On a quiet river in central China’s Anhui province, villagers in Hanshan county stopped to stare as a sleek black shape sliced through the water with a low mechanical growl.
“I’d watched boats all my life,” Zhang told Dawan News, a government-affiliated outlet, referring to the years he spent managing a tiny riverside dock in his village. “But I always felt something was missing.”
Fascinated by invention since childhood, he had often dreamed of building machines that were beyond the means of his rural life. But it was not until 2014, when a programme on state broadcaster CCTV featured a submarine slipping beneath the waves, that one idea took hold with irresistible force.
“I’d seen wooden boats and iron boats,” he said. “But never one that could go underwater.” Within days, he had scraped together 5,000 yuan (US$700), bought steel plates, a battery and an engine – and began building in secret while his wife was away caring for his mother-in-law.
