What happened in April 1964

In Meilong Town, Minhang District, Shanghai, among the ruins, there are still a few buildings standing alone, and the original Gongpu’s home is In the last building, 3rd floor. When I renovated my home more than 20 years ago, the walls all peeled off. The old-fashioned wall clock ticked.

One day in July, Yuan Gongpu entered the house dejectedly and threw the plastic bag containing the medical records on the bed.

"What's wrong?" asked her lover Guo Fumei.

"It's nothing." He said angrily, "I'm tired, I'll go to sleep first."

After he fell asleep, Guo Fumei got up and flipped through his medical records. , knowing that the data on cancer review is not good.

The next day, Yuan Gongpu pulled his lover to his cabinet, "Come on, come on, let me tell you, this drawer can be made public, this drawer must be handed over and kept secret!" ”

These materials are the core components of my country’s first and second bombs, as well as flat explosions, air blasts and submarine-launched ballistic missiles during his decades of working in the 404 factory. , a total of 10 technical summaries before and after.

It seems that he has predicted his fate. When our reporter went to his home for an interview in May this year, he carefully took out this stack of materials, which were all handwritten, with pictures and text combined, using pens of different colors. mark. "Some American reporters came to me and wanted to see it, but I have never shown it to them. These are all secrets!" he said.

Guo Fumei said that was the last interview Yuan Gongpu gave during his lifetime. Three months later, on August 22, Yuan Gongpu, the operator of one of China's core component balls, died of illness at the age of 87.

On August 24, at the memorial service of Yuan Gongpu, Guo Fumei, with the support of her eldest daughter Yuan Xiaoyan, went through the elegiac couplets one by one. Photo by Wang Xiao

“This is confidential”

On the morning of August 24, 2022, Yuan Gongpu’s memorial service was held in the first floor hall of Longhua Funeral Home. Representatives present at the scene, old colleagues from CNNC, former Gongpu and ordinary citizens.

With the support of her eldest daughter Yuan Xiaoyan, Guo Fumei looked at the elegiac couplets on the wreath one by one.

She said that the most gratifying thing was that her husband left in Shanghai. In early July, Yuan Gongpu's cancer pain could not be relieved. He was recommended for treatment. He planned to take the train back to Shanghai on August 7, but suddenly he died on August 6. After regaining consciousness, he expressed his desire to return to Shanghai several times. However, the ambulance is not allowed to leave the market due to the epidemic.

On August 19, under the arrangement of China National Nuclear Corporation, the Nuclear Industry General Hospital in Suzhou dispatched an ambulance to Beijing, and then dispatched medical staff from the Nuclear Industry Hospital to escort it. After three consecutive driver appointments, After 14 hours of driving, Yuan Gongpu was sent back to Shanghai.

On August 24, at the memorial service of Hara Gongpu, former colleagues of Hara Gongpu and citizens who came to express their condolences filled the hall. Photo by Wang Xiao

In contrast to the sudden surge of publicity behind him, Yuan Gongpu was actually unknown for a long time.

In the early 1990s, when Yuan Gongpu's family was about to retire from Factory 404 in Gansu Province and return to Shanghai, the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions searched through the Shanghai factory's files but could not find the name "Yuan Gongpu" .

When I returned to Shanghai, Yuan Gongpu and his wife received the retirement salary from Gansu Province, which was not high. In order to support his family, he went out to work, did salesmanship, visited cold storage, and moved goods weighing seventy or eighty kilograms.

Therefore, when someone later came to the community and asked about "the home of the original master", the neighbors did not believe that this old man who seemed short, deaf, and had bad eyesight could actually interact with him. Processing core components is closely related.

Yuan Gongpu is also used to this lack of knowledge. Based on the discipline of keeping his mission "secret", he rarely mentioned his glorious deeds to others.

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He told reporters the example of Deng Jiaxian: "Deng Jiaxian designed one of our country's first bombs, but neither his lover nor his parents knew it. After the first bomb, one day, his father-in-law asked others: 'Yes Who made it for China?' People said: 'Ask your son-in-law!'"

"And at that time, the key steps of manufacturing used code words, 'combing braids' and 'inserting' "Getting on the sedan" and so on are all determined. You know what this level of confidentiality is," Yuan Gongpu told reporters.

Guo Fumei, who is also a retired employee of Factory 404 and has lived with his wife all his life, is also used to not asking about her husband's work.

Years of confidentiality discipline have shaped Yuan Gongpu’s low-key and restrained character. He rarely said "nasty" words to Guo Fumei. But one night this year, he suddenly said to her, "Old love, I can't stay with you much longer."

As important as life

Guo Fumei still remembers the beginning How he looked when he met Hara Gongura.

In March 1951, Yuan Gongpu was introduced by his brother and went from Shandong to a factory in Shanghai as an apprentice.

He is a young man who has just arrived in the big city and doesn’t even know how to turn on and off the lights. She is an out-and-out Shanghai girl. The two met because they worked in the same workshop.

He was motivated, and in just 3 years he became a level 4 worker (equivalent to an intermediate professional title), reaching the income of a college student at that time; he was also enthusiastic, negotiating with the boss and fighting for benefits on behalf of employees: 10 a.m. Have a snack and provide employees with work clothes.

He worked during the day and walked for an hour or two at night to go to night school, until he went to high school. She still remembers how high-spirited he was when he called on the workers to study in the workshop, "We have to pass the junior high school entrance examination to learn skills well."

In the interview in May, Yuan Gongpu told reporters that his favorite book was "Dedicate Everything to the Party" written by Wu Yunduo. "Wu Yunduo is China's Paul, he is a soldier for the army." Making, making. He didn't have a lathe, so he used rails to make it. I was very excited when I saw it. I thought I was also a lathe. "The factory was divided into upper and lower floors, and the workers slept upstairs. "The factory still used them at that time. The belt machine makes a sound when it is turned on. I feel so happy when I hear it."

In 1959, Yuan Gongpu, who had been married for only 4 months, was selected to participate in a project in the northwest as a representative of Shanghai's outstanding technicians. "Very important work."

According to the confidentiality requirements of his superiors, he only told his wife about the departure a week before leaving home. At that time, he already felt that this was a sign of trust in him. When this group of technicians from all over China were undergoing training, the Minister of the Second Machinery Department announced to them: "Mao sent you to do it."

After the training, they headed west to Factory 404.

This mysterious factory with only a numeric code name in its name is known to the outside world as the "Jiuquan Atomic Energy Complex". It was one of the Chinese factories selected in 1958 at the northern foot of the Qilian Mountains, hundreds of kilometers west of Jiayuguan. Address of plutonium production reactor. There is no factory address, only a mailbox, and the "Lanzhou ##" number left in Gansu is actually not in Lanzhou at all. At its peak, Factory 404 had 50,000 employees and their families, as well as a garrison of several thousand people.

Hara Gongpu’s precious notes. The figure shows the core component construction. Photo by Wang Xiao

The mission of Factory 404 is to produce qualified balls before May 1964.

-235 is the only naturally fissile nuclear material known so far. The -235 atomic nucleus will undergo fission after being bombarded by neutrons. For every neutron absorbed, 2 to 3 neutrons and huge energy are released, thus triggering a chain reaction.

There are only three isotopes on the earth: -238, -235, and -234. Among them, -238 accounts for 99.275%, -235 accounts for 0.720%, and -234 accounts for 0.005%. The production of nuclear materials is to separate the 0.720% -235 from the ores produced by the three isotopes. 1 kilogram of weapons-grade high concentration requires at least 200 tons of ore. The total weight of nuclear materials used in one of our country's nuclear weapons is about 15 kilograms, which requires at least 3,000 tons of high-quality ore.

From mineral geological exploration, ore mining, to purification into chemical concentrates, and then through various chemical reaction processes, high-concentration -235 is finally separated by gas diffusion method. The entire process is extremely long and dangerous. It can be said that the car that Factory 404 is about to produce is the hard work of about 100,000 people who spent 10 years.

However, the processing accuracy of the ball is extremely high. A ball is composed of two identical hemispheres. The hemispheres are not solid. There is also an inner ball, which is used to hold the core. The ignition neutron source during the explosion. The concentricity of the inner and outer spheres of each hemisphere must be highly consistent, and the concentricity error cannot exceed 0.0015 mm. The smoothness of the outer ball is of a higher standard, and the accuracy is required to be one-eighth of that of a head. Because the ball is as hard as steel and requires particularly high precision, the longitudinal feed depth during processing cannot exceed 20 wires, which is 0.2 mm; the transverse feed depth cannot exceed 15 wires, which is 0.15 mm. .

Coupled with the nuclear contamination environment in the processing area, people can only operate from the outside of the complete machine tool through the thick glass observation window and wearing double layers of latex gloves through two small holes. In the era before precision CNC machine tools, there were only a few people in China who could process this ball.

Factory 404 held a series of technical competitions, and the technical workers of Shanghai Automobile Chassis Factory were ranked among the former Gongpu.

In 1963, it was finally decided that Yuan Gongpu, a skilled worker at the Shanghai Automobile Chassis Factory, would be the main tool for processing core components.

Before starting work, he was called and said: "This is the most core and critical moment. It is as important as our lives."

In the early days of the business, Yuan Gongpu and scientific and technical personnel conducted scientific research in the tent (the person on the left holding a pen and the person above is Yuan Gongpu). Provided by the interviewee

The last three cuts

On April 30, 1964, the time came to process the first true ball.

When Yuan Gongpu went out that morning, he said to Guo Fumei, who had been transferred to Factory 404: "I'm going to work. You bring up your daughter." After turning around and going downstairs, he sat in a A Volga limousine.

After Yuan Gongpu left, Guo Fumei cried.

She came here all the way from Shanghai. Although the conditions were difficult and Yuan Gongpu never mentioned his mission, she rarely complained. She only wanted to live a peaceful life with her husband. But this sentence made her feel that today seemed to be the final moment of a life and death test.

It is indeed a test of life and death. "Before taking up the post, I didn't know whether I could complete this task." Yuan Gongpu said later. He felt that his pressure had reached its peak. Because I practice driving balls of the same size all day long, there are balls in front of me when I walk and sleep. He lost weight to only 90 pounds and could not eat one steamed bun a day. He had to have a dedicated person give him glucose injections every day. "Because the accuracy of processing is a problem. In addition, there is also the problem of critical accidents." The main danger of critical accidents is external radiation from instantaneous emission lines, which can cause large doses of radiation, resulting in casualties.

File photo of Hara Gongpu when he was operating the surgery. Provided by the interviewee

After the blanks arrive, only three people can stay in the processing room because it is a reflective layer, which may cause critical accidents.

Among these three people, one of them is the chief surgeon - Yuan Gongpu. The second person is the guardian. While reminding the original Gong Pu of his operation, he must promptly pick up the chips under his car to prevent them from accumulating in the cutting disc and causing a fission chain reaction. The third person is responsible for measuring. For every three knives used by Gongpu, he has to measure once to see how much difference there is and how many knives are needed for the car.

It takes about 12 hours to process one ball.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, Yuan Gongpu reported: "I have to process the last three cuts."

As soon as the lathe started, Yuan Gongpu became nervous. An error occurred while busy, and the casting suddenly fell off the vacuum suction cup and fell into the cutting disc with a "snap".

The processing was stopped immediately. Yuan Gongpu was sweating profusely, his clothes were soaked, and he lost confidence for a time.

After being helped to the rest area, he drank a glass of milk, settled down, walked onto the workbench again, and slowly turned the handle of the machine tool.

At the last moment, Yuan Gongpu concentrated on making one cut, stopping to measure the size; then he made the second cut, and then stopped to measure carefully; after the last cut, he almost collapsed to the ground.

"In fact, I even took off my protective glasses at the critical moment. I couldn't care less about it. If I was exposed to radiation, I would just radiate it." He said later.

In the early morning of May 1, 1964, the inspector reported that the accuracy, concentric chambers and dimensions of the core components all met the design specifications.

Hara Gongpu said that even at that time, he still felt like a rabbit in his heart, "I didn't know whether he was qualified or not."

It wasn’t until 5 months and 15 days later that he heard on the radio that one of China’s balls had succeeded. When he learned that the ball containing the ball really exploded on the tower in Lop Nur, he was extremely excited.

"I really wanted to find someone to tell me, but after thinking about it, I could only keep it in my heart. This is a secret. I have to abide by the party's discipline."

"I don't want to be special. ”

, is a word that Yuan Gongpu always talks about.

Among the 45 nuclear tests conducted in our country, Hara Gongpu participated in the processing of key parts of 10 of them, including nuclear weapons, missiles, missiles, and submarine-launched ballistics. Some schools and units invited him to give lectures. His words may sound old-fashioned to some young people.

"I was born in 1956. The then deputy director of Xuhui District came to talk to me. When he mentioned 'struggle for life for the cause', I cried in front of him."

"The most familiar jingle we were familiar with at that time was 'A brick for a soldier, wherever it is needed'. The construction of key areas in Shanghai started in 1953. I signed up every time. I also participated in every movement. In the past I always shout slogans on May Day. ”

“Our generation has a deep love for each other. I grew up in that kind of education. I can’t figure it out. "Why do so many young people think about money first?"

On May 10 this year, Yuan Gongpu recalled the past to reporters at his home. . Photo by Wang Xiao

In 2011, Yuan Gongpu was diagnosed with the disease during a physical examination. At the beginning, he participated in a clinical trial of a specific drug, which showed good effects. However, after the two-year clinical trial ended, the imported drugs suitable for him were not covered by medical insurance, and the cost of the drugs put the couple in trouble. Shanghai TV showed his difficulties in the documentary. He felt that this was "negative" information and brought trouble to reporters.

Part of his medical expenses can be reimbursed, but he needs to travel back and forth between Gansu and Shanghai, and the process is cumbersome. Someone asked to go and talk to him, and he said: "I don't want to be special."

< p> Later, a person issued relevant instructions for his matter, hoping that relevant departments would actively explore similar issues in order to solve them institutionally. Hara Gongpu is looking forward to it. He believes that he is not the only one experiencing this problem.

Of course there are many heart-warming memories in Hara Gongpu’s last days.

The year before last, a junior high school student came to his home from Shenzhen after seeing the story of Yuan Gongpu on the Internet. He said to Yuan Gongpu: "I just want to be someone like you." Then he gave Yuan Gongpu an envelope and left. After Yuan Gongpu opened it, he found that there was 100 yuan inside. He quickly chased after him, but he had already left.

After reading the story of Yuan Gongpu in a book, a girl from Shanghai Experimental Primary School bought new year goods with her parents and came to visit; a college student who started a business sent a bottle of Yuan Gongpu. Pu Suo takes similar drugs.

A doctor from the urology department funded Yuan Gongpu for more than a year at his own expense; the director of SAIC Volkswagen’s new energy vehicle factory sent 10,000 yuan; the Shanghai Baijiang Charity Foundation donated Yuan Gongpu’s medication expenses Included in their "two bombs and one satellite" funding project, the former public students are responsible for their own expenses in using genuine American anti-cancer drugs; some retirees also sent milk powder and health products...

In 2022, the original Gong Pu's cancer recurred and the cancer cells metastasized. Guo Fumei said that in his last days, when he was in unbearable cancer pain, he sang "The East Is Red" loudly. "I feel better when I sing." He said at that time.

Yuan Zheng, Yuan Gongpu’s youngest daughter, said that she received help from many people in her last days and thanked so many people for remembering her.

Column editor: Zai Fei Text editor: Zai Fei

:: Wang Xiao

The above is the content related to the fate of April 1964, about Wang Xiao Xiao's sharing.

After reading whether people born in 1964 have fire zodiac signs, I hope this will be helpful to everyone!