Mao Yisheng (January 9, 1896 - November 12, 1989) was a Chinese bridge scientist, civil engineer, educator, and social activist. The courtesy name is Tang Chen, a native of Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province. His ancestors were engaged in business, and his grandfather Mao Qian was a civil servant with progressive ideas and revolutionary tendencies. He once founded the "Nanyang Official News" and was a famous figure in Zhenjiang City. Shortly after Mao Yisheng was born, his family moved to Nanjing. At the age of 6, he went to private school. At the age of 7, he enrolled in Siyi School, the first new primary school in China founded in Nanjing in 1903. In 1905, he entered Jiangnan Commercial School and in 1911, he was admitted to Tangshan Road and Mining School. In 1912, when Mr. Sun Yat-sen gave a lecture at the Tangshan Road and Mine School, he pointed out the importance of opening mines and building railways, which strengthened Mao Yisheng's path of "saving the nation through science" and "building the nation through engineering." From then on, he studied harder and regarded building the motherland as a Do it for yourself. In every exam, he ranked first in the class, with a five-year average of 92.5 points in all subjects, which is rare in the school's history. Graduated from the Civil Engineering Department of Tangshan Industrial College in 1916. The following year, he received a master's degree in civil engineering from Cornell University in the United States. In 1921, he received a doctorate in engineering from the Garrison Institute of Technology in the United States. The scientific innovation of his doctoral thesis "Secondary Stresses in Bridge Trusses" is known as "Mao's Law", and he won the "Fettis" Gold Research Medal for Outstanding Graduate Students at Cornell University. After returning to China, he served as professor of Tangshan School of Jiaotong University (Tangshan Jiaotong University), director of engineering at Southeast University, president of Hohai University of Technology, dean of Beiyang Institute of Technology, director of Hangzhou Qiantang River Bridge Engineering Office, dean of Tangshan Institute of Technology of Jiaotong University, Director of the Bridge Design Engineering Division of the Ministry of Transportation of the Kuomintang Government. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he successively served as president of Northern Jiaotong University, director of the Railway Research Institute of the Ministry of Railways, director of the Railway Science Research Institute, vice chairman and honorary chairman of the second session of the China Association for Science and Technology, chairman of the Beijing Association for Science and Technology, and member of the Department of Technology and Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China The third president of the Civil Engineering Society, a senior member of the International Bridge and Structural Engineering Association from the fifth to seventh sessions of the Jiusan Society, and a member of the International Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering Association. In the 1930s, Mao Yisheng's achievements in engineering technology of the Qiantang River Bridge made foreign colleagues look at China's bridge construction engineers with admiration. In the 1950s, during the construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, Mao Yisheng served as the chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee composed of Chinese and foreign experts and solved 14 problems in the construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. When he was invited to visit his alma mater at Kaliki-Mellon University in 1979, the president awarded him the "Outstanding Alumni" medal in recognition of his contribution to world engineering technology. In 1982, he was awarded the title of foreign academician by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. In 1933, he led the design and construction of the Qiantang River Bridge in Hangzhou, which was the first dual-purpose railway and highway bridge designed and built by the Chinese themselves. He also participated in the construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, the first modern bridge in New China. In 1959, he served as the leader of the structural review team of the Great Hall of the People and contributed his skills, experience and wisdom to this major historical building. Mao Yisheng is an important founder of China's current bridge engineering. As an educator, Mao Yisheng has been a professor in five schools, the president of two universities, and the dean of two colleges in more than 20 years of working in the education field. He actively advocates popular science education and has written a large number of popular science articles such as "Bridge Talk" and "Chinese Stone Arch Bridge".

Mao Yisheng has been studious and motivated since he was a child, and is good at independent thinking. When he was 10 years old, during the Dragon Boat Festival, a dragon boat race was held in his hometown. People watching the race stood on the Wende Bridge. Due to too many people, the bridge collapsed, killing many people or drowning. This unfortunate incident weighed heavily on Mao Yisheng's heart. He secretly made up his mind: When he grows up, he must build the strongest bridge. From then on, whenever Mao Yisheng saw a bridge, whether it was a stone bridge or a wooden bridge, he would always see enough from the bridge deck to the bridge pillars. After Mao Yisheng went to school, he saw articles and passages about bridges in books, so he copied them into his notebook. When he encountered pictures about bridges, he cut and pasted them. Over time, he accumulated several thick books. book.

After graduating from middle school, Mao Yisheng was admitted to the Civil Engineering Department of Tangshan Industrial College. After graduating in 1916, with the first place in the Tangshan Road Mine, he was recommended by Tsinghua University to study in the United States and became a graduate student. In September, he set off to report to Cornell University in the United States. Unexpectedly, the director of the school's registration office said arrogantly: "I have never heard of this school in Tangshan, China. You must pass the exam and pass the exam before you can register." After passing the exam, Mao Yisheng's results were excellent, so he was registered as a graduate student in the bridge major. From then on, graduates of Tangshan Road and Mine School who were recommended to study at Cornell University in the United States no longer had to pass the exam. Mao Yisheng received a professional master's degree from Cornell University in 1917 and a doctorate in engineering from Caltech Institute of Technology in the United States in 1919. The doctoral thesis was entitled "Second Stress in Bridge Mechanics". This paper was of world-class quality at the time and was awarded the Gold Research Medal by Galiki Institute of Technology. In December 1919, 24-year-old Mao Yisheng resolutely returned to China and worked as a professor at the Tangshan School of Jiaotong University. Mao Yisheng said: "Looking back on my study life, these 14 years of hard work are like building a bridge, building solid piers for my life's career." After Mao Yisheng returned to China after completing his studies, he successively served as a professor at Tangshan Industrial College and Nanjing Southeast University. Professor and director of university engineering, president of Hohai University of Technology, president and professor of Tianjin Beiyang Institute of Technology, director of Jiangsu Provincial Water Conservancy Bureau, general manager and chief engineer of China Bridge Corporation of the Ministry of Transportation, president of Northern Jiaotong University, etc.

From 1933 to 1937, Mao Yi was promoted to the director of the Qiantang River Bridge Engineering Department and presided over the construction of my country's first modern bridge for both highway and railway use - the "Qiantang River Bridge". He used the "water jet method", "caisson method", "floating distance method", etc. to solve technical problems in bridge construction. Since then, Mao Yisheng's footprints have spread all over the country, and his name remains in various parts of the motherland together with the newly built bridges. After five years of hard work, Mao Yisheng finally completed the modern Qiantang River Bridge.

September 26 is the 65th anniversary of the completion and opening of the Qiantang River Bridge. 65 years ago today, my country's modern bridge engineering pioneers headed by Mr. Mao Yisheng built the first modern steel bridge designed and constructed by the Chinese themselves on the Qiantang River, setting an immortal monument in the history of Chinese bridge engineering.

The construction of the Qiantang River Bridge started in 1934. At that time, the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway was under construction. To connect with the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway, a bridge needed to be built over the Qiantang River. The Qianjiang River is a famously dangerous river with extremely complex hydrogeological conditions. The water potential is not only affected by flash floods in the upper reaches, but also restricted by the rise and fall of the sea tide in the lower reaches. If hit by a typhoon, the river surface will often surge and roll. The quicksand at the bottom of the Qiantang River is 41 meters thick and changes unpredictable. It is known as "the Qiantang River has no bottom". Therefore, there is a proverb among the people that "building a bridge on the Qiantang River - it can't be done", and the engineering and technical circles also believe that building a bridge on the Qiantang River is a very difficult task. Mr. Mao Yisheng was determined to pursue a career in bridges when he was young, and later went to the United States to study bridges at Cornell University and Kaliki Institute of Technology, where he received a doctorate. He saw that the steel bridges on the rivers of his motherland were all built by foreigners, and was quite sad. He was determined to win over the Chinese people and build their own bridges. So he faced the difficulties and accepted the order with great enthusiasm. He appointed himself as the director of the bridge engineering department and asked his classmate Luo Ying to be the chief engineer.

The first difficulty encountered in building a bridge is piling. In order to stabilize the bridge foundation, 1,440 wooden piles need to be driven through 41 meters of sand at 9 pier positions, and the wooden piles are erected on the stone layer. The sand layer is thick and hard, and the pile cannot be broken if it is driven lightly, and the pile is broken if it is driven too hard. Mao Yisheng was inspired by the water from the watering pot that flushed the soil out of small holes. He used the "water shooting method" of pumping river water to punch out deep holes in the thick and hard sand and then driving piles. He originally only drove one pile a day and night, but the number increased to 30 piles can be driven, which greatly speeds up the project progress. The second difficulty encountered in building the bridge is that the water flow is fast and difficult to construct. Mao Yisheng invented the "caisson method". A box made of reinforced concrete was sunk into the water with its mouth facing down and covered at the bottom of the river. Then high-pressure air was used to squeeze out the water in the box. Workers dug sand in the box to make the caisson and The wooden piles gradually became one. Build piers on the caisson. It was not easy to place the caisson. At first, a caisson was sometimes rushed downstream by the river, and sometimes pushed upstream by the tide, scurrying up and down. Later, the 3-ton anchor was changed to a 10-ton anchor, and the caisson problem was solved. The third difficulty was erecting the steel beams. Mao Yisheng adopted the "floating transportation method" that cleverly utilized natural forces. When the tide rose, the steel beams were transported by boat to between the two piers. When the tide fell, the steel beams fell on the two piers, saving labor and time, and greatly progressed. accelerate.

The Qiantang River Bridge is a bridge that has withstood the flames of the Anti-Japanese War. At the end of the bridge construction period, the Anti-Japanese War in Songhu was intensifying, and Japanese aircraft often bombed it. Once, Mao Yisheng was discussing a problem with several engineers and supervisors in the caisson of Bridge Pier No. 6, when suddenly all the lights in the caisson went out. It turned out that all the lights at the construction site were turned off due to Japanese bombing. The Qiantang River Bridge braved enemy bombing and was finally completed and opened to traffic on September 26, 1937.

After the Qiantang River Bridge was completed, it made outstanding contributions to the Anti-Japanese War. The inscription on the bridge construction monument records this tragic historical fact: "At the time when the Anti-Japanese War broke out, we were working day and night under bombing by enemy planes, and the railways and highways were opened to traffic one after another. It was useless to support the Songhu Anti-Japanese War and rush to transport evacuation materials and vehicles. The people were waiting to be ferried. Hundreds of thousands of people were able to cross the river safely. When the construction was late, they knew that the war situation was unfavorable, so empty holes were left on the bridge piers that were most difficult to repair, and explosives were buried along with the five-hole steel beams until Hangzhou failed to defend and the enemy cavalry was approaching. , it was detonated decisively on December 23, 1937. At that time, Mr. Mao left an oath that he would not restore the bridge, and he brought the drawings and documents to the rear. "In order to block the enemy, Mao Yisheng. Being ordered to blow up the bridge built by one's own hands was such a tragic and heroic act. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Mao Yisheng fulfilled his vow and presided over the repair of the bridge. Mr. Mao Yisheng has always done his job in building bridges, blowing up bridges and repairing bridges, and he has fulfilled his responsibilities to the fullest.

The Qiantang River Bridge was built in the war of resistance against Japan and was reborn in the era of peace construction. She not only wrote an epic page in the Chinese nation's struggle against foreign invaders, but also played an important role in the country's economic construction. She connected the Shanghai-Hangzhou and Zhejiang-Jiangxi railways, and transformed both sides of the Qiantang River from a natural chasm into a thoroughfare. Since its opening to traffic 65 years ago, it has made immortal contributions to the development of my country's transportation industry and the prosperity of the local economy.

The Qiantang River Bridge is not only a milestone in the history of bridge construction in my country, but also the cradle of bridge engineers in my country. Mr. Mao Yisheng turned the construction site into a school, attracted a large number of civil engineering students to participate in engineering practice, and trained a group of bridge engineering talents for the country. Some of the people in charge of some important bridge projects in my country, such as the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge and the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, have experienced the baptism of the Qiantang River Bridge construction.

The Qiantang River Bridge has demonstrated to the world the ingenuity of Chinese scientific and technological workers and the ability of the Chinese nation to stand on its own among the nations of the world.

The great spirit of patriotism shown by the pioneers in my country's bridge engineering field headed by Mr. Mao Yisheng in the construction of the Qiantang River Bridge, the spirit of scientific and technological innovation that dared to be the first, and the fighting spirit of overcoming all difficulties and obstacles and moving forward courageously will always be an inspiration. The precious spiritual wealth of our unremitting struggle for the prosperity and strength of our motherland.

From 1955 to 1957, Mao Yisheng served as chairman of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge Technical Advisory Committee. He also accepted the task of building my country's first bridge across the Yangtze River, the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. Construction of the bridge officially started in September 1955 and was completed on September 25, 1957, two years ahead of schedule. On October 15, 1957, the inauguration ceremony of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge was held. Mao Yisheng designed this bridge as a double-layer steel truss bridge for both railway and highway purposes. The upper level is a highway bridge, 22.5 meters wide, of which the roadway is 18 meters wide; the lower level is a railway bridge, 18 meters wide. The main bridge is 1155.5 meters long, and together with the road approach bridges at both ends, the total length is 1670.4 meters. The bridge connects the Beijing-Hankong Railway and the Guangdong-Hankou Railway, becoming the main transportation artery running through the north and south of my country. It also connects the three towns of Wuhan into one, ensuring the integration of the railway and highway networks in the north and south of my country.

When the Great Hall of the People was built in Beijing in 1958, Premier Zhou Enlai pointed out when reviewing the project design: "It must be guaranteed by Mao Yisheng's signature." Party and state leaders have great trust in Mao Yisheng. Mao Yisheng was also extremely responsible for the party's work. He made a comprehensive review and accounting of the structural design of the Great Hall of the People and finally signed it.

Mao Yisheng spent his life learning, building and writing bridges. He has published more than 200 articles in Chinese and foreign newspapers. He presided over the compilation of "History of Chinese Ancient Bridge Technology" and "Chinese Bridges - Ancient Times to Modern Times" (available in five versions: Japanese, English, French, German and Spanish). He is the author of "Qiantang River Bridge", "Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge", "Selected Works of Mao Yisheng's Popular Science Creations" (1 and 2), "Collected Works of Mao Yisheng", etc.

Since 1954, he has been elected as a member of the first to fifth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a representative of the National People's Congress, and a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. In October 1987, he gloriously joined the Communist Party of China. He has made outstanding contributions to the bridge construction industry in our country and the world. Died of illness on November 12, 1989.

Edit this paragraph Mao Yisheng’s career

In 1920, Mao Yisheng was invited to return to his alma mater as a professor. At the age of 24, he was the youngest engineering professor in China. From then on, more than 30 years of engineering education began. The following year, he served as deputy director (vice president) of Jiaotong University Tangshan School. In July 1922, he was hired as a professor at Southeast University. In 1923, the school established the Engineering Department and served as the first director of the Engineering Department. In 1924, the Engineering Department of Southeast University merged with the Hohai Engineering College to form Hohai University of Technology, and Mao Yi was promoted to the first president. In 1926, he was appointed professor of Peiyang University. In 1928, he served as dean of the Second College of Engineering of Peking University (Beiyang Institute of Technology). In 1930, he was appointed as the Director of Water Conservancy of Jiangsu Province and took charge of the planning of Xiangshan New Port. In 1932, he returned to Peiyang University to teach. During his tenure as principal, he made major improvements to the school management, teaching system, curriculum facilities, teaching equipment, etc., making the school a vibrant and prosperous situation, deeply supported and loved by teachers and students.

Mao Yisheng served as the president of Tangshan Jiaotong University five times. He always cared about the rise and fall of his alma mater and won honors and achievements for his alma mater. In 1991, a bronze statue of Shumao Yisheng was commemorated by Southwest Jiaotong University (Tangshan Railway College moved to Sichuan Province after the Cultural Revolution and was renamed Southwest Jiaotong University).

Mao Yisheng pioneered the heuristic teaching method of "Students Test Teachers" and devoted his life to education reform. He published more than 20 papers such as "Research on Engineering Education" and advocated "Learn first, learn later, "Learning while learning", an education system that combines theory with practice