Ruins of the National Salvation Army Arsenal at Sanchakou

Ruins of the National Salvation Army Arsenal at Sanchakou

The ruins of the Sanchakou National Salvation Army Arsenal are a cultural tourism attraction.

The Sanchakou National Salvation Army Arsenal is located southwest of the current Sanchakou Town Government. Situated on the China-Soviet border, the Sanchakou Arsenal was established in May 1932 at the initiative of Meng Jingqing, a senator of the National Salvation Army, with the approval of Commander Wang Delin, and was founded through donations raised by the Chamber of Commerce and the Farmers’ Association. The arsenal had a four-horsepower gasoline engine, a lathe, as well as a number of wrenches, hammers, files, and other tools. Initially, there were only thirty workers, and its main piece of equipment — the lathe — was disassembled and transported from the Ning’an Flour Mill to Sanchakou by Meng Jingqing. Meng, a member of the Chinese Communist Party, served as the Party branch secretary within the National Salvation Army, while his public role was that of a senator. He was formerly a student at Harbin Institute of Technology and had knowledge of mechanical cutting and lathe operation. During the struggle, he came to believe that if the Communists wanted to resist Japan, they needed their own army, and if they had an army, they needed an arsenal. That’s why he strongly advocated for using equipment dismantled from the Ning’an Flour Mill — which had been sealed as Japanese puppet assets by the National Salvation Army — to build the arsenal. After its establishment, the factory expanded from initial workshops for machinery, gunpowder, casting, forging, and carpentry to include a garment workshop. The workforce grew to over two hundred people, turning the site into the logistical hub of the National Salvation Army. The factory director was Wang Hanqing, and the military representative was Li Fengshan. The arsenal was capable of producing forty-eight sacks of hand grenades and more than thirty mortar shells per day. Local residents of Sanchakou actively contributed funds and materials to the arsenal. They brought in recovered Japanese shell casings and ammunition, and even donated copper coins from the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican era to be used as shell casings. This arsenal remained in operation until January 1933, when Japanese forces captured Dongning County.