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50-734: Shōwa Steel Works began as the Anshan Iron & Steel Works , a subsidiary of the South Manchurian Railway Company in 1918. The city of Anshan in Liaoning was chosen for its proximity to the Takushan iron ore deposits and rail works at Mukden . The company used low grade iron; in 1934 it mined 950,000 tonnes . In 1933, after a reorganization, it was renamed the Shōwa Steel Works . Shōwa Steel produced pig iron and steel , and

100-691: A billion yen in 1930. Mantetsu was by far the largest corporation in Japan, and also its most profitable, averaging rates of return from 25 to 45 percent per year. During the 1920s, Mantetsu provided for over a quarter of the Japanese government's tax revenues . Over 75% of Mantetsu's income was generated by its freight business, with the key to profitability coming from soybean exports, both to Japan proper and to Europe. Soybean production increased exponentially with increasing demand for soy oil, and for soy meal for use in fertilizer and animal feed . By 1927, half of

150-513: A controlling interest. As part of the new business plan, Shōwa Steel licensed the Krupp-Renn process from German steel makers, and sent people to Nazi Germany for training from September 1937. Equipment received from Krupp was installed by 1939, greatly increasing production efficiencies. Total production of processed iron in Manchuria reached 1,000,000 tonnes in 1931-32, of which almost half

200-454: A harder-hitting and longer-ranged 23 mm (0.91 in) cannon. Additional changes were made as a result of problems encountered during testing related to engine and propeller failures, and equipment changes were made throughout the aircraft's service life. The Tu-4 first flew on 19 May 1947 and was flown by test pilot Nikolai Rybko . Serial production started immediately, and the type would enter large-scale service by 1949. The aircraft

250-455: A high-ranking general to use Soviet-made parachutes. Differences were limited to the aforementioned sheet-metal gauges, the engines, the defensive weapons, the radio (a later model used in lend-lease B-25s was used in place of the radio in the interned B-29s) and the identification friend or foe (IFF) system since the American IFF was obviously unsuitable. The Soviet Shvetsov ASh-73 engine

300-643: A nuclear weapon, the RDS-3 . The Soviet Air Force operated 847 Tupolev Tu-4 bombers between 1948 and early 1960, initially as long-range bombers. The first regiment to be re-equipped on the Tu-4 was the 185th Guards Aviation Regiment of the 13th Guards Bomber Aviation Division, stationed at Poltava Air Base in the Ukrainian SSR . The training of personnel was carried out in Kazan , at the 890th long-range bomber regiment, turned into

350-842: A side note, on one of the B-29 Superfortress missions, an aircraft commanded by Captain Howard Jarrel suffered engine damage through a Japanese antiaircraft burst over the Anshan target zone. Rather than crash-land in Japanese-held territory, he decided to land in Vladivostok , two hours to the northeast, in the Soviet Far East . As the Soviet Union was still neutral in the Pacific War , when

400-891: A training unit. The pilots of the 890th Regiment had extensive experience flying American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberator aircraft. In March 1949 the 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment  [ ru ] received Tu-4s; the 121st Guards received Tu-4Rs in 1953. In 1954 the Soviets began phasing out the Tu-4 as Tupolev Tu-16 bombers entered service and, beginning in 1956, to Tupolev Tu-95 bombers. Tu-4s withdrawn from front line units were used for transport duties. On 28 February 1953, Joseph Stalin gave China ten Tu-4 heavy bombers, and in 1960 two additional aircraft configured as navigational trainers arrived in Beijing . 11 Tu-4s were refitted with AI-20K turboprop engines between 1970 and 1973. The last PLAAF Tu-4

450-470: A unique food culture in Manchukuo. They offered a variety of special cuisine such as Yamato beef steak, Mongolian barbeque , and sorghum vulgare (kaoliang) confectionery in dining cars along the line and in the railway-operated Yamato Hotel . There was little uptake in the cuisine however after the fall of Manchukuo. Tu-4 The Tupolev Tu-4 ( Russian : Туполев Ту-4 ; NATO reporting name : Bull )

500-642: Is a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid-1960s. The aircraft was a copy of the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress , having been reverse-engineered from seized aircraft that had made emergency landings in the USSR. Toward the end of World War II , the Soviet Union saw the need for a strategic bombing capability similar to that of

550-744: The 1896 secret treaty and the 1898 lease convention between Qing China and Imperial Russia in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War . Following the Japanese victory over Imperial Russia in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War and the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth , most of the southern branch ( Harbin — Port Arthur ) of the China Eastern Railway was transferred to Japanese control. The last station remaining in Russian hands

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600-754: The American Locomotive Company at Dunkirk, NY . A visiting executive from the Erie Railroad was quite impressed with the arrangement, and described South Manchurian Railway ca. 1913 as "the only railroad in the whole world that is like our American railroads (and they are, fairly speaking, the best)". Mantetsu quickly expanded the system inherited from Russia to staggering proportions, building coal mines at Fushun and Yantai , and harbor facilities at Andong , Yingkou , and Dalian . At each station, Mantetsu built hotels for travelers and warehouses for goods. Japanese settlers were encouraged through

650-613: The Chosen Government Railway in Japanese-occupied Korea . However, it was also involved in nearly every aspect of the economic, cultural and political life of Manchuria , from power generation to agricultural research, for which reason it was often referred to as "Japan's East India Company in China". Nisshō Inoue , the founder of the interwar Japanese far-right militant organization Ketsumeidan (血盟団, League of Blood),

700-598: The Pacific War , and was subject to constant attack by B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers of the USAAF . Imperial Japanese Army detached the 1st Chutai (unit) of 104th Sentai (squadron) of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force , to Anshan, with other air squadrons for industrial defense purposes. Although this unit was equipped with modern Nakajima Ki-84 Ia (Manshū Type) "Hayate" Frank fighters, manufactured by Manchuria Airplane Manufacturing Company ,

750-611: The "gauge adapted by the South Manchuria Railway" (i.e., the standard gauge ) would continue from the Changchun Station to the Kuancheng Station. By the end of 1907, the company employed 9,000 Japanese and 4,000 Chinese. By 1910, those numbers had increased to 35,000 and 25,000 respectively. The railway used a significant amount of U.S.-made rails and signaling equipment, as well as some steam locomotives built by

800-576: The 1930s, until the Chinese Eastern railway itself was bought by Manchukuo and converted to the standard gauge in the mid-1930s. In 1936, the company owned 466 locomotives, 554 coaches and 8134 goods wagons. In 1945, the Soviet Union invaded and overran Manchukuo . Rolling stock and movable equipment was looted and taken back to the Soviet Union ; some was returned when the Chinese Communist government came into power. Mantetsu itself

850-486: The Soviet Union had to be brought into production. Extensive re-engineering had to take place to compensate for the differences, and Soviet official strength margins had to be decreased to avoid further redesign. Despite those challenges, the prototype Tu-4 weighed only 340 kg (750 lb) more than the B-29, a difference of less than 1%. The engineers and suppliers of components were under pressure from Tupolev, Stalin, and

900-523: The Soviet Union with B-29s under Lend Lease . However, on four occasions during 1944, individual B-29s made emergency landings in Soviet territory and one crashed after the crew bailed out. In accordance with the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact , the Soviets were neutral in the Pacific War and so the bombers were interned and kept by the Soviets. Despite Soviet neutrality, the U.S. demanded

950-542: The Soviet strategic bomber program. Tu-4s were withdrawn from Soviet service in the 1960s, being replaced by more advanced aircraft including the Tupolev Tu-16 jet bomber (starting in 1954) and the Tupolev Tu-95 turboprop bomber (starting in 1956). By the beginning of the 1960s, the only Tu-4s still operated by the Soviets were used for transport or airborne laboratory purposes. A Tu-4A was the first Soviet aircraft to drop

1000-700: The Tu-4 threw the U.S. Air Force into panic since the aircraft possessed sufficient range to attack Chicago or Los Angeles on a one-way mission, and that may have informed the maneuvers and air combat practice conducted by US and British air forces in 1948 involving fleets of B-29s. The tests were conducted by the RAF Central Fighter Establishment and co-operative US B-29 groups and involved demonstration of recommended methods of attack against B-29/Tu 4-type bombers using RAF Gloster Meteor and de Havilland Vampire jet fighters. The Soviets developed four different midair refueling systems to extend

1050-500: The Western Allies. The Soviet VVS air arm had the locally designed Petlyakov Pe-8 four-engined "heavy" in service at the start of the war, but only 93 had been built by the end of the war and the type had become obsolete. The U.S. regularly conducted bombing raids on Japan , from distant Pacific forward bases using B-29 Superfortresses. Joseph Stalin ordered the development of a comparable bomber. The U.S. twice refused to supply

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1100-829: The bomber landed, all crewmen were immediately arrested and the aircraft confiscated. This incident led to the development of the Soviet Tu-4 "Bull" bomber, a reverse-engineered copy of the B-29. South Manchurian Railway Company The South Manchuria Railway ( Japanese : 南満州鉄道 , romanized :  Minamimanshū Tetsudō ; simplified Chinese : 南满洲铁道 ; traditional Chinese : 南滿洲鐵道 ; pinyin : Nánmǎnzhōu Tiědào ), officially The South Manchuria Railway Company, Ltd. ( 南満州鉄道株式会社, kyujitai : 南滿洲鐵道株式會社 , Minamimanshū Tetsudō Kabushikigaisha ) , Mantetsu ( Japanese : 満鉄 , romanized :  Mantetsu ) or Mantie ( simplified Chinese : 满铁 ; traditional Chinese : 滿鐵 ; pinyin : Mǎntiě ) for short,

1150-450: The bomber's range, but these were fitted to only a few aircraft, and only a small number of the final design were installed on operational aircraft before the Tu-4 was superseded by the Tu-16 . A total of 847 Tu-4s had been built when production ended in the Soviet Union in 1952, some of which went to China during the later 1950s. Many experimental variants were built and the experience launched

1200-575: The construction of schools, libraries, hospitals and public utilities . The Mantetsu Research Wing was the centerpiece of Japan's colonial program, and instigated agricultural research into development of soybean farming. Land under cultivation expanded 70% in 20 years. From 1916, Mantestu began to spin off a number of subsidiary companies, including Showa Steel Works , Dalian Ceramics, Dalian Oil & Fat, South Manchurian Glass, as well as flour mills , sugar mills , electrical power plants, shale oil plants and chemical plants. On 31 July 1917,

1250-456: The design work during the first year, and 105,000 drawings were made. By the end of the second year, the Soviet industry was to produce twenty copies of the aircraft, ready for state acceptance trials. The Soviet Union used the metric system and so sheet aluminium in thicknesses matching the B-29's U.S. customary measurements was unavailable. The corresponding metric-gauge metal was of different thicknesses. Alloys and other materials new to

1300-772: The end of the 1930s, there were over 780 Japanese industrial plants in Fengtian province. In 1937, under the direction of the Kwantung Army , Japanese industrialist Yoshisuke Aikawa organized a holding company called the Manchurian Industrial Development Company ("Mangyō"), a Manchukuo zaibatsu with major shareholdings in the South Manchuria Railway , co-owned by Nissan and Manchukuo. The new zaibatsu invested heavily in Shōwa Steel, and took

1350-746: The four had deicing boots , as would be used on the Tu-4. The fourth B-29 was returned to the US along with its crew with the end of the Soviet-Japanese peace. The Soviets declared war on Japan two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima , in accordance with the Yalta Agreement . Stalin told Tupolev to duplicate the Superfortress in as short a time as possible instead of continuing with his own comparable ANT-64/Tu-10. The reverse-engineering effort involved 900 factories and research institutes, which finished

1400-517: The gauge of 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ), during the war it had been converted by the advancing Japanese troops to the Japanese 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) gauge, in order to facilitate the use of rolling stock brought from Japan. But once the new Japanese South Manchuria Railway Company took possession of the line, it had the tracks re-gauged again, now to the gauge of 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge , presumably with an eye to connecting

1450-508: The government to create an exact clone of the original B-29 to facilitate production. Tupolev had to overcome substantial resistance to use equipment that was not only already in production but also sometimes superior to that found on the B-29s. Each alteration and every component made was scrutinized and was subject to a lengthy bureaucratic decision process. Kerber, then Tupolev's deputy, recalled in his memoirs that engineers needed authorization from

1500-668: The line from there to Dalian is today part of the Shenda Railway from Changchun to Dalian, whilst the Shenyang–Changchun section is now part of the Jingha Railway ; the branch lines have also been part of China Railway since then. The main line from Changchun to Port Arthur, as Luishun was called under Russian rule, was built between 1898 and 1903 by the Russians as the southern branch of their Chinese Eastern Railway according to

1550-459: The majority in many of the towns and cities served by Mantetsu . Mantetsu prided itself on state-of-the-art urban planning , with modern sewer systems , public parks , and creative modern architecture far in advance of what could be found in Japan itself. These things were possible due to Mantetsu's tremendous profitability, and its political power to seize property and silence opposition and dissent at will through its political connections to

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1600-627: The management of the Chosen Government Railway ( Sentetsu ) in Japanese-occupied Korea was transferred from the Railway Bureau of the Government-General of Korea to Mantetsu, which established the Mantetsu Keijō/Gyeongseong Railway Administration ( Japanese : 満鉄京城管理局 , Mantetsu Keijō Kanrikyoku ; Korean : 만철 경성 관리국 , Mancheol Gyeongseong Gwalliguk ), and under Mantetsu control Korea's railway network

1650-454: The military and totalitarian national leadership. In 1934, Mantetsu inaugurated the " Asia Express ", a high speed train from Dalian to the Manchukuo capital of Xinjing (Changchun). Reaching a top speed of 134 km/h (83 mph), the "Asia Express" was the fastest scheduled train in Asia at the time. Changchun remained the break of gauge point between the Russian and standard gauges in

1700-439: The plant suffered heavy damage from the air raids, losing up to 30% of its capacity. After the end of the war, Workers' and Peasants' Red Army forces dismantled anything that was left of Shōwa Steel Works and shipped it to the Soviet Union . The Chinese communists then occupied the ruins, and rebuilt the factory into the Anshan Iron & Steel Works , which remains one of the major steel producing plants in modern China. As

1750-541: The return of the bombers, but were refused. Three repairable B-29s were flown to Moscow and delivered to the Tupolev OKB . One B-29 was dismantled, the second was used for flight tests and training, and the third was left as a standard for cross-reference. The aircraft included one Boeing-Wichita –5-BW, two Boeing-Wichita –15-BWs and the wreckage of one Boeing-Renton –1-BN, comprising three different models from two different production lines, at Wichita and Renton. Only one of

1800-451: The steel mill was soon surrounded by a large industrial complex of other factories to produce a variety of metal products. Sumitomo Steel Pipe established a plant to produce steel pipes, and Manchurian Roll Manufacturing Company to produce steel mill rolls . To feed the furnaces, coal mines were established at Fushun , 35 kilometers to the east, which also led to electric power plants, coal liquefaction plants, cement works, brick kilns. By

1850-507: The system to other railways of China. In 1907, an agreement was reached between the Japanese and Russian authorities about connecting the Japanese South Manchuria Railway with the line to the north, which remained in the hands of Russian China Far East Railway. According to the agreement, Russian gauge tracks would continue from the "Russian" Kuanchengzi Station to the "Japanese" Changchun station , and vice versa, tracks on

1900-515: The world's supply of soybean was from Manchuria and the efforts by Mantetsu to expand production and to ship to export ports was a classic example of an extractive colonial economy dependent on a single product. In 1931, the Mukden Incident occurred, where the Japanese military faked an attack on the railway by Chinese partisans as a pretext for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria . Mantetsu

1950-526: Was a development of the Wright R-1820 but was not otherwise related to the B-29's Wright R-3350 . The ASh-73 also powered some of Aeroflot 's remaining obsolescent Petlyakov Pe-8 airframes, a much-earlier Soviet four-engined heavy bomber, whose production was curtailed by higher-priority programs. The B-29's remote-controlled gun turrets were redesigned to accommodate the Soviet Nudelman NS-23 ,

2000-602: Was a large National Policy Company  [ ja ] of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operation of railways on the Dalian – Fengtian (Mukden) – Changchun (called Xinjing from 1931 to 1945) corridor in northeastern China , as well as on several branch lines. In 1905, after Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War , this area was taken over by Japan as the South Manchuria Railway Zone . Mantetsu

2050-447: Was also charged with a government-like role in managing the rail transportation system after the formation of Manchukuo in 1932, including management of the (theoretically independent) Manchukuo National Railway . By 1938, Mantetsu had 72 subsidiary companies, development projects in 25 urban areas and carried 17,515,000 passengers per year. Between 1930 and 1940, the Japanese population of Manchukuo rose by 800,000 making ethnic Japanese

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2100-584: Was at Kuanchengzi ( 寬城子 ) in modern-day Changchun . The northernmost Japanese-controlled station was the Changchun railway station . Under the authorization of Emperor Meiji , Japan then established a new semi-privately held company, the South Manchurian Railway Company (a.k.a. Mantetsu ), with a capitalization of 200 million yen to operate the railroad and to develop settlements and industries along its route. The organizing committee

2150-502: Was dissolved by order of the American occupation authorities in occupied Japan . The People's Republic of China government later merged the northern half of the South Manchuria Railway's mainline (the Renkyō Line ) with other railway lines to form the present Beijing–Harbin railway . In conjunction with magazine advertising by Japan Tourist Bureau (JTB), the railway attempted to create

2200-514: Was employed by Mantetsu from 1909 to 1920. In 1945, the Soviet Union invaded and overran Manchukuo , and following Japan's defeat in the Pacific War , Mantetsu itself was dissolved by order of the American occupation authorities in occupied Japan . The railway was operated by the Soviets for a time, and handed over to China Railway after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Fengtian has been called Shenyang since 1945, and

2250-475: Was established in 1906 to operate the railways taken over from the Russians. Subsequently, Mantetsu expanded by building new lines for itself and for Chinese-owned undertakings, and after the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932, it was also entrusted with the management of the Manchukuo National Railway . Between 1917 and 1925, Mantetsu was also responsible for the management of

2300-642: Was expanded rapidly. On 1 April 1925, management of Sentetsu was returned to the Railway Bureau, though Mantetsu retained control of the line along the Korea–Manchuria border from the port of Najin in Korea to Tumen in Manchuria and to Sangsambong in Korea. Mantetsu called this line the North Chosen Line , and it remained under Mantetsu control until 1945. Company assets rose from 163 million yen in 1908 to over

2350-530: Was first displayed during a flyover on 3 August 1947 at the Tushino Aviation Day parade . At first three aircraft flew over and the Western observers assumed that they were merely the three B-29 bombers which they knew had been diverted to the Soviet Union during World War II. Minutes later a fourth aircraft appeared, and the observers realized the Soviets had reverse-engineered the B-29. Entry into service of

2400-469: Was headed by General Kodama Gentarō , and after his death, by General Terauchi Masatake . Count Gotō Shimpei , formerly the Japanese governor of Taiwan , was appointed the first president of the company, and the headquarters was established in Tokyo before relocated to Dalian in 1907. One of the first tasks of the new company was to change the railway gauge. The rail line was originally built according to

2450-401: Was made by Shōwa Steel; iron production grew to 7,000,000 of tonnes in 1938. In 1941, Shōwa Steel Works had a total capacity production of 1,750,000 tonnes of iron bars and 1,000,000 tonnes of processed steel . By 1942, Shōwa Steel Works total production capacity reached 3,600,000 tonnes, making it one of the major iron and steel centers in the world. It was therefore of strategic importance in

2500-505: Was retired in 1988. In 1969, China developed its first airborne early warning aircraft based on the Tu-4 airframe. The project was named KJ-1 and mounted a Type 843 rotodome above the fuselage of the aircraft. However, due to clutter noise the KJ-1 failed to meet the PLAAF's requirements. The project was canceled in 1979 although further projects were proposed based on Tu-4 platform. The airframe

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