Mules pulled the coal wagons on China’s first standard-gauge railway at Tangshan in 1881, because the imperial court had approved it only on condition that no locomotive would run on it, and workers were secretly building one from scrap.
一八八一年,唐山修建的这条中国第一条标准轨距铁路上,拉煤车厢靠骡马牵引,因为朝廷批准修路的条件是不得行驶机车;而与此同时,工匠们正用废料偷偷制造一台机车。
The line, 9.7 kilometres long and laid to a gauge of 1,435 millimetres, ran from the Tangshan colliery to Xugezhuang; Li Hongzhang had assured the court that it would be a horse road, with no locomotive, so as not to disturb the Eastern Qing Tombs. Meanwhile craftsmen at the Kaiping Mining Bureau, working from drawings by the British engineer Claude Kinder, built a small locomotive from scrap, including an old hoist boiler, channel steel and cast-iron wheels, and fitted brass dragons to its water tank; it was christened Rocket of China, but is remembered as the Dragon locomotive.
这条铁路全长九点七公里,轨距一千四百三十五毫米,起于唐山矿,止于胥各庄;李鸿章曾向朝廷保证,这只是一条不行驶机车的”马路”,以免惊扰清东陵。与此同时,开平矿务局的工匠们依照英国工程师金达的图纸,用旧卷扬机锅炉、槽钢和铸铁车轮等废旧材料,造出一台小型机车,并在水柜两侧镶上黄铜飞龙;它被命名为”中国火箭号”,世人却更熟悉它的名字——”龙号”机车。
According to Hebei TV, a replica of the Dragon locomotive stands beside the zero-kilometre monument of China’s railways at the China Railway Origin Museum in Kailuan National Mine Park. The original managed only about 30 kilometres an hour, and the Xugezhuang repair shop that built it is the forerunner of today’s CRRC Tangshan, according to Tangshan’s Huanbohai News.
据河北广播电视台报道,开滦国家矿山公园内的中国铁路源头博物馆里,”零公里”纪念碑旁陈列着一台复制的龙号机车。据唐山环渤海新闻网介绍,原机车时速仅约三十公里,而制造它的胥各庄修车厂,正是今日中车唐山公司的前身。
Cement, Porcelain and a Marshal’s Inscription
水泥、瓷器与元帅的题词
The Kaiping Mining Bureau, founded in 1878, set up the Tangshan Fine Mud Factory in 1889, described by local historians as the first cement plant in northern China; it grew into Qixin Cement, whose products accounted for 92.02 percent of China’s domestic cement sales in 1919 and led the market for more than 50 years, according to Huanbohai News.
开平矿务局创办于一八七八年,并于一八八九年设立唐山细绵土厂,当地史学界称其为中国北方第一家水泥厂;该厂后来发展为启新洋灰公司,据环渤海新闻网报道,一九一九年其产品销量占全国水泥销量的百分之九十二点零二,并连续五十多年位居全国之首。
Tangshan ceramics began in 1404, when migrants from Shanxi and Shandong brought jar-making skills during the Yongle reign, according to China.com.cn. In 1917 the Qixin works bought German machinery, the first time a Chinese ceramics firm had imported foreign equipment, and at the first Tangshan Ceramics Exhibition in 1961 Marshal Zhu De wrote that Tangshan should become a second Jingdezhen, according to the China Ceramic Industry Association. Tangshan is now styled the Porcelain Capital of North China, and its bone china passed national geographical-indication review in 2012.
唐山陶瓷始于一四零四年(明永乐二年),据中国网介绍,山西、山东移民带来了制缸技艺。据中国陶瓷工业协会介绍,一九一七年启新瓷厂从德国购进陶瓷机械,这是中国陶瓷企业首次引进国外设备;一九六一年首届唐山陶瓷展览会上,朱德还题词希望唐山成为”第二个景德镇”。如今唐山被誉为”中国北方瓷都”,其骨质瓷于二零一二年通过国家地理标志产品保护审查。
Twenty-Three Seconds in 1976
一九七六年的二十三秒
At 3.42am on 28 July 1976, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck Tangshan and, in about 23 seconds, flattened a city of around a million people; the official toll was 242,769 dead and 164,851 seriously injured, with 7,218 families wiped out and 4,204 children orphaned. Of 682,267 rooms in the city’s civilian buildings, 656,136 collapsed or were severely damaged.
一九七六年七月二十八日凌晨三时四十二分,唐山发生七点八级地震,约二十三秒内,这座拥有约百万人口的城市被夷为平地;官方统计的死亡人数为二十四万二千七百六十九人,重伤十六万四千八百五十一人,七千二百一十八户家庭全家遇难,四千二百零四名孩子成为孤儿。全市六十八万二千二百六十七间民用建筑中,有六十五万六千一百三十六间倒塌或严重受损。
Five miners trapped 900 metres underground at the Zhaogezhuang colliery were hauled to the surface over 15 days, the last of them on 11 August after 359 hours. The memorial wall in the city, about 500 metres long and 7.28 metres high, carried 247,986 names by July 2026, more than 5,000 above the official toll, after years of additions and corrections, according to China News; according to a Sohu retrospective, the city’s reconstruction was complete within ten years.
被困在赵各庄煤矿九百米井下的五名矿工,历时十五天才被陆续救出地面,最后一人于八月十一日获救,前后共计三百五十九小时。据中新网报道,市内的遇难者纪念墙长约五百米、高七点二八米,经过多年补刻与勘误,到二零二六年七月已镌刻二十四万七千九百八十六个姓名,比官方公布的死亡人数多出五千多人;据搜狐一篇回顾文章,唐山的恢复建设仅用十年便告完成。
A Steel City that Passed the Trillion Mark
一座突破万亿元大关的钢铁之城
Tangshan produced 121.49 million tonnes of crude steel in 2023, according to its statistical communiqué, more than the national output of any country except China and India, by Economic Observer’s reckoning; in 2020 its output reached 144 million tonnes, 13.68 percent of China’s total.
据唐山市统计公报显示,二零二三年唐山粗钢产量为一亿二千一百四十九万吨;据《经济观察报》测算,这一产量超过除中国和印度之外任何一个国家的全国粗钢产量;二零二零年,唐山粗钢产量曾达一亿四千四百万吨,占全国总产量的百分之十三点六八。
According to Tangshan’s 2024 statistical communiqué, GDP reached ¥1.00039 trillion, up 5.6 percent, making it the first city in Hebei and the 27th in China to pass ¥1 trillion; per capita output was ¥129,565, secondary industry made up 50.4 percent of the economy and the permanent population stood at 7.7228 million.
据唐山市二零二四年统计公报显示,全市GDP达一万零三点九亿元,同比增长百分之五点六,成为河北省首个、全国第二十七个GDP突破万亿元的城市;人均产值十二万九千五百六十五元,第二产业占比百分之五十点四,常住人口七百七十二万二千八百人。
Getting to Tangshan means a high-speed train on the Beijing–Tangshan intercity railway, which opened on 30 December 2022 and linked Beijing Station and Tangshan in as little as 1 hour 3 minutes, against nearly four hours before. Sannühe Airport handled 669,000 passengers in 2023, up 93.3 percent, with 22 routes serving 27 cities.
前往唐山,可乘坐二零二二年十二月三十日开通的京唐城际铁路,北京站至唐山站最快仅需一小时零三分钟,而此前则需近四个小时。三女河机场二零二三年旅客吞吐量为六十六万九千人次,同比增长百分之九十三点三,年末开通航线二十二条,通达二十七个城市。
The railway begun at Tangshan in 1881 was progressively extended to Tianjin, Shanhaiguan and northeast China, becoming an ancestor of today’s Beijing–Harbin railway.
一八八一年从唐山起步的这条铁路,此后逐步延伸至天津、山海关和东北,最终成为今天京哈铁路的历史源头之一。
