As the Great Retreat drew to a close, some people began to doubt Lu Zuofu's intentions:
Minsheng Company almost single-handedly took over the task of withdrawing from the west, how much money did he have to earn in the past month or so?
At the same time that the outside world suspected that Lu Zuofu took the opportunity to make a fortune in the country, Minsheng Company was assessing the losses during the westward retreat.
In fact, during the westward retreat, Lu Zuofu's Minsheng Company suffered heavy losses. At that time, the cost of foreign steamship companies from Hubei to Sichuan required 300-400 yuan per ton, and only by maintaining this charging standard could they achieve stable profits.
However, at the special moment of the westward retreat, many companies simply cannot afford such high transportation costs. Moreover, foreign companies, in order to maintain "neutrality", do not dare to transport Chinese supplies. Other Chinese companies have too little capacity to take on such a task.
However, to the surprise of many people, Minsheng Company did not take the opportunity to raise prices but lowered prices.
When the people gathered in Yichang to wait for the retreat of the ships saw the transportation ** announced by the Minsheng Company, they were ecstatic, because, ** was even lower than the ** of normal years! Ordnance equipment is only charged 30-37 yuan per ton, other public goods are 40 yuan, and civilian equipment is only charged 60-80 yuan per ton.
Not to mention making money, even the company's operating costs are not enough. In 1939 alone, the loss of the shipping part of the Minsheng Company was as high as 4 million yuan.
*From the web.
After the retreat of Yichang, the ships of Minsheng Company were still rushing to transport materials and made great contributions. During the entire Anti-Japanese War, a total of 270 troops were transported out of Sichuan by Minsheng boats50,000 people, more than 300,000 tons of ammunition. Lu Zuofu disregarded the danger and often went to the scene in person.
After 1939, 9 ships were sunk and 6 were damaged, including the largest "Minyuan ship". In addition, ** requisitioned 5 ships for blocking waterways, with a loss of 2,028 tons; 16 ships, including self-scuttling and blowing up enemy aircraft, with a loss of 11,460 tons; 5 ships were damaged in military transport, with a loss of 4,188 tons; 5 ships were hijacked by the Japanese invaders, with a loss of 2,662 tons, not including barges and barges, and the loss of 20,338 tons of ships alone, with a total of 117 crew members killed and 76 disabled.
On August 22, 1941, when the Minsheng Company "Folk Customs" was transporting wounded soldiers and passengers from Padang, it was bombed by seven enemy planes, and the ship was sunk, and 70 crew members (180 other passengers died).
The performance of Minsheng employees in this bombing is even more thrilling, singing and crying, and in the archives of Minsheng Company, there is also a "Report on the Bombing of General and Popular Ships":
When Qiu Baoding, a refueling worker, was on duty in the engine room, shrapnel pierced his abdomen and bled profusely, telling him to leave quickly, but he replied: "Die, die, you must not leave!""Still working in pain, without fear, living and dying with the ship.
The ship was about to capsize, and the engine room crew was still hoping to save the boat, but the machine was blown up and stopped, but all the crew on duty did not leave and continued to work as usual. Come on Yang Peizhi, Luo Shaoxiu, a furnace worker, and others, all died heroically along with the ship being blown up and sunk.
Boatswain Long Haiyun, when the ship was about to capsize and sink, still stood at the bow and continued to work, trying to save the ship. The captain urged him to escape several times, but he replied angrily: "If the captain doesn't leave, how can I leave!."”
When the ship was bombed again, Long Haiyun was shot in the abdomen and died. The captain changed his order to Xu Hongzhang to take the helm and told Wang to leave the ship quickly to escape, but Wang still stuck to his post and refused to leave, and then sank with the ship and died.
When the ship was blown up and sunk, he rushed to the wheelhouse to hold the navigation diary, ship certificate and other important documents in his arms.
When the ship was blown up and sunk, Chen Zhichang, a telegraph operator, could no longer send telegrams, but he still protected the telegraph and did not leave, and was finally killed and killed in the line of duty.
Shen Zhicheng, the leader of the escort team, and Tang ** and Yuan Wenbin, the heads of the tea room, when the enemy planes dropped bombs and strafed in the air, the passengers rioted, but they disregarded their personal safety, braved bullets, and maintained order in an attempt to keep the hull stable, but the enemy planes continued to bomb and strafe, and the bullets rained down, Yuan and Shen were killed tragically, and Tang was blown off his arm, fainted in a pool of blood, and died heroically.
After the ship sank, Gu Huashan, the surviving sailor, still disregarded his personal safety, swam to the shore, rushed to push the wooden raft, and rescued dozens of wounded soldiers and passengers in the stormy seas. The rest of the crew members who were not killed by the bombing were actively rescuing the guests who were floating on the river and calling for help.
In the face of such a huge loss, Lu Zuofu said to the company's employees: "We want to serve the country with our career, and we must do our best to do our best." Although we can't go to the front to defend the society and fight the enemy, we should do our duty and strive to be a soldier to strengthen the strength of the anti-Japanese war. ”
Lu Zuofu was a businessman, but at this time, he did not look at this retreat from the perspective of a businessman, but regarded himself as a soldier who resisted foreign enemies and defended his homeland, which was a purely patriotic move.
Old photos of the pier during the retreat of Yichang **From the Internet.
According to an investigation by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, during the 40 days of rushing into Sichuan, 300,000 grenades, 70,000 mortar shells, 6,000 aircraft bombs, and more than 200,000 pickaxes could be made every month for the machinery and equipment of the arsenals and private enterprises rushed into Sichuan.
On New Year's Day in 1939, Lu Zuofu was awarded the "Medal of Outstanding Service" as a commendation. On February 7, 1939, the National Military Council issued a decree to commend the steamers who participated in the retreat from Yichang.
In October 1940, Minsheng Company was awarded again. Xu Ying said in his 1948 book Chronicles of Contemporary Chinese Industrial Figures: "Without Lu Zuofu, there would have been no Minsheng Company, no Minsheng Company, and no sacrifice and creation in the War of Resistance Against Japan." ”
They were not professional soldiers, but employees of a private steamship company, and their generosity and calmness in the face of the great righteousness of the country did not give in to the soldiers of the bloody battlefield at all.
After the fall of Yichang, the large-scale retreat in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War came to an end. But the burden on Lu Zuofu's shoulders was not lightened by half a point. At this time, he also served as the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Communications, and he had to deal with not only the hard work of Minsheng Company during the war, but also the transportation in the rear during the war.
During the war, the rear was mainly Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and other southwestern provinces, and Sichuan was the core, and Chongqing, the capital at that time, was under the jurisdiction of Sichuan Province.
Due to its special geographical factors, transportation in the southwest region has always been difficult. In old China, transportation in the southwest was even more difficult.
First, due to natural factors, it is extremely difficult to build modern transportation facilities; Second, because of the division of many warlords in the southwest region, the wars continued, and the originally rare transportation facilities were wreaked havoc by the warlords for military purposes.
Taking Chongqing as an example, the only railway at that time was the Beichuan Railway, built by Lu Zuofu Minsheng Company, with a total length of less than 17 kilometers.
The importance of transportation is self-evident, especially in wartime, when a large number of soldiers and materials in the rear need to be transported out in time to supply the front line. War has always been a great test of the transportation capabilities of the belligerents.
In this regard, Lu Zuofu, the executive vice minister of the Ministry of Communications, is naturally well aware. Before the Great Retreat began, he prepared for the start of future transports.
At that time, most of the ships owned by Minsheng were fueled by diesel, and China simply could not afford to produce finished diesel, so it relied entirely on imports for the oil it needed. As a result, Lu Zuofu ordered Minsheng Company to hoard diesel fuel on a large scale, and before retreating, Minsheng Company purchased 4,000 tons of diesel.
After the fall of Shanghai, the Yangtze River outlet to the sea was completely blocked, the channel for importing diesel was strangled, and the only diesel that Minsheng Company could call was the 4,000 tons of diesel that had been stored in advance.
After the retreat began, due to the large increase in transportation tasks, fuel consumption rose sharply, and after the rush transportation work in Yichang and Wuhan, Minsheng Company's reserve oil was used up half, and the remaining oil could only be used by the company for half a year.
If it is not replenished, after half a year, most of the capacity of Minsheng Company will be lost. Once Minsheng's ship is unable to operate, the shipping industry on the Sichuan River will be paralyzed.
He had already anticipated the predicament he was about to face. Although diesel cannot be produced, there is another way to keep the ship moving, and that is to burn coal.
Lu Zuofu's solution to the shortage of oil was to build a batch of coal-burning ships. If there is a group of coal-burning steamers, no matter how the Japanese army blockades, they cannot let the ships of Minsheng Company become decorations on the Sichuan River.
Lu Zuofu, who was preparing for a rainy day, also began to stock up on hardware materials while stockpiling diesel fuel in Wuhan. However, the hardware materials he purchased as much as possible were only more than 2,000 tons, which could only be used to repair existing ships, and if he wanted to build ships, it was far from enough.
However, this did not prevent Lu Zuofu from building a coal-burning ship, and he had other ways to raise materials.
When Yichang retreated, the small steamers that fled here from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River had little horsepower and poor performance, and could not sail into the Sichuan River, and if they stayed in Yichang, they would inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy in the future. Lu Zuofu then bought all the small boats, and successively purchased more than 60 boats.
From the end of 1938, Minsheng Company began a large-scale shipbuilding operation, and the employees of Minsheng Machinery Factory worked day and night on the slipway. Among them, 20 ships could not sail on the Sichuan River at all, so they were dismantled and rebuilt with steel plates.
The rest of the small steamers, some using their hulls, others using their boilers and machines, put them together and transformed them into coal-burning ships suitable for navigation on the Sichuan River.
Of course, it is not enough to rebuild, new ships need to be built. In order to ensure the smooth flow of water transportation, Lu Zuofu decided to build 15 coal-fired medium-sized steamers and 2 diesel-burning shallow-water small ferries.
Building a new coal-burning ship was even more difficult under the conditions of the time. First of all, it was not easy to buy special steel plates for boilers, so Minsheng Company first bought a batch in Hong Kong, but after it was shipped to Haiphong, Vietnam, it could not be shipped back to China due to the deterioration of the war situation. As a last resort, he bought another batch in Kunming, and it took two years to ship it to Chongqing.
Due to the shortage of steel plates, except for 4 of the 15 newly built ships with full steel plates, the rest were made of angle steel and timber. The boilers and turbines of the new ship were manufactured by Minsheng Machinery Factory and Hengshun Machinery Factory respectively.
It was already 1940 when a large number of new ships were built in large quantities, and in this year, the Japanese army carried out the "May 3rd" and "May Fourth" bombings of the civilian areas of Chongqing, and the War of Resistance in the rear entered the most difficult period.
Due to the lack of ships on the Sichuan River and the poor transportation of materials, the survival of Chongqing, the "accompanying capital", was unsustainable, and it was extremely difficult to support the front line. Lu Zuofu was so worried that he wrote to the director of Minsheng Machinery Factory many times to encourage him.
He also used Sundays to visit the Minsheng Machinery Factory many times, and each time he carefully inspected each workshop, but he never disturbed the workers who were concentrating on their work and did not ask them any questions. From his wordless gaze, everyone felt the importance and urgency of the task.
Minsheng Company's old photos of the launch of the new ship **From the Internet.
Thanks to the efforts of the employees of Minsheng Company, by 1941, new ships manufactured by Minsheng Machinery Factory were launched one after another, reaching their peak in 1942, with an average of one ship completed every month. By 1943, half of the routes on the Sichuan River mainly relied on these new coal-burning ships, thus completely solving the problem of lack of diesel fuel for shipping.
While solving the difficulties in water transportation, Lu Zuofu also actively directed the solution of the problem of road transportation. At that time, there was no railway available in the rear of the Southwest, and the only road traffic that could be used was the road.
After the fall of Yichang, the communication line between Sichuan and Hunan was cut off, and the Hunan Sixth Theater was unable to obtain troops, munitions, and supplies from the rear. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to rush to build a highway leading to Hunan.
After demonstration, the Ministry of Communications decided to build a highway from Sandouping to enter Hunan through the western Hubei region, which has the shortest mileage and the least difficulty. Moreover, after the highway is repaired, it will be connected with the Sichuan-River route, which can form a combined transportation of water and land.
Sandouping is located in the Xiling Gorge of the Three Gorges, only 46 kilometers away from the Yichang waterway, is the forward position of the resistance to the Japanese army, the terrain here is all deep mountains and valleys, and there are few people.
In the middle of winter in 1940, Lu Zuofu personally inspected the site and solved the problems of survey and construction on the spot. Within a few days, he mobilized all the manpower he could mobilize along the route to build the road, and the transportation route was quickly completed.
Subsequently, Minsheng Company set up an office in Sandouping and opened a special line from Chongqing to Sandouping, with two steamers per day, specializing in military transportation and extremely low freight.
After the fall of Guangzhou, the only access to the sea in the rear was cut off, and Sichuan became an isolated island, and the military supplies and civilian supplies that the allies supported our country could not be transported in, and could only be re-exported to Yunnan through Burma, and there was no road connection between Yunnan and Chongqing at that time.
Therefore, the construction of a Sichuan-Yunnan highway, opening up the only international land route, and breaking the blockade of the Japanese army, became a top priority.
Old photos of the construction of the Sichuan-Yunnan Highway **From the Internet.
After careful demonstration, the Ministry of Communications decided to build a highway from Luzhou, through the northwest of Guizhou, to Yunnan Zhanyi, and the Yunnan-Burma Highway to connect, after the materials are transported to Luzhou, they can be transferred through the Sichuan River waterway to form a combined water and land transport channel.
Under the auspices of Lu Zuofu, this highway was also completed in a very short time, and played an important role before the Yunnan-Burma Highway was cut off by the Japanese army.
Minsheng Company not only undertook the task of water transportation, but also set up an office in Kunming, signed transportation contracts with relevant units of the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Military Affairs, and purchased 30 trucks to run the Luzhou-Kunming line to serve in wartime transportation.
At the same time, Lu Zuofu also presided over the construction of some highways in Sichuan Province, and instructed Minsheng Company to open up the Jinsha River route and the Hechuan-Nanchong route to make the traffic in Sichuan smoother.
As a result, Sichuan, the rear base of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, could not only carry out material exchanges with the northwest, but also be closely linked with international anti-fascist forces.
During the arduous eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Lu Zuofu continued to improve the water and land transportation network in the rear and made great contributions to the final victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.