ABSTRACT
The Xin'an River power station was the first large-scale hydroelectric project designed and built in mainland China with domestically produced equipment. The Xin'an River originates in the Yellow Mountains in Xiuning and Qimen counties, Anhui Province, flows through Tunxi and Weng counties in Anhui and Chun'an County in Zhejiang. It joins with the Lan River at a point southeast of Mei Township, Jiande County, in Zhejiang, and then flows northeast into the Fuchun River. During the War of Resistance against Japan, the man who became the chief engineer of the Xin'an power station, Xu Zhishi, designed and helped build a power station near the city of Changshou in Sichuan Province. In May 1945, three days after the city of Hangzhou was liberated by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), General Tan Zhenlin met with Xu and a group of his colleagues, complimented them on their great accomplishments in hydroelectric construction in Zhejiang, and voiced his support for similar projects in Hangzhou.
