Meng Tai： Blast Furnace Guard, Labor Hero (Struggle for a Hundred Years, Set Sail for a New Journey · Several Merry Figures)

Meng Tai is at work. Xinhua News Agency

　　In 2009, Meng Tai was elected as "100 People Who Have Moved China Since the Founding of New China". He was awarded the title of "The Most Beautiful Struggler" and "National Labor Model".

　　Meng Tai, born in 1898, was a native of Fengrun County, Hebei Province. He arrived in Anshan in 1926 and joined the Japanese-run Showa Iron Works as a plumbing apprentice in the same year. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1949 and became one of the first industrial workers to develop after the liberation of Anshan.

　　"Blast furnace guard" and labor hero, this is the most vivid image that Meng Tai left to the world. During the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea, he took the initiative to be a factory guard, risking the risk of air strikes, ready to use his body to protect the blast furnace at any time.

　　Meng Tai is equally famous for his spirit of research and hard work. The famous "Meng Tai work method" is a set of work rules and operation techniques that he has explored in the practice of blast furnace work over the years. After the "First Five-Year Plan" began, he led the workers to carry out technical transformation of the production process and equipment, self-made blast furnace trends, and skillfully made "bridge-shaped grips". In addition to completing more than 60 major technical innovations by himself, he also organized and led a large number of technical experts and skilled craftsmen to carry out large-scale technical innovation, technical cooperation and technical research activities, which played an important role in the transformation and construction of Anshan Iron and Steel.

　　In 1964, Meng Tai began to serve as the deputy director of Angang Iron and Steel’s ironmaking plant. Although he was over 60 years old, he was still strong and insisted on not leaving work. He personally established the "Mengtai coke storage tank", which saved thousands of tons of coke for the country every year; improved the double-layer combustion cylinder at the bottom of the hot blast stove, which increased the life of the original single-layer combustion cylinder by nearly 100 times; and successfully developed the cooling tank series technology, which saved 30% of the water consumption of the blast furnace. Meng Tai led a number of technological innovations and inventions, which saved a lot of energy resources for the country.

　　He loved the factory like home, worked hard to start a business, and made significant contributions in the recovery and development of Anshan Iron and Steel’s production. He was received by Mao Zedong eight times, and was elected as a deputy to the First, Second, and Third National People’s Congress, and was elected as an executive member of the Seventh and Eighth National Congresses of the Chinese Trade Union.

　　In September 1967, Meng Tai died in Beijing. With his noble quality and fine style, Meng Tai set an example for Angang employees and left a valuable spiritual wealth for workers across the country.

　　"People’s Daily" (May 30, 2021 edition 04)