159 years ago today, on December 23, 1866 (November 17, 1866), Mawei Shipyard was established. Mawei Shipyard Mawei Shipyard was built on December 23, 1866. It was the first machine shipyard produced by the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty in our country. Shen Baozhen, then the Prime Minister of Shipping, fought against resistance and reformed the old system. He boldly introduced advanced European shipbuilding technology, equipment and engineering and technical personnel. He hired the Frenchman Zhiyige as the shipbuilding supervisor and appointed foreigners to teach shipbuilding and machine building skills. In 1869, our country's first thousand-ton ship was built, in 1871, our country's first steam engine was born; in 1882, our country's largest tonnage iron rib shell warship was manufactured; in 1889, our country's first steel shell net armor warship was manufactured. From the establishment of the factory to 1907, Mawei Shipyard experienced from learning from foreigners to build wood-hulled steam soldiers to dismiss foreign technicians in 1875, design and build ships by itself, and realized the qualitative transformation of building wood-hulled steel ships independently. A total of more than 40 ships were manufactured, which became the largest and most shipbuilding shipyard in our country at that time, and the largest shipbuilding base in the Far East at that time. After the Revolution of 1911, Mawei Ship Administration was changed to Fuzhou Ship Administration, and an aircraft manufacturing office was established. Ba Yuzao, Wang Zhu, Zeng Yijing and other young Chinese scientific and technological personnel who graduated from the Department of Aeronautical Engineering of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, after more than a year of hard work, in August 1919, they successfully manufactured China's first "A-1" biplane seaplane (in 1910, France's Feibo successfully solved the problem of takeoff and landing of seaplanes and made the world's first seaplane.), and then created 17 aircraft such as two-seat trainers, coast patrol aircraft, torpedo bombers, and trained our country's own pilots. This makes Fuzhou Ship Administration not only the birthplace of ships, but also the cradle of China's aviation industry.