Former Site of the Jiangnan Arsenal

Former Site of the Jiangnan Arsenal

The former site of the Jiangnan Arsenal is a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai.

The former site of the Jiangnan Arsenal is located at No. 2577 Longhua Road. Built in the second year of the Guangxu reign during the Qing Dynasty, the surviving factory building is China's earliest sand-casting workshop used for manufacturing modern firearms and ammunition. The roof trusses are entirely made of iron, supported by twenty-four iron columns.

In the first year of the Tongzhi reign (1862), Li Hongzhang founded the Shanghai Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau in Shanghai. The Jiangnan Black Powder Factory was a subsidiary of the Jiangnan Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, located within the Creative Compound at No. 2577 Longhua Road. Today, there’s little trace of this once being the largest armory in Asia—only remnants of broken walls and scattered bricks remain. Photographs on the walls tell the story of its former role as an armament factory. To see what remains of the military factory, one should visit the Songhu Garrison Command Headquarters, which preserves the iron-pillared factory building of the Qing-era Longhua Ammunition Factory—one of the earliest constructed and utilized workshops. The roof, supported by steel columns, features blue brick walls, entirely steel-framed roof structures, and a construction history of 140 to 150 years, yet it remains intact to this day.

In 1867, China’s first self-produced firearm—the 11mm muzzle-loading rifle modeled after the German Mauser—was replicated here. Both the rifle and its ammunition were manufactured at the Jiangnan Arsenal. The Longhua Arsenal produced firearms and ammunition. The technology, machinery, and the steel columns supporting the factory roof beams all came from the German Krupp Armaments Factory. The architectural design drawings were provided by the German trading firm Risdon Beazley. A total of 88 buildings were constructed, making it the largest ammunition factory in Asia at the time. In the early Republican period, in 1925, the Longhua Arsenal was handed over to the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce and repurposed as a civilian factory. After the liberation, the arsenal came under the jurisdiction of the Nanjing Military Region and served as the First Sub-factory of the military machinery plant for the armed forces.

The former site of the Jiangnan Arsenal was listed among the 85 new municipal-level cultural heritage protection units added by the Shanghai Municipal Government on April 4, 2014.