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Crisscross tunnels rekindle war memories Heritage protection workers have started to repair an underground military path built during World War II in the suburbs of Beijing. The Jiaozhuanghu Tunnel site, in a village 60 kilometres northeast of central Beijing, is a network of 16.6-kilometre-long crisscross tunnels. The tunnels have various kinds of secret entrances, such as beneath straw mats on heatable beds, down a well or through a kitchen wall, and even under a manger. Jiaozhuanghu Tunnel, sprawling under the village and connecting with four other villages nearby, allowed people to move around the area during the war against Japanese aggressors in the 1940s. Most of the tunnels have been sealed off, and only an 800-metre-long section at Jiaozhuanghu has been preserved and is open to the public. Wang Liwei, heritage protection chief with Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, said on Friday the ongoing renovation will repair a further 30-metre-long tunnel and 37 farmers' houses onsite. They will open to the public late this year. "Different from the earlier repairs in 1987 that almost rebuilt a new tunnel with cement and iron ladders, the project this time will try to rehabilitate the original flavour of the tunnels," Wang said. For instance, the height of the tunnel will be preserved at the original 1.3 to 1.5 metres, rather than being extended to 1.8 to 2 metres as had been done before, Wang explained. "We will also rehabilitate the farmers' houses above the tunnels," he said, adding that the original layout of the houses and the household articles used during wartime will be preserved as they used to be. "Actually, the village's history is much more interesting than the tunnels themselves. The old houses and articles can tell visitors more stories about how local villagers and the army fought against the Japanese invaders." Ma Zeng, curator of the Jiaozhuanghu Tunnel Warfare Museum, said the construction of the tunnels began in the spring of 1943 when the Japanese army launched a massive attack against the Communist Party-led resistance guerrillas. Ma said the rudiments of the tunnels were just some separate hidden holes only big enough to shelter one or two people or store some food. Once detected by the enemy, the soldiers and villagers could easily be captured. Later on, the villagers connected the separate holes together and dug out many traps, Ma said. The extended tunnels, with meeting rooms, shooting apertures, vents and connections to the neighbouring villages, formed a powerful defensive fortification against the invaders. Ma said such kind of underground tunnels were used extensively by rural farmers in North China during World War II. "These tunnels were cleverly designed," Ma said, "and were largely successful in fighting off the Japanese."
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