In 1960, mechanic Yang Bing used a piece of torn oilcloth to build the "machine repair workshop" in the factory under two litchi trees. There, he and several older generation Double Fish people pulled the hand bellows, turned the hand drill, clamped the worn-out vise, and began to repair the severely worn embryo rolling mold and the ball expansion mold, paving the way for the production of early table tennis balls. This move not only ignited the fire of hope for Double Fish people in difficult years, but also became a vivid symbol of the spirit of "self-reliance and hard work".

Anyone who knows Yang Bing's life experience will be in awe of his life.

Yang Bing was born in a poor peasant family. He lived a miserable life since he was a child with no roof over his head, no land under his feet, no food to eat, and no clothes to wear. When he was ten years old, he worked as a cow and horse for the landlord. He fell ill due to overwork and was driven out by the cruel landlord. In 1946, Yang Bing drifted to Guangzhou to work as an oil press worker. On the eve of Guangzhou's liberation, Yang Bing was the only one of his family of seven who survived. After the founding of New China, Yang Bing was freed from the sea of suffering. In the first spring of the 1960s, in response to Chairman Mao's call to "develop sports and enhance the people's physique" and to meet the people's need for table tennis in the development of sports, Yang Bing and more than 100 employees in the cultural, educational and food industries in the central district at that time packed up their luggage and came to the barren slope of the Boluo Temple in the eastern suburbs of Guangzhou to set up a factory.

This year was when my country suffered severe natural disasters and imperialism, revisionism and counter-revolution were rampantly anti-China. In the early days of entrepreneurship, there were indeed many difficulties. At that time, there were only a few dilapidated factory buildings, poor equipment, weak technical force, and very difficult living conditions. In the face of severe tests, some people could not bear the hardship and left without saying goodbye; some of those who stayed behind also wavered.

The production of table tennis balls requires molds, and at that time there were only dozens of sets of severely worn embryo rolling molds and expansion molds imported from Shanghai. Some comrades were disappointed and said, "Other issues may be negotiable, but if the mold cannot be repaired, the idea of producing table tennis balls may be in vain." And they did not have the special equipment to repair this ball mold. It was difficult to make a new one. What to do?

That night, mechanic Yang Bing tossed and turned and could not sleep. The miserable life before liberation reappeared before his eyes one by one. Today, what reason is there not to run the factory well! Yang Bing recalled the past and a warm current surged in his heart. He made up his mind that even if the difficulties were heavier than the mountains, he would move them!

Yang Bing faced the difficulties and told the party branch: The ball mold must be repaired with equipment or without equipment, and it must be repaired even if it is scraped with fingers! So, under two lychee trees, Yang Bing used a piece of torn oilcloth to build a simple tent equipped with a hand-pulled bellows, a hand-cranked drill and a worn-out vise. This became the first "mechanical repair workshop" of the Chenggong Table Tennis Factory! Under this simple tent, he and other workers scraped and filed the molds one by one. After several days and nights of hard work, they finally repaired the molds with a precision requirement of no more than one-seventh of a hair.

Without a boiler, steam for inflating balls cannot be produced. What to do? We can't wait for the state to allocate boilers to produce table tennis balls! Yang Bing and the workers built small stoves under the straw shed and boiled water in a row of washbasins. The workers in charge of burning the stoves bent over all day and took turns to work. When one person was tired, others would rush to do it. In this way, each stove kept adding coal and fanning. Like "cooking glutinous rice balls", they finally produced the first batch of table tennis balls.

Yang Bing carrying out maintenance work

Dedicated to the public and frugal

"Frugal and frugal, he has not changed for fifteen years." This is everyone's evaluation of Yang Bing.

"Uncle Bing picks up coal" is a story familiar to many people at that time. It was the early days of the factory. Due to inconvenient transportation, coal was relatively scarce. Yang Bing did not avoid the severe cold in winter, nor the scorching heat in summer. He braved the wind and rain and carried a basket to the coal ash pile dumped from other factories every day. He dug with a hoe, sifted with a sieve, and picked up the burnable coal particles one by one, so that the iron furnace burned more and more vigorously and forged batches of tools and simple equipment for the factory.

Once, a few young workers were transferred to the factory. Seeing that Yang Bing always used his rest time to pick up coal slag from the piles of other nearby factories, they said, "Uncle Bing, how much is a few grains of coal worth? Why bother to pick them up everywhere?" Yang Bing heard it and resolutely replied, "A grain of coal is not worth much. A pile of coal can burn a furnace! Today our factory is poor and the country is not rich. We should save some if we can." After that, he picked up the basket again and went outside the factory to pick up coal particles. After hearing this, the young workers quickly picked up a load of bamboo baskets and Yang Bing closely to pick up coal slag...

With the development of production, the factory's family business grew. In 1964, the factory moved from Boluo Temple to Yanzigang, Haizhu District. At this time, the factory's coal yard was next to the iron furnace of the maintenance team. Coal can be picked up with just a stretch of hand. Someone said to Yang Bing: "Now you don't have to carry a basket to pick up coal particles. A pound of coal is not worth a few cents, why bother yourself!" Yang Bing resolutely replied: "Practicing economy and opposing waste is by no means 'asking for hardship', but our true nature of 'hard work and self-reliance'!" Even though the conditions have improved, Yang Bing still carries a basket to pick up coal slag everywhere, just like in the early days of the factory.

Over the past ten years, Yang Bing has saved more than 20 tons of coal for the country. However, Yang Bing's spirit of hard work is not only reflected in picking up coal, but also runs through his daily life and work. He knows that saving a little bit will add up to a lot. On the road, he would pick up a nail or a piece of iron when he saw it; after get off work, he often walked around the factory, collecting the leftover copper sand, iron scraps and other scraps from production and put them to use again. Every move he made revealed his cherishment of national resources and his hope for the future of the factory.

Treat the factory as his home and dare to work and manage

With a sense of responsibility as a master of the country, Yang Bing worked hard and thriftily to produce; with this sense of responsibility as a master, he treated the factory as his home and did more "extra work".

Yang Bing lived in the factory all year round. When the equipment broke down in the middle of the night, he often repaired it on call. One day, Yang Bing was awakened by a shout. It turned out that a ball expansion machine had a malfunction, affecting production. The worker became anxious and came to wake Yang Bing up. Without any hesitation, Yang Bing got up, picked up the tools and went straight to the workshop. After repairing the ball expander, Yang Bing washed his hands and just lay down, someone knocked on the door again and said, "Uncle Bing, the machine I was driving is broken!" Yang Bing answered without hesitation, "Okay, I'll be there!" He immediately put on his work clothes again and went to the workshop again.

The first thing that caught the eye at the Chenggong Table Tennis Factory in the 1960s was the two doors woven with thick iron wire mesh. This was made by Yang Bing himself in the spirit of taking the factory as his home. It turned out that not long after moving from Polo Temple to Yanzigang, the factory decided to make two sturdy doors, and the cost of entrusting an external unit was as high as more than 300 yuan. After Yang Bing returned to the factory from the hospital and learned about this, he immediately found the deputy factory director Huang Cheng and proposed: "Let's do it ourselves!" Using holidays and spare time, Yang Bing led the workers to build the door by hand at only 30 yuan. This incident became one of Yang Bing's many deeds of focusing on the cause of socialist construction.

In the eyes of some people, as long as the workers complete the production tasks, they are doing their best. Yang Bing doesn't think so. He said: Doing a good job in production is only one aspect, and what is more important is to manage the direction and route of the enterprise.

Yang Bing is like this. He will do anything that is beneficial to production, and he will manage anything that is not beneficial to production. Some people said: "Why bother to meddle in other people's business?" He firmly replied: "The affairs of the factory are everyone's affairs, and workers have the responsibility to manage them." This sense of responsibility and sense of ownership have won him the respect of countless people in the factory.

Modest and prudent, not arrogant or impatient

In June 1973, Yang Bing was elected as the deputy director of the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions. In January 1975, he also gloriously attended the Fourth National People's Congress. In the face of honors and praises, Yang Bing always used Chairman Mao's teachings on "comrades must continue to maintain a humble, prudent, non-arrogant, non-impulsive style, and must continue to maintain a hard-working style" to guide his actions.

After Yang Bing became the deputy director of the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions, he went out to attend more meetings. Sometimes the meetings were over late, and the comrades of the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions considered his way back to the factory. The journey was long, and it was suggested to send a car to take him, but he declined every time. Yang Bing insisted on living in the factory area. His "room" remained the same for ten years. It was still a small attic built with wooden boards in the machine repair workshop, only four square meters, and even the curtains were old canvas used in the Polo Temple period.

Yang Bing always adhered to the true nature of the working people. No matter how high his status was, he always adhered to the principle of "staying in labor and staying in the masses". In July 1974, the maintenance team received an urgent task: to build a large oil tank that could hold 20 tons of heavy oil within 15 days. The welding task was heavy, and there was only one welder in the factory at that time. At this critical moment, Yang Bing did not back down, but volunteered to pick up the welding clamp and join the work. In July of that year, the sun shone down scorchingly, the arc light glittered in the hot air, and the heat wave rolled. "In order to ensure that the factory has sufficient fuel supply, no matter how hard or tired we are, we must complete this task on time. "Yang Bing's words became the battle cry of the team. He and the welders encouraged each other and continued to work for three to four hours every day after get off work, even on rest days. In the end, they not only completed the task, but also completed it several days ahead of schedule.

Yang Bing carried out inheritance education of "Bolo Temple Spirit" to new employees

As time goes by, Yang Bing's story is not only in the past. He sticks to not only the position of mechanic, but also a spirit of fearlessness, self-reliance and hard work. It is this spirit that has created a vibrant and hopeful development process for Double Fish, inspiring generations of Double Fish people to forge ahead towards a brighter future!