Ruins of the Jinling Machinery Manufacturing Bureau Factory Buildings

Ruins of the Jinling Machinery Manufacturing Bureau Factory Buildings

The ruins of the Jinling Machinery Manufacturing Bureau factory buildings are located within the Chenguang Group at No. 1 Zhengxue Road, outside Zhonghua Gate, in Qinhuai District.

In the summer of the fourth year of the Tongzhi reign (1865), Li Hongzhang, then acting Viceroy of Liangjiang, founded the Jinling Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, which was completed the next year and relocated from the Suzhou Artillery Bureau. It was Nanjing’s first modern mechanized factory and later became one of the country’s four major armament factories, second only to the Jiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai. The bureau mainly produced new-style Western weaponry such as magazine guns, mountain guns, shrapnel shells, and various foreign rifles. It was disbanded in the second year of the Xuantong reign (1910), resumed operations in 1912, and was incorporated into the Shanghai Arsenal by 1928, being renamed the Jinling Arsenal the following year. Seven main factory building ruins remain today.

The first group consists of the Main Machine Factory, Right Factory, and Left Factory, built in the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), the twelfth year (1873), and the fourth year of the Guangxu reign (1878), respectively. All are two-story buildings that have been modified, with floor areas of 946 m², 919 m², and 457 m², respectively. The second group includes the Copper Rolling Factory and the Copper Coiling Factory, both single-story and built in the seventh year of the Guangxu reign (1881), with a total floor area of 1174 m². The third group comprises the Timber Factory, built in the twelfth year of the Guangxu reign (1886), and the Main Machine Factory, built in the thirteenth year (1887), both two-story buildings with floor areas of 1018 m² and 1535 m², respectively.

Further Reading:

· Third Batch of Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units