Burning Years: From a Labor-Reform Workshop to a Diesel Engine Factory

In 1958, at the Yuquan Reform Camp in Guangxi Province. Company commander Wu Ming takes on the arduous task of making a replica of the 1140 horizontal gas-fired internal combustion engine. No professional team? He selects skilled workers from among the prisoners and assembles a special research group. No advanced equipment? They resort to crude casting methods and hand filing, and even have to go to great lengths to find a belt-driven lathe from the Showa era. The blueprints are finished, but putting them into practice proves a formidable challenge. The research group must overcome all kinds of technical hurdles, including balancing the cast-iron flywheel, stabilizing the gas engine's fuel supply, and optimizing its ignition system… In an era of burning passion, Wu Ming is determined to lead this special team and use their ingenuity and sweat to build Guangxi's first internal combustion engine. From there, an obscure little workshop at the reform camp gradually grows into the country's, and even the world's, leading diesel engine factory!