The Struggle of Tongzhou Bay People | Huang Yubing: A Leading Figure in Wool Products Who Works Exclusively with Equipment

65-year-old Huang Yubing, dressed in a suit and shirt, is energetic and vibrant, not at all like someone of retirement age. Due to his busy work schedule, he frequently travels between Hongyang and Jubai companies, working almost year-round, with daily work until 11 pm being the norm. It's hard to imagine that this elegant wool tycoon once spent late nights working with machinery and equipment, and was intimately familiar with equipment blueprints. Even now, he still goes to the front lines of the workshop to participate in the development of new products. Huang Yubing confidently says, "I'm not inferior to young people at all; workshop employees may not be able to outperform me."

Huang Yubing's Hongyang Plush is a household name in Tongzhou Bay and is a well-known Jiangsu Province trademark. As a native of Tongzhou Bay, he has witnessed its transformation from a barren land to a modern textile industry hub. He is a firsthand witness, evolving from a technical director in a collective textile factory to a leader in the field of artificial fur and pure wool products in China.

Tongzhou Bay, with its convenient access to land and sea routes, is an important part of Nantong, the "Textile Town," and a major manufacturing base for new textile materials. The textile industry's roots were established over 30 years ago in this area. At that time, Tongshen Textile Factory, a joint venture between Sanyu Fiber Textile Factory and Shanghai 37 Cotton Textile Factory, was the largest enterprise in the area. A young man was already making a name for himself there. Huang Yubing had been working at the factory for thirteen years, serving as the head of the power department for nine years, and was already very familiar with the factory's equipment.

To quickly master the automated system, after finishing work at midnight every day, he secretly disassembled and reassembled the installers' wiring, spending a full 30 days, sleeping only 2-3 hours a day on average, marking all the wiring of the installed equipment according to the blueprints. By the time he finished on the 30th day, it was already 6 am. From initially being regarded as an "unsophisticated country bumpkin" by the Shanghai technicians to unexpectedly identifying nine fault points, Huang Yubing's diligent research impressed the installation technicians.

"Whenever I encountered technical difficulties, I would often work overtime, sometimes staying up all night, and I would never leave until the problem was solved!" Huang Yubing said, "You must know that it was collective work at that time, and no one ever knew that I was secretly working overtime." Later, whenever the factory encountered insurmountable problems, Huang Yubing would lead the team to overcome them. At that time, the factory's reputation was: "There's nothing Huang Yubing can't solve." At this time, all the electrical blueprints in the factory were drawn by him, and 50% of the infrastructure blueprints were also drawn by him. It was this solid technical foundation that brought Huang Yubing convenience and opportunities for his own business.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Sanyang Artificial Fur Factory, established by the local government and several enterprises, was restructured and transformed through shareholding and foreign investment, becoming Hongyang Plush Products Co., Ltd., with Huang Yubing as the helm. During this period, due to a lack of technical personnel and facing new equipment and products, Huang Yubing plunged into the production workshop, spending half a month debugging and thoroughly understanding the new equipment. In order to produce a domestic fabric that could replace imported raw materials, he and his team stayed in the workshop for a whole week, and the product was immediately sold out after its development. "Our artificial fur and pure wool products, whether short-haired, long-haired, blended, or high-end flagship products, occupied 90% of the largest textile market in China at that time." That was a high point for Huang Yubing. With his industry-leading technology, his company gradually grew stronger.

Eleven years ago, piles were being driven into the wasteland of Tongzhou Bay, and the construction of the industrial park had begun. Huang Yubing, who had just experienced a setback, also ushered in a new turning point. The imitation fur series patent product developed for the American Bear Paw Company took him a year, personally designing equipment blueprints and participating in product development, but the order worth over 100 million yuan ultimately fell through. However, the Hongyang imitation fur series obtained patent products and filled the technological gap at home and abroad. With this patent, Hongyang Plush took a leading position in the artificial fur and pure wool products sector of the wool textile industry.

The ten years of Tongzhou Bay's development were also ten years of rapid transformation for Huang Yubing. He not only led Hongyang Plush to establish its industry position but also, based on his rich experience in management, invested in the industry leader Jubai Wool and became the company's general manager. Jubai Wool is also a Tongzhou Bay enterprise, and Huang Yubing has become a typical example of someone who grew up in Tongzhou Bay and gave back to it. Equally worthy of Huang Yubing's pride is the "Nantong Hongyang Plush Love Fund," which has been established for ten years, providing assistance to employees in the textile industry facing difficulties, supporting impoverished students in textile education, and other charitable and public welfare activities. Huang Yubing frankly stated that the growth of the enterprise is inseparable from the nurturing of this land, and giving back to Tongzhou Bay is something he should do.

It is his tireless pursuit of innovation in technology, equipment, and products that has made Huang Yubing a leader in the plush industry. In 2023, the machine-washable wool four-season quilt he led the development of broke the technical difficulty of machine-washing wool quilts and has been widely recognized by industry leaders. Huang Yubing is quite hopeful that his wool products can become a "business card" for Tongzhou Bay, presented as a gift to business people from all over the world visiting Tongzhou Bay. With the acceleration of the construction of Tongzhou Bay port, Huang Yubing looks forward to his products being shipped from his doorstep on ocean-going vessels to all corners of the world.

Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Zhu Yayun

Proofreader Xu Heng

Editor: Pan Zheng