Features

The best-kept secret army tunnel in Beijing lies about 60 kilometers east of the city center. From this base, the villagers of Jiaozhuanghu fought more than 150 battles with the Japanese army and the Guomindang between 1943 and 1948. They killed and wounded more than 130 of the enemy and captured 60. The village fighters also destroyed an armored vehicle, captured 100 weapons, 3,500 bullets and one enemy radio.

Visitors can relive those exciting times at the memorial hall built above the tunnel at Jiaozhuanghu in 1964. The hall is an official center of patriotic education for primary and middle schools nationwide, but offers a much more interesting range of activities than the usual black-and-white photos and impenetrable captions.

More than half a kilometer of the tunnel itself is open for inspection. A series of command posts, single-person shelters, traps, and hidden bunkers are maintained in combat order, as are camouflaged entrances, exits and lookout posts in the form of water vats, kang flues (the kang is a heated brick platform used as a bed), wall cupboards, kitchen ranges, pigpens and mangers. Visitors can also watch a movie on tunnel warfare, listen to a member of the Children's Corps founded during the anti-Japanese war recount the fighting history of the Jiaozhuanghu people, and try a lunch of steamed cornbread, corn porridge and pickles -- the staple diet of guerrilla warriors. Alternatively or additionally, you can visit a surface-to-air missile base and pick apples (depending on the season).

Jiaozhuanghu village was in an important strategic location during the Anti-Japanese War and the civil war between the Communist Party and Chiang Kai-shek's Guomindang. Before the tunnel was built, the villagers dug a few underground hiding holes which could only accommodate one or two people and a little food. These were too vulnerable to discovery. To put up long-term resistance and enable the militia to stay underground for extended periods, the separate holes were later linked and fitted with trapdoors, pitfalls, single-person shelters, camouflaged bunkers as well as dozens of sleeping spaces and command posts.

By 1946, the total length of the tunnel had reached 23 kilometers, forming a crisscross network within the village and connecting nearby villages as well.

To commend the villagers for their achievement, the Shunyi government awarded them a banner bearing the words No 1 People's Stronghold in 1947.

The memorial hall has become a popular attraction. Three hundred thousand people visited during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the victory over Japan in 1995.

Location: Jiaozhuanghu Village, Pinggu County, east Beijing
Hours: 9am-5pm
Tel: 64974451