan is marked as a red dot, then if you open the world map, more than 160 countries and regions will be lit up by tens of thousands of red dots.

Zoomlion’s global distribution map: Overseas institutions are located in more than 80 countries, and products are exported to nearly 100 countries overseas.

So, how is the construction machinery industry with such a strong strength? What was formed?

02 Close one door and open three windows

When it comes to developing the construction machinery industry, it can be said that Hunan people believe in the belief that "I have no control over my destiny."

In fact, from a geographical point of view, it is unlikely that Hunan will develop the construction machinery industry.

Open the map and you can see that Hunan borders the Yangtze River to the north and the Nanling Mountains to the south. The Wuling Mountains, Xuefeng Mountains and Luoxiao Mountains run through it, and the Xiangjiang, Zijiang and Yuanjiang rivers with Dongting Lake as the convergence point , Lishui River all over... Surrounded by one lake, three mountains and four rivers, Hunan people have a hard time getting out of Hunan, let alone developing industry, or even from the south to the north.

Historical records show that during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Hunan candidates who wanted to go to the provincial capital of Huguang Province to take the provincial examination, especially those in the south, today's Chenzhou, Yongzhou and other places, had to leave at least two or three months in advance. If it is good, you can refer to it on time in the eighth month of the lunar calendar. Those who were unlucky could only feed fish and shrimp on a small boat in Dongting Lake, being carried by the turbulent waves.

Topographic Map of Hunan Province

So how did the people of Hunan go from being unable to leave the province to having the construction machinery industry spread all over the world?

God is fair. While closing one door for Hunan, it opened three windows, which also laid the foundation for Hunan’s industrial foundation:

The first thing to bear the brunt is Rich mineral resources.

You must know that the upstream of the construction machinery industry chain is mainly the materials industry that provides raw materials and parts, and the motor and parts manufacturing industry, such as steel for construction machinery, internal combustion engines, hydraulic systems, bearings, etc. The total cost of these raw materials in construction machinery companies reaches more than 90%. Wind data shows that the raw material costs of Sany Heavy Industry and Zoomlion account for 90.78% and 95.28% respectively.

Hunan happens to be one of the provinces richest in mineral resources in my country.

As of the end of 2020, among the minerals with proven reserves, Hunan’s eight mineral reserves, including stone coal, bismuth, and antimony, rank first in the country, and the province has 3,564 mining rights... Rich minerals and the resource-based enterprises derived from them also contribute to the development of Hunan's construction machinery industry.

In the list of the company's top five suppliers in 2016 exposed by Sany Heavy Industry, Hunan Valin Xiangtan Iron and Steel Company is the fifth largest supplier, mainly providing it with raw materials such as steel and plates.

To put it simply, in Hunan, the supply of raw materials for the construction machinery industry is not a problem.

However, even if there are abundant mineral resources and the so-called "there is rice to cook", in a closed situation, no one knows and no one comes to cook. So, where do the people and factories come from? ?

To sum up, there are two big events.

First, during the Taiping Rebellion, the Hunan Army won wars, fame, and a large amount of property.

The victory over the Hunan Army, which returned home, not only broke the geographical restrictions and proved to the whole country Hunan’s strong existence; but also used the money obtained from the victory to build schools and establish education in Hunan, cultivating A large number of talents have strengthened Hunan's voice in the political court. On the other hand, a large number of modern factories have been established, which can be said to have left an industrial spark for Hunan.

The second is the construction of the Guangdong-Han Railway in the late Qing Dynasty when Zhang Zhidong was the governor of Huguang.

At that time, the Qing government wanted to build a railway from Wuchang, Hubei to Guangzhou. However, there were two route options from Hubei to Guangzhou, passing through Hunan or Jiangxi.

"If you want to get rich, you must first build roads." This eternal truth is known to everyone. Hunan won with the confidence of the Hunan Army's victory and the efforts of intellectuals such as Tan Si.

In 1936, the Guangdong-Hankou Railway, which had been under construction for nearly 40 years, was opened to traffic. During this period, Hunan had already taken advantage of the east wind to develop rapidly:

Changsha’s status as an economic intersection has become increasingly prominent. Industrial products and foreign commodities purchased by wholesalers from Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Han, Jiangsu and Zhejiang have passed through The railway arrived in Changsha, and at the same time agricultural and sideline products in the Changsha area continued to be exported;

Zhuzhou transformed from a small market town in 1898 into a well-known industrial and commercial city, with coal, porcelain, firecrackers, rice and other bulk commodities agglomeration, becoming a veritable "city brought by trains";

Chenzhou, with its further development of commerce and trade, has become a transfer station for salt and daily industrial products for a population of nearly 6 million in the nearby area. The private automobile transportation industry, railway Ancient logistics industries such as the transportation agency industry and the trust industry for collecting native products have also developed rapidly;

...

The entire Hunan has personally practiced the decisive role of transportation in urban development.

To this day, Hunan still believes in this truth. The steel giant produced in Hunan built these criss-crossing transportation lines, injecting power and blood into the city's economic development, and at the same time, continuously transported itself out.

Schematic diagram of the layout of comprehensive transportation channels in Hunan Province’s “14th Five-Year Plan”

Under the Hunan spirit represented by the Hunan Army’s hardship, dominance, and willingness to die, resources, Transportation sets the stage, and to successfully play the role of "the construction machinery industry is unparalleled in the world", the three kings of time, location, and people need to cooperate.

03 Industry, market, and talents are all on the rise

The development of Hunan’s construction machinery industry has, to a certain extent, taken advantage of the right time, place, and people.

Let’s first look at the location – attracting a large number of factories to settle in and activating future development potential.

The so-called blessing is a blessing in disguise. In the past, the predicament that Hunan people could not get out of has become an important factor for many factories to settle in.

During the war, mountainous Hunan became a natural refuge from the rear. Factories and arsenals with a large demand for minerals built factories in Hunan one after another.

According to incomplete statistics, during the Republic of China, Hunan had 3 provincial-owned factories and more than 50 private machine factories. After the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, in 1943, there were only 3 large and small machine factories in the province. 714 companies with nearly 30,000 employees.

If a batch of modern industries built during the Hunan Army’s victory left a spark, then the large and small machine factories that settled in during the war ignited the spark of Hunan’s industry. Today’s Hunan Engineering Machinery The industry has already become a prairie fire.

Behind this, another "geographical" advantage cannot be ignored, that is, the development potential of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Tanxi Triangle.

Although not as well-known as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze-Zhuzhou-Xiang-Tan River Delta has become a quite mature industrial cluster.

Looking at the answer sheet of the Changsha-Zhutan Triangle in 2020, the three cities’ GDP totaled 1,759.142 billion yuan, accounting for approximately 42.1% of Hunan Province’s GDP, slightly higher than Wuhan City’s 2020 scale of 1,561.61 billion yuan.

Why compare with Wuhan City?

Historically, Hunan, which is also part of the Huguang province, has always been overshadowed by Hubei, which has more advanced geography, transportation and industrial development. For example, Hunan candidates have to travel to Wuchang to take the exam, and for example, in order to build the Guangdong-Hankou Railway, A large number of factories are located in Wuchang... Obviously they belong to the same province, but Hunan seems to be adopted.

Nowadays, Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan, these three cities that are already very competitive on their own, are ready to develop urban agglomerations due to their favorable geographical location and transportation conditions. It can be said that a hundred years later, Changzhutan, which has three swords combined, has stabilized compared with Wuhan.

Changzhou-Zhuzhou-Tan economic integration, core area spatial structure plan

The three cities of Chang-Zhu-Tan are located in the middle and lower reaches of the Xiangjiang River, and are only 30 to 40 kilometers apart from each other. With the smooth transportation network, it takes 15 minutes to take the high-speed rail from Changsha to Zhuzhou and 11 minutes to Xiangtan.

What’s even more exaggerated is that with the “transit-oriented” operation and development of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Tanzhou intercity railway, Xiangtan citizens are expected to take the Changsha subway “at their doorstep” by the end of next year.

With group development, is Hunan’s construction machinery industry still worried about whether it can reach a higher level?

Let’s look at Tianshi again—forging the foundation of the construction machinery industry and gaining a broad development market.

You are not afraid that your opponent will be a top student, but you are afraid that the top student will use cheats. Zhuzhou City is such a terrifying industrial top student.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of my country, under the influence of the international environment at that time, the country moved many industries to the southwest. With the financial, technical and equipment assistance from the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, Zhuzhou became the first batch of key construction areas after the founding of our country. One of the eight industrial cities.

In addition, other cities in Hunan also took over different machinery industries. For example, in 1963, Shanghai Engineering Machinery Factory (later Puyuan Machinery Factory) moved to Changde.

The transfer of many advantageous industries has given Hunan good genes for the development of the construction machinery industry and won at the starting line.

However, the strong also need to use force. To put it bluntly, it is the market. And Hunan happened to catch up.

Since the reform and opening up, my country's urbanization has rapidly advanced, and the construction of railways, highways, and housing has accelerated, bringing a broad market to Hunan's construction machinery industry.

Taking transportation as an example, in 1978, my country’s highway and railway operating mileage were 890,000 and 52,000 kilometers respectively. By the end of 2020, these two figures had increased to 5.198 million and 146,000 kilometers respectively. With an extensive transportation network, it can be said that Hunan, which occupies 70% of the country's construction machinery market, has built more than half of China.

If it weren't for someone's interference, our country would have built a lot of houses and roads - the urban permanent population rate is 63.89%, the high-speed railway coverage rate in cities with a population of more than one million is 95%, and the expressway coverage rate in cities with a population of more than 200,000 98%...

Then don’t worry, the international demand for new construction equipment with high technical content is still increasing, and Hunan’s excavators have no worries about selling!

Finally, look at the harmony of people - strong people, large numbers of people, and ruthless people, injecting vitality into the industry.

In the final analysis, the construction machinery industry is still a technology-intensive industry, so people and the technology they possess are very important.

And the construction robots in Hunan are strong, numerous and "ruthless"!

People are strong, starting from the "national team".

Speaking of the development of Hunan's construction machinery industry, one cannot avoid the Construction Machinery Research Institute of the First Ministry of Machinery Industry, which moved to Changsha in 1978 (later renamed Changsha Construction Machinery Research Institute).

The national team has brought a large number of experts and scientific researchers in the construction machinery industry to Hunan, as well as a large amount of technical and scientific research support.

In 1978, during the national science and technology system reform, the research funding of the institute was cut by 2/3, and the institute was forced to transfer drawing patents in order to survive. This sale may be the fault of the institute, but it has allowed nearly 170 companies to rapidly rise by taking advantage of the institute's technology and become the backbone of Hunan's construction machinery industry.

The forefathers of the institute have cultivated a strong foundation for Hunan’s construction machinery industry, and if this big tree is to grow better and better, subsequent talent supply is indispensable.

Hunan has both a high-end talent base and a steady stream of new talent.

First of all, Hunan has a large number of universities and colleges. According to 2019 data from the Ministry of Education, Hunan Province has 125 universities, ranking seventh in the country. At the same time, there are Central South University, National University of Defense Technology, Hunan University has three 985, and the number of 985 universities is second only to Beijing and Shanghai. At the same time, there are four 211 including Hunan Normal University;

Secondly, Hunan has the Xiangxiang Aluminum Plant Scientific Research Institute and the Ministry of Chemical Industry There are many national-level research institutes such as the Xiangdong Chemical Machinery Plant Research Institute and the Sixth Institute of Nuclear Industry.

On the road to becoming the king, Hunan Engineering Robotics also has the fighting spirit of "not admitting defeat and daring to fight hard", and this hard work reaches the point of being "ruthless".

After visiting the Bauma Show of Construction Machinery in Munich, Germany, He Qinghua, the founder of Sunward Intelligent, and his employees were deeply stimulated when they saw that the entire Chinese army's booth was not as impressive as a Korean company.

Subsequently, Riao worked hard and has now become the 32nd largest manufacturer in the world, with its products exported to more than 100 countries and regions around the world.

When Sany Heavy Industry faced the problem of the "hydraulic parts", a key component of the excavator, getting stuck, it rejected the unequal agreements from foreign companies. Lilong Hydraulic Company was secretly established in Hangzhou, employees did not wear SANY work clothes, and the factory buildings did not bear the SANY logo... After ten years of hard work and hard work, in 2018, 30% of SANY's excavators were equipped with independent hydraulic parts.

From industrial foundation to market opportunities to talent strength, it will be difficult for Hunan not to become the king of the construction machinery industry.

04 Cities are strong in industry

In recent years, Internet celebrity cities have emerged one after another.

It is undeniable that the establishment of Internet celebrity cities has brought huge traffic and potential to urban development. However, in addition to "food, clothing, housing, transportation and entertainment", the hard power background of a city's development should also be seen.

Industry is the "ballast stone" of economic development and the "hard core" of urban strength.

We have seen that Chengdu’s electronic information industry has broken through the technological bottleneck and demonstrated the speed of China’s hard-core technological innovation and fission;

Xi’an Aerospace has flown into the homes of ordinary people, and it has also Realizing the ambition of building a powerful country;

In the Internet age, there is never a shortage of temporary Internet celebrities, but the hard-core industrial strength of the regional economy is the core on which the rise and prosperity of a great country can rely.

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