Dominate the world from signing in

After learning that the miners' union was about to organize a strike, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Mining Company naturally tried to obstruct it in every way possible.

First, they recruited a large number of new immigrants from other countries as miners in order to weaken the miners' organization by making it difficult for them to communicate in the language.

Second, more armed guards were hired to prepare for a possible strike.

The United Mine Workers then did present seven demands to Colorado Fuel and Iron Ore Company to improve the miners' situation, which were flatly rejected.

In September of that year, the miners' union formally organized a strike by Colorado Fuel and Iron Ore's miners.

In response, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Ore Company immediately dismissed all striking miners from their quarters.

The miners' union was prepared for this and leased a large area of land near the mine in the Ludlow area and erected numerous tents to house the dismissed miners and their families.

As a result, History magazine described the conflict as the "Colorado Coalfield War" and the "Ludlow Massacre".

In the face of the miners' resistance, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, controlled by the Ward Group, did not choose to negotiate, but continued its long history of aggressiveness, even intensifying it!

They hired the then infamous "Bodwin Fields Detective Agency" to start dealing with the miners.

This detective agency was not as law-abiding as today's firms. It had the nickname "Strike Eradicator" at the time, but in essence it was a mercenary company that specialized in armed suppression of striking workers for wealthy companies.

In order to achieve the goal of a quick crackdown, the mercenaries went so far as to deploy an armored car converted from a large trailer, in which a heavy machine robbery was placed!

When night fell, the mercenaries drove the armored car and fired randomly at the Ledro tent area where the striking miners were living.

As a result, the miners in the Ludlow tent area referred to the armored car as a "special death".

In addition, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Mining Company even hired a group of snipers to kill the miners in the tent area.

Faced with the threat, the miners and their families in the Ladero tent area fought back by looting, but also by digging holes in the ground - sleeping in them every day to avoid the flying bullets.

Looking at these historical facts, Chen Liang's mind could not help but ring with scenes of the war at the time of liberation.

But these miners, they were all civilians.

As the conflict intensified, the state of Colorado finally stepped in.

The then governor ordered that the state's National Guard be deployed to quell the conflict.

But who knew that the Colorado National Guard commanders were on the side of Colorado Fuel and Iron Ore, and would join forces to suppress the striking miners?

Shortly after the National Guard joined, the body of a man was found on the railroad tracks near Colorado Forbes, and the National Guard commander promptly razed one of the striking miners' homes to the ground on the grounds that "the striking miners had killed the man.

After a six-month crackdown, the National Guard withdrew most of its troops from the strike area because it could no longer afford to maintain large-scale operations, but allowed Colorado Fuel and Iron Company's private guards to wear National Guard uniforms and continue to "maintain order.

After the National Guard was largely withdrawn, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company's private guards became even more reckless.

In April of the year following the strike, three Colorado Fuel and Iron Company private guards broke into the Ludlow tent area and falsely accused "striking miners of holding a man and demanded that he be released immediately.

The company's private guards then set up a robbery position on the hill next to the Ledlow tent area. and aimed the robber's mouth at the tent area. In addition, a large number of private guards took up an attack position approximately 800 meters from the Lederoy tent area.

The miners in the tent area thought that "the company was going to attack", so they grabbed their weapons and rushed to the nearby hill to try to eliminate the robbery position on the hill, and both sides started to fight.

The miners in the Lladró tent area were able to hold off for a while, but the situation changed that afternoon; the company sent hundreds of additional private guards to join the fight, and with the heavy firepower of the private guards' machine guns, the miners' resistance gradually weakened.

By dusk, the miners, who had almost run out of ammunition, were in a desperate situation, all the more worried because of the large number of miners' families - unarmed women and children - in the tent area.

Fortunately, there was a railway line not far from the Ledlow tent area, and a freight train happened to be passing through the area at the time. The conscientious train driver saw the mining company guards attacking the miners and stopped the train. The vast majority of the miners in the Ludlow tent area climbed aboard the train with their families, and the train then started and fled the battlefield.

Not everyone escaped the disaster, however. The company's private guards finally stormed the Lederot tent area and immediately began searching for the remaining miners. At 7:00 p.m. that night, the private guards began setting the entire tent area on fire, killing two women and 11 children who suffocated or were burned alive by the blaze. Three other strike leaders who were in the tent area were arrested.

They are believed to have been subsequently executed by order of a lieutenant of the National Guard. Their bodies were eventually dumped along a stretch of railroad tracks, with private guards threatening to "not allow anyone to collect the bodies, but to show the passengers of the passing trains what happened to these people.

A total of 19 striking miners and their families were killed in the tragedy that day, according to a later count.

The tragedy at the Ludlow tent area ignited the fury of the United Mine Workers and the Colorado miners. The United Mine Workers began distributing weapons and ammunition directly to the striking miners, which led to a subsequent guerrilla war in Colorado.

About 1,000 striking miners attacked the mines, killing or evicting private guards at the mines. The mining companies then organized a counterattack, mobilizing large private forces to fight the striking miners.

The situation was completely out of control.

Eventually, this struggle between the working people and the capitalist bureaucrats even attracted the attention of the president, who personally ordered federal troops to enter Colorado and disarm the striking miners and the private forces of the mining companies.

The United Mine Workers also announced shortly afterwards that they would suspend the strike in Colorado as their operating funds dried up.

Some 200 people were killed in the strike clashes, according to an afterthought, but the blood sacrifice paid off.

The strike prompted the Ward family to reflect on their company's management policies, and subsequently to improve the treatment of miners to some extent, moving from bloody and brutal oppression to a more "peaceful" path of development.