Where the Rifle Became a Plough: the First Plow Statue at Youxi Square
一犁开过千古荒，剑影铸作稻粱香 Yī lí kāiguò qiāngǔ huāng, jiànyǐng zhù zuò dàoliáng xiāng – One plough broke a thousand-year wasteland; the shadow of the sword was cast into the smell of grain
正文：军垦第一犁广场 Jūnkěn Dì-yī Lí Guǎngchǎng the First Plow Square holds the monument that made the genre: a bronze group of soldiers straining into virgin soil, their rifle slung on the cart behind them, set in Youxi Square – “pleasure and rest” – the central green of a city that planned its leisure as carefully as its canals. The statue is the image of Shihezi, reproduced on civic seals and textbook covers, and on summer evenings it is the fixed point around which the whole square turns.
The bronze is smaller than visitors expect, and better for it. The figures strain at the rope at human scale, muscles and puttees rendered with the care of men who remembered the weight; the plough cuts forward into a wave of cast earth, and the rifle rides behind like an argument that has been settled. Cast in the early 1980s from a design the city’s own art teachers championed, it reads today as both history piece and self-portrait – a city describing its founding act to itself.
Around the monument, Youxi Square delivers what its name promises. Lawns and flowerbeds ring the walks, fountains run after sunset in the warm months, and the evening crowd arrives in formation – dancing grandmothers in matched costumes, children steering rented carts, old men holding forth on benches under the trees. In winter the square goes white and quiet, and the bronze wears a cap of snow that somehow makes the ploughing argument again.
The square sits an easy walk from the museum and the commercial core, and the sensible route is museum to statue to dinner: see the argument in documents, then watch the descendants of the ploughmen use the city it bought. Photographers should come in late afternoon, when the bronze catches the last sun and the flowerbeds glow behind it.
Practicalities
Beyond the square, the same 石河子市 Shíhézǐ Shì Shihezi City keeps more places worth the detour: 兵团军垦博物馆 Bīngtuán Jūnkěn Bówùguǎn the reclamation museum for the documents, 周总理纪念碑 Zhōu Zǒnglǐ Jìniànbēi the memorial for the white stele, 艾青诗歌馆 Ài Qīng Shīgēguǎn the poetry hall for the manuscripts, or 蘑菇湖水库 Mógū Hú Shuǐkù the Mushroom Lake reservoir for the reeds and gulls – four more doors into the same 石河子市 Shíhézǐ Shì Shihezi City. Once the square is walked, our Shihezi food map fills the day.
Practicalities
Words and Names
flowcloud would say the First Plow is the founding argument in bronze: a rifle retired to the cart, three figures leaning into the earth, and a city that named its main green “pleasure and rest” and then delivered it nightly. All checked November 2026.
Getting there: Youxi Square is the city’s central green, an easy walk from most downtown hotels – the statue photographs best in late afternoon light, and the square’s evening dancing and fountains make the after-dinner visit the liveliest. All checked November 2026.