SH Archive 1977: Guoliang Tunnel

[KD Archive]

It’s one thing when the true story line was changed some time in the distant past. We are (to a degree) used to the dates pertaining to the beginning of the 20th century and earlier. From this perspective 1972-1977 sounds pretty out there...

I understand that China was, and still is a secretive country, but... how gullible are we?

Guoliang Tunnel​

The Guoliang Tunnel is carved along the side of and through a mountain in China. The tunnel links the village of Guoliang to the outside through the Taihang Mountains which are situated in Huixian.

The village was named after a fugitive rebel during the Han Dynasty, who had fought an overwhelming imperial force to a standstill utilizing the extreme local terrain.

• Before the tunnel was constructed, access to the nearby village of Guoliang was restricted to a difficult path carved into the mountainside. The village is nestled in a valley surrounded by towering mountains cut off from outside civilization.​

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Read this: To ease the villagers' access to outside world, a group of villagers led by Shen Mingxin made plans in 1972 to carve a road into the side of the mountain.

• They sold their livestock to raise funds to buy tools and materials.
• Thirteen villagers began the project, with one dying during construction.
• Without access to power tools, they undertook construction mostly with hammers and chisels.
• Villagers chiseled through the stone cliffs using their hands and bamboo baskets to remove the stones.

​

• At the most difficult stage, the tunnel progressed at a rate of one metre every three days.
• It is 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) long, 5 metres (16 ft) tall and 4 metres (13 ft) wide.

Wondering how they did this portion here with hammers and chisels.

​

13 villagers with hammers and chisels removed all that rock? How and why?

Videos

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Sources and Links:

• Guoliang Tunnel - Wikipedia​
• China's Guoliang Tunnel​
• World's most dangerous village perched on top of mountain​

​

KD: I think the most these 13 villagers could do was to clear a pre-existing tunnel. Clearing alone was probably an unachievable task for 13 people with manual tools. One way or the other, but this is how the story goes. Amazing feats can be easily achieved with noone to observe the process.

• This would be a hypothesis. Some pre-existing tunnel was cleared, and I doubt that it was done by 13 villagers with no power tools.

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[Archive]

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Username: msadcei1
Date: 2019-12-16 03:51:56
Reaction Score: 2

Who are these guys suppose to be? They certainly look Caucasian and not Chinese.

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-12-16 04:00:17
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Who are these guys suppose to be? They certainly look Caucasian and not Chinese.

These are not related to that tunnel. I used the image to demonstrate chisel hammering a mountain.

It appears that Guoliang tunnel builders used all their money on hammers and chisels, and nothing was left to purchase a camera to photograph the progress. Essentially, I failed to locate any construction photographs.

Apologies for not being clear.

 

[Archive]

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Username: TS135
Date: 2019-12-16 04:19:45
Reaction Score: 0

What type of rock did they burrow through?

 

[HollyHoly]

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Username: HollyHoly
Date: 2019-12-16 18:46:34
Reaction Score: 6

never underestimate the power of Chinamen with chisels, wax on wax off This is the same old hackneyed explanation that explains nothing. Because I'm sure the Supreme Director of the Benevolent Committee of Public Works would just sit around in 1977 while a bunch of non engineer villagers who clearly don't think the Committee is doing its job< candidate for organ donation right there> hacked away willy nilly at a mountain. Same as that old story about naked slaves with ropes built a pyramid. I guess they had the livestock around for sentimental reasons they didn't really rely on them for survival. who did they sell the livestock to if they are so isolated?? Because if China loves anything its brave ,self reliant, people who take matters into their own hands in defiance of authority
It probably was a found relic of some forgotten era maybe preflood makes me wonder why it wasn't discovered sooner then, maybe the village in question was a recent transplant from somewhere else . Maybe this is the only way in and out to keep them under control

 

[Archive]

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Username: msadcei1
Date: 2019-12-16 19:05:40
Reaction Score: 0

These are not related to that tunnel. I used the image to demonstrate chisel hammering a mountain.

It appears that Guoliang tunnel builders used all their money on hammers and chisels, and nothing was left to purchase a camera to photograph the progress. Essentially, I failed to locate any construction photographs.

Apologies for not being clear.

Not having money to buy a camera makes sense.

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-12-17 04:03:16
Reaction Score: 1

Wish we had a member from China who could tell us what the Chinese opinion in this is, but we don’t. Which is weird.

 

[Archive]

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Username: Banta
Date: 2019-12-17 05:36:34
Reaction Score: 7

Wish we had a member from China who could tell us what the Chinese opinion in this is, but we don’t. Which is weird.

The site could very easily be blocked in China.

I get the sense what the western world doesn't know about China is probably staggering. It's a whole other ballgame.

 

[Archive]

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Username: tupperaware
Date: 2019-12-19 18:10:09
Reaction Score: 0

Here is a good comparison tunnel in the Mohave CA USA area. One man using dynamite and hand tools created this tunnel. I have been through this tunnel all the way and it is tiny compared to the Chinese tunnel. The Chinese tunnel looks to be at least 20X the work. Either they used dynamite, they just cleared it or a high tech crew made it. The last two could be true at the same time. Burro Schmidt Tunnel - Wikipedia

Youtube videos

 

[anotherlayer]

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Username: anotherlayer
Date: 2019-12-19 19:19:17
Reaction Score: 2

The site could very easily be blocked in China.

I get the sense what the western world doesn't know about China is probably staggering. It's a whole other ballgame.

Just FWIW, this site is not blocked in China.

 

[EUAFU]

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Username: EUAFU
Date: 2019-12-21 19:49:50
Reaction Score: 1

Believe who you want. Everything in this story is unlikely until the death of one of the workers is unlikely and set to dramatize all the "effort" of the nonexistent 13. He died like hammering his fingers until he couldn't take it anymore ?? Hahahaha

 

[HollyHoly]

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Username: HollyHoly
Date: 2019-12-21 23:02:37
Reaction Score: 1

well apparently there are three of these and from what I could gather from this Guiolang,Kunshan,Xiyagou they all have a similar story about being created in the 1970-80s by desperate villagers and now they have no commercial use and apparently there are other ways to all these villages now (suddenly) I cant make heads or tales of this messy very long rambling narrative with very little info on how the villagers accomplished this in different villages at roughly the same time. But this is how the story ends and explains nothing

A Good Idea or a Big Waste of Time?

Now that we know more about the tunnels at Kunshan and Xiyagou, we find that both tunnels have out-lived their practical use. Today they exist purely as tourist attractions.

I am guessing that the tunnel in Guoliang was the first to be completed in this area. It was built in the early part of the Seventies. According to the China Daily article, Xiyagou first tried to build a tunnel in 1962, but quickly gave up all hope.

Then perhaps emboldened by the success of the Guoliang Tunnel five miles away, the people of Xiyagou tried again in 1982. The China Daily article mentioned a terrible accident in 1991. So obviously the Xiyagou Tunnel was not completed until sometime in the early Nineties.

What bothers me is that the Xiyagou and the Kunshan Tunnels have both outlived their original usefulness. They quickly became obsolete. The Xiyagou Tunnel probably got no more than 10 to 15 years of value at the most.

The China Daily article pointed out that the tunnels may not have been the most practical creations in the world. All that work for 15 years of use. Hmm.

The article compared the Xiyagou tunnelers to Yugongs... Foolish Old Men. The article quoted Chairman Mao who remembered the legend of a 90 year old man who got disgusted at the constant chore of walking around huge mountains in his path.

The Foolish Old Man of the North Mountain, nearly ninety years of age, lived behind these mountains. He was unhappy about the fact that the mountains blocked his way to the south and he had to walk round them whenever he went out or came back. So he called the whole family together to talk about the matter. "What would you say," he said to them, "if I suggest that all of us work hard to level the two mountains, so as to open a clear way to places south of Yu Prefecture and the Han River?"

His children were excited, but his wife had her doubts. "With your feeble strength," she said, "you could hardly remove a small hill like Kuifu. What makes you think you can move the Taihang and Wangwu Mountains?Besides, where could you deposit all the earth and rocks so they would not block another person's path?"

Mao used this story to describe the pointlessness of moving mountains.

I suppose the French who failed at the first attempt to build the Panama Canal back in 1880 would have agreed with Mao... they spent ten years trying to level a large hill to create the canal. When they finally gave up, they had lost millions of dollars, 22,000 men had died from malaria and yellow fever, and only 10% of the project was completed (Panama Canal Story).

Conclusion? Man isn't very good at moving mountains.

Today both Kunshan and Xiyagou both appear to empty into the Wangmangling Scenic Area. They may have no commercial use at all, but at the same time, these tunnels have brought all kinds of tourist activity to their area.

This has all happened practically overnight.

Today Xiyagou and Kunshan enjoy a much higher standard of living thanks to the existence of their tunnels. Folly? Maybe. But fascinating nonetheless.

As I said, I was unable to access much in the way of information about the various locations, but
just weird

 

[luddite]

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Username: luddite
Date: 2020-01-30 12:09:37
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Wish we had a member from China who could tell us what the Chinese opinion in this is, but we don’t. Which is weird.

I've asked an 89yo and 50yo Chinese in china that I . Will post their reply.

 

[codis]

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Username: codis
Date: 2020-01-30 12:44:49
Reaction Score: 1

At the most difficult stage, the tunnel progressed at a rate of one metre every three days.

Interesting.
For the Ore Mountain region, which was heavily digged up for silver several centuries ago, a progress of about one meter per year was reported for identical tools - for a much smaller cross area.
However, the miners did put emphasis on the what's in it, not fastest progress.

 

[SuperTrouper]

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Username: SuperTrouper
Date: 2020-01-31 01:32:01
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I get the sense what the western world doesn't know about China is probably staggering. It's a whole other ballgame.

For starters, China is such an easy target for the MSM. Guess who gets the public's blame for just about everything going wrong in the west nowadays? It's total BS. We need a common enemy, right? 1984 101.

P.S. I am sure that the United States cops all the blame in China, too.

 

[codis]

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Username: codis
Date: 2020-01-31 06:30:04
Reaction Score: 1

For starters, China is such an easy target for the MSM. Guess who gets the public's blame for just about everything going wrong in the west nowadays? It's total BS. We need a common enemy, right? 1984 101.

The totally different language and culture is very "helpful" in this regard.
Hardly any Westerner speaks Mandarin/Chinese, and can digest news directly from the source. And second, the culture and traditions seem totally foreign and incomprehensible. Add China's tight media censorship.
That works equally well with Russia and the Mideast.
It had been more of a problem with Nazi Germany (luckily there was no internet at that time ...), and was especially "difficult" in the cold-war antagonism between East- and West Germany.
Proper propaganda and indoctrination must suppress and exclude all contradicting sources.