Many people don't know that only one city in the world is home to five of the global top 50 construction machinery enterprises, and that city is Changsha, Hunan.

In 2024, the scale of Changsha's construction machinery industrial cluster exceeded 250 billion yuan, accounting for more than 30% of the national total and reaching 8.5% of the global market share. At the same time, Zoomlion, Sany Heavy Industry, CRCHI, Sunward and Sinoboom all ranked among the global top 50 construction machinery enterprises, making the cluster a pivotal force in the global landscape.

It is often said that every place has its own character. We cannot help but wonder: what kind of Huxiang spirit has enabled Changsha's construction machinery industrial cluster to achieve what it has today?

Enduring hardship, patience, and tenacity

When speaking of the Huxiang spirit, one cannot fail to mention the best-known saying: "enduring hardship, patience, and tenacity." These words encapsulate the character of the people of Hunan, and the enterprises founded by them naturally carry this spirit as well.

1 Enduring hardship

What does "enduring hardship" mean? It means persevering no matter how difficult life becomes, and never giving up easily. Zeng Guofan once said: only those who can endure the greatest hardships in the world can become the greatest people in the world. This saying applies equally to enterprises.

Zoomlion, now a leading enterprise in the construction machinery industry, also endured tremendous hardship in its early days.

Zoomlion was founded in 1992. At first, the company chose the concrete delivery pump as the first product to industrialize. But during trial production, it faced numerous difficulties: no site, a lack of tools, and insufficient manpower.

Yet this did not daunt the people of Zoomlion. With no factory building, Zoomlion opened up a 200-square-meter workshop; they bought hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers; short of hands, everyone pitched in—one person worked as an assembly electrician, another as a mover and cleaner—joining forces as one. To save money, they rented or borrowed whatever they could. At the time, Zoomlion's most expensive production equipment was a vertical drill press worth 5,000 yuan.

After months of "tough battle," on July 1, 1993, Zoomlion's first HBT40 concrete delivery pump officially rolled off the line. But having made the product, how to open up sales became the next challenge. Zoomlion chose to attend a construction machinery sales exhibition in Jinan, and at its first industry exhibition it displayed its product in the manner of a "street stall." When Chairman Zhan Chunxin arrived at the venue with several colleagues, there were no booths left, so they borrowed a few tables, hung a banner at the entrance and began their display—completing their first product debut in this tenacious way.

Later, after enduring countless hardships and years of development, Zoomlion finally became a first-class enterprise in the construction machinery industry.

Sinoboom, like Zoomlion, endured great hardship in its early days.

Sinoboom was founded on February 28, 2008. In its early years, Sinoboom had limited funds and almost no reputation, with only expenditures and no income on its books every day. To find orders, on July 5, 2008, Sinoboom General Manager Xu Hongxia set out with a sales manager and a driver, driving along China's coastline on an order-hunting journey lasting more than 40 days—during which the sales manager even resigned and returned midway. Only the driver and the car accompanied Xu Hongxia the whole way. Starting from the coastline of Tianjin, they headed north to Dalian, east to Shanghai and Zhoushan, and south to Longxue Island at the Pearl River Estuary. Over thousands of kilometers and more than 40 days and nights, Xu Hongxia finally secured orders for 4 machines—which were also all the orders Sinoboom received in 2008.

Then, for eight long months from August 2008 to March 2009, Sinoboom did not sign a single order. At that point, Sinoboom was in a precarious position. But like a phoenix reborn from the ashes, after those eight near-death months, Sinoboom was reborn. After that, orders began pouring in, and in 2009 Sinoboom achieved sales revenue of nearly 20 million yuan, with its operations beginning to enter a virtuous cycle.

Today, Sinoboom ranks 49th in the 2024 global top 50 construction machinery enterprises, with more than 2,000 customers, 200 dealers, over 10 overseas subsidiaries, 2 overseas manufacturing bases and 1 used-equipment circulation center worldwide. Every one of these figures can be said to be the fruit of the hardships Sinoboom has endured over the years.

2 Patience

What does "patience" mean? It means persevering in doing one thing with patience and perseverance. The saying "drops of water make a river, and small steps make a thousand miles" expresses exactly the same idea as patience.

CRCHI, as a globally leading manufacturer of tunnel engineering equipment, has maintained a high degree of focus on the R&D and manufacturing of shield tunneling machines for more than a decade.

In 2010, the first domestically developed composite earth pressure balance shield machine, "Kailu Xianfeng No. 19," independently developed by CRCHI, had an excavation diameter of 6.28 meters and a domestic content rate of 87%. As soon as it rolled off the line, it was used in the Beijing subway project, achieving a monthly excavation progress of more than 600 meters, far exceeding comparable foreign shield machines. Its emergence directly drove down the price of foreign shield machines in China—originally averaging 150 million yuan each—by 30%.

The domestic shield machine won its first battle, but it was only a small shield machine. CRCHI then shifted its target to large shield machines.

However, the larger the diameter of the shield equipment, the exponentially greater the manufacturing difficulty, which caused CRCHI's R&D progress on large shield machines to slow in the following years.

Heaven rewards the diligent. In 2017, CRCHI successfully developed the first domestic large-diameter shield machine with a constant-pressure cutter-changing system, the "Yuan'an," with an excavation diameter of 11.75 meters, a total length of 132 meters and a total weight of about 3,000 tons. After rolling off the line, the "Yuan'an" was applied to the Changde Yuanjiang River Tunnel, achieving an average monthly tunneling rate of 300 meters and a maximum monthly rate of 380 meters, marking that China's manufacturing of underwater shield tunnel boring machines had reached world-advanced levels. Since then, domestic large-diameter shield machines have gradually replaced imported equipment and become the main force in large-diameter shield construction equipment.

The largest-diameter shield machine in China, the first domestic large-diameter open-type shield machine, the first domestic double-shield shield machine, the world's first dual-mode inclined-shaft shield machine, the world's first permanent-magnet synchronous drive shield machine... For more than a decade, CRCHI has never stopped advancing its development of shield machines.

Thanks to years of persistent effort, CRCHI now ranks first among the 2024 global top 5 tunnel engineering equipment manufacturers and 37th among the global top 50 construction machinery manufacturers.

3 Tenacity

What does "tenacity" mean? It refers to a fighting spirit that dares to strive and refuses to admit defeat—even a certain "stubbornness." This stubborn drive happens to help construction machinery enterprises succeed.

Sany Heavy Industry's path in developing excavators can be described as the truest portrayal of "tenacity."

At the end of the 20th century, foreign brands occupied more than 90% of China's excavator market, and domestic enterprises could only struggle along in the small-machine segment. In this situation, Sany Heavy Industry made medium-sized machines its main focus, aiming to compete head-on with foreign brands. But backward technology made Sany's excavator development extremely difficult.

First, we must understand that hydraulic technology is crucial to building a well-performing excavator. But at the end of the 20th century, China's hydraulic technology lagged far behind international levels. At the time, Sany's excavator project team had to spend months tackling just the programming of an electronic control system.

To close the gap, Sany's R&D team engaged in deep cooperation with fluid machinery departments at several domestic universities while also learning in depth from foreign brands, continuing to intensify efforts on core excavator technologies and components.

Heaven rewards the diligent. In 2005, Sany's excavator output exceeded 500 units, and its excavator business matured; in 2011, Sany sold 20,614 excavators, taking first place in national sales; in 2024, Sany's excavator machinery achieved sales revenue of 30.374 billion yuan, ranking first in domestic sales for 14 consecutive years.

Had Sany not pursued excavators with such "tenacity" back then, it is hard to say whether it would have achieved what it has today.

Another global top 50 construction machinery enterprise, Sunward, is equally "tenacious"—one could even say that Sunward's very birth was quite "tenacious."

Before founding the company, Professor He Qinghua, founder of Sunward, was a teacher in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Central South University. In the 1990s, in order to better commercialize his research results, He Qinghua conceived the idea of founding a company. He submitted a research report on founding the company to the university and higher authorities, but it was not approved. He did not give up because of this, but decided to found the company himself.

In 1999, He Qinghua founded Sunward. Sunward's starting product was the static pile press, and it soon invested in the development and production of mini excavators and tunnel rock-drilling robots. Through 26 years of development, Sunward's products now cover three major fields—engineering equipment, special equipment and aviation equipment—and are exported to more than 150 countries and regions, with overseas revenue accounting for over 60%. In 2024, it ranked 43rd among the global top 50 construction machinery enterprises.

From world-class to world-leading

Although Changsha's construction machinery industrial cluster has become a pivotal force in the global landscape, it has not stopped moving forward. If the goal of Changsha's enterprises in the past was to become world-class enterprises, then their next goal is to become world-leading enterprises.

To become a world-leading enterprise, the most important thing is continuous independent innovation and firmly occupying the technological high ground. Currently, Changsha is actively promoting the creation of a global R&D center city, transitioning from a manufacturing center to an R&D center, and continuously building a national highland for important advanced manufacturing.

Take Zoomlion's Smart Industrial City as an example: it is the world's largest and most comprehensive construction machinery integrated industrial base. Through deep integration of digital technologies such as intelligent scheduling, industrial AI, digital twins and full-process intelligent logistics with manufacturing, Zoomlion has achieved astonishing production efficiency: on average, one excavator rolls off the line every 6 minutes, one scissor-type aerial work platform is produced every 7.5 minutes, one truck crane is built every 18 minutes, and one boom pump truck is built every 27 minutes. In early 2025, Zoomlion's "Excavator Digital Full-Process Management Smart Factory" was selected into the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's first national list of excellence-level smart factory projects, recognized as representing the leading level of domestic intelligent manufacturing.

Relying on the Huxiang spirit of "enduring hardship, patience and tenacity," Changsha's construction machinery enterprises have continued to develop upward until they established themselves on the global stage. In fact, this is also a microcosm of the development of China's construction machinery enterprises. After decades of hard work and development, China's construction machinery—whether in products, technology or services—has reached world-class levels. It is believed that in the future, with the efforts of the entire industry, China's construction machinery industry will advance further and stand at the pinnacle of global construction machinery.