The Friendship Bridge between China and North Korea is located on the Yalu River between Dandong, China and Sinuiju, North Korea. Two large iron Bridges lie across the river and are divided into the upper bridge and the lower bridge, which are known as the Friendship Bridge and the Broken Bridge.

 

The bridge was the first railway bridge built over the Yalu River in May 1909 (the first year of the Seontong Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty) when the Railway Bureau of the Japanese Governor General's Office in Korea changed the Anbong Line (Dandong -- Shenyang), a temporary light and narrow gauge military railway, into a permanent commercial railway. The whole project involved 510,000 Chinese and Korean workers and was completed in October 1911 (the third year of Xuantong). The bridge was 941.83 meters long and 11 meters wide, with 12 holes and curved steel beams. Among them, the No.9 bridge pier was the axle of the rotating steel beam, which was opened regularly every day for the use of large ships passing through. Formed a transportation line through northeast China and the Korean Peninsula. After the completion of the upper bridge in 1943, the bridge was converted into a road bridge, with large lanes in the middle and sidewalks on both sides. On the left is the passage to North Korea and on the right is the passage to China.

 

In April 1937 (26 years of the Republic of China), when the Japanese invaders built the Anbong double-track railway, it was jointly designed and built 100 meters upstream of Xiabashi by Nippon Automobile Corporation and Nippon Construction Corporation. It was opened to traffic in April 1943. The bridge is 946 meters long and has 12 holes. The six holes of the North side are flat string continuous Bridges, and the six holes of the Chinese side are double track railway Bridges with hanging string continuous Bridges, which can run a pair of trains at the same time. After the bridge opened to traffic, it became the main channel for Japanese invaders to plundering China's resources. After the victory of the war, the bridge was taken over by the Soviet Red Army. In June 1947, when the Soviet Army withdrew from Korea, the river bridge was transferred to the joint administration of the Chinese and Korean governments. In January 1951, the double-track railway was demolished and one was changed into a road, which became a railway and road bridge.

 

After the beginning of the war, the Yalu River Bridge and other Bridges jointly undertook the task of military supplies and transportation of the rear support front. It was from here that most of the first volunteers went to the front. During the war, large quantities of combat supplies and weapons were transported to North Korea via the bridge. In order to cut off the troops and material support of our volunteers, the US army mobilized most of its air power in October 1950 and began to carry out the operation on the railway and road Bridges connecting the important traffic arteries between China and North Korea on the Yalu River. It vowed to "destroy with maximum force" all international Bridges on the Korean end of the Manchurian border "and" all means of transportation, military installations, factories, cities and villages "east of the Yalu River. From November 8 to 21, the U.S. military carried out more than 600 sorties to carpet bomb all the Bridges over the Yalu River as well as villages, military installations and transportation routes in the North of the country. The northern part of North Korea was instantly reduced to rubble, a sea of fire along the Yalu River. The lower bridge of the Yalu River was also destroyed by the blast, and the eight-hole bridge on the North side sank into the river, completely paralyze the lower bridge. The rails on the north side of the upper bridge were blown, the bridge shifted and the deck caught fire. The Andong Railway Bureau organized more than 200 people to rush to the river bridge with sandbags filled with sand to build temporary piers, built on the sleepers to support the damaged bottom beams, so that the bridge was restored. In the baptism of the war, although its body left numerous bullet holes, but still standing on the Yalu River, known as the "indestructible, fried not broken" steel transport line, become the Chinese and North Korean people - hand against the invaders, defending the country's victory monument and set up the friendship between the two peoples of the rainbow.

 

After the victory, the DPRK side removed the remains of the six-hole iron bridge that belonged to the Lower Bridge. The damaged bridge owned by the Chinese side, with bullet marks, has been preserved intact. The fact that the Chinese side of the bridge remains intact is no coincidence, but has a profound historical background. During the Korean War, General MacArthur, the commander in chief of the U.S. forces invading Korea, was a famous "victorious general" in the United States. In the early stage of the war, he was carried away by the temporary victory. He ignored China and Korea and arrogantly tried to push the battle line to the edge of the Yalu River before Thanksgiving. The U.S. government, heeding the repeated protests and dire warnings from the Chinese government, feared that continued airstrikes would force China into the war. Therefore, the US air Force had to strictly control the Sino-Korean boundary when bombing the Yalu River bridge, and only bombed the Korean side, but did not dare to bomb the Chinese side. The existence of the "broken bridge" on the Yalu River vividly demonstrates the pivotal position of the new China in the international arena.

 

On October 17, 1988, Dandong Municipal People's government listed the broken bridge as a municipal cultural relic protection unit; On October 25, 1990, the governments of China and the DPRK agreed to name the upper bridge the "China-DPRK Friendship Bridge" (the North Korean side is the "DPRK-China Friendship Bridge"), in order to commemorate the civil life and blood of the two peoples of the war friendship. In October 2000, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Volunteer Army fighting against the United States and aiding the DPRK, members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Vice Chairman and Chairman of the CPC Central Committee inscribed "Yalu River bridge broken" on the lower bridge. On the eve of China's 80th birthday in 2001, the Propaganda Department named the broken bridge of the Yalu River as the "National patriotic Education base". In June 2006, the bridge was listed as a national cultural relic