Jiaozhuanghu Underground Tunnel Museum（焦庄户地道战遗址纪念馆）

Local soldiers and civilians, led by the Communist Party, creatively invented the tunnel warfare according to the local situation. At first, the tunnels they made could only hold one or a couple of persons; later they came to connect every house and every village in the area, serving as underground fortresses, with holes for lookout and shooting, commanding posts, and flexible boards to ward off water, poison and toxic gases. The entrances, exits, and shooting holes, hidden in floors, kang (Chinese earthen bed), chambers of the kitchen ranges, mangers, walls of wells, or under millstones, were difficult for the enemy to discover.

By 1946, the total length of the tunnels had reached 23 li (1 li = 500 meters), and had connected Jiaozhuanghu with Longwantun, Tangdong and Dabeiwu Village. Soldiers and civilians used them to protect wounded Chinese soldiers, store materials, and shattered enemy’s attacks many times, achieving glorious victories. In November, 1947, the government of Shunyi District awarded Jiaozhuanghu a silk banner that bears “The Greatest Fortress of the People”. After 1949, to commemorate the glories of revolutionaries and inculcate the people with the revolutionary traditions, a museum was set up to show the history of the militia of Jiaozhuanghu. In 1979, the municipal government of Beijing named it “Memorial Museum of Tunnel Warfare Sites at Jiaozhuanghu, Beijing”, and designated it as a major historic site under municipal protection. Since 1987, the municipal government and the district government have allocated funds for restoring an 800-meter-long tunnel, building and altering dozens of kilometers of roads, and purchased and restored 40 houses involved in the war.

In September, 2004, a new memorial museum of tunnel warfare sites started to be built, which covers an area of 7,260 square meters, with a 2,000-square-meter floor space. It includes restoring blockhouses against the enemy. It officially opened in August 2005. The museum displays evidences of the atrocities of Japanese soldiers and quislings, the glorious achievements of local soldiers and civilians fighting against them, the formation of the tunnels and their features.