We saw..., went to see the "sea" in Shanghai, and got on the small train
In search of answers, we boarded the Jinshan Railway to Jinshanwei. Departing from Shanghai South Railway Station and going directly to Jinshanwei, it only takes 38 minutes. This is the first municipal railway in Shanghai and the first rapid municipal railway in the Yangtze River Delta region. It is affectionately called by the locals: Jinshan Little Train.
After arriving at Jinshanwei, we went to Jinshanzui Fishing Village and Jinshan City Beach. But unfortunately, we were not able to see the ideal "Jinshan Sea" - the towering dam in the distance intercepted the rough sea water, the only remaining sea water nearby was windless and waveless, and the beach was even full of wild flowers.
The aborigines who have lived in the old streets of Jinshanzui Fishing Village all year round told us that in the past, the sea water was not like this. Before the sea was enclosed, the local villagers could be said to have "grew up in the sea and lived by the sea." When the tide was low, they would go to the beach to pick up some small fish, shrimps, yellow mud snails, and white clams, which would be enough for the fishermen to have a full meal. After a meal, "I can't finish eating." But now, the sea is gone.
We consulted historical information and found out that the sea in Jinshan was originally enclosed in the 1970s.
In February 1972, in order to solve the problem of clothing shortage for people across the country, our country introduced 4 sets of chemical fiber and fertilizer technology and equipment. One set of chemical fiber equipment was settled in Shanghai. Scientific demonstration and survey have proven that Jinshanwei Beach had the best conditions for building a petrochemical production plant at that time. In June of the same year, the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to locate the Shanghai Petrochemical General Plant in Jinshanwei Beach. Therefore, in accordance with the factory construction policy of "basically not occupying farmland", more than 50,000 Jinshan people carried their shoulders on Jinshanwei Beach and started a magnificent land reclamation project.
Data shows that from 1972 to 1992, Shanghai Petrochemical organized more than ten large-scale land reclamation projects, mainly to solve the shortage of production land and laid the foundation for the subsequent development of Shanghai Petrochemical, Jinshan District and even Zhejiang coastal areas. .
Someone once commented on Jinshanwei's sea reclamation project: "It is really a great thing to open up borders for the country and benefit the people. In the history of my country's industrial construction, such large-scale and continuous land reclamation is not unique. Second to none.”
In the early 1970s, the 10,000 acres of beachland that was used to “fight for the Jinshan Mountains” has, after decades of construction and development, now become a modern petrochemical enterprise with assets of over 40 billion yuan and an annual processing capacity of 10 million tons of crude oil. As of the end of 2023, Shanghai Petrochemical's cumulative profits and taxes have reached 210 billion yuan, more than 100 times the state's investment in plant construction in the 1970s, equivalent to the construction of a hundred "golden mountains."
