Mao Yisheng, born in Zhenjiang in January 1896, is a pioneer in the modern bridge construction industry in China. He was in charge of the construction of the Qiantang River Bridge, the first modern large-scale bridge designed and built by the Chinese, which became a milestone in the history of China's railway bridge construction.
The Qiantang River Bridge, a highway and railway transit bridge built before 1949, remains an important cross-river passage in Hangzhou. Its designer is Mao Yisheng.
Mao Yisheng was emotionally attached to bridge design throughout his life. At the beginning of the 20th century, as a graduate student of the Tsinghua Academy, he was sent to the US as a graduate student. His view on bridge design written in his doctoral thesis is called "Mao's Law."
In 1919, he quit his well-paid job in the United States and returned to China to start bridge design in the motherland.
In 1934, on the Qiantang River, where the tides were high and the quicksand was bottomless, Mao Yisheng built the Qiantang River Bridge through the innovative techniques of the shooting method, the caisson method and the floating method, destroying the assertion by foreigners that no large bridge could be built in this location.
The bridge was blown up in the fight against the Japanese army during World War II, on Dec 23, 1937. After the war, the bridge was restored in 1948 and has been in use until today.
In 1957, Mao Yisheng was tasked with designing China's first bridge across the Yangtze River the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. The bridge has become China's major traffic artery running through the north and south of the Yangtze.
Mao Yisheng devoted his life to the research of bridge railways in China, and published more than 200 articles in Chinese and foreign newspapers and magazines. He also trained a large number of engineering and technical personnel for the country. He died in Beijing on November 12, 1989, at the age of 93.
(Source:ourjiangsu.com)
