ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine Site

ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine Site

The ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine Site is a cultural tourism attraction.

Located 10 kilometers southeast of the city center, at the junction between Baini Village in Lanba Town, Shuicheng County, and Shiqiao Village in Fenghuang Subdistrict. ChuanYanDong is a natural karst cave, collectively named the ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine Site along with nearby ancient lead-zinc mines. The entire site spans an area of 1.5 square kilometers, including Baishapo, Yuanbao Mountain, Mao Yanshatang, Upper and Lower Huntang, ChuanYanDong, and others. It contains nearly 100 large and small lead-zinc mine tunnels, with notable ones being Dayandong, Heiminghu Cave, and Dibao Cave. There are also open-pit mining sites such as Dajiaxiang and Gong (Ore) Wangmiao Pass.

Among them, Dayandong is over 60 meters long, 20 meters wide, and 10 meters high, and is connected to Dajiaxiang. At the exit, there is a cylindrical mine pit 30 meters deep and 20 meters in diameter. Heiminghu Cave (also referred to as Heminghu in old county records): Located in Upper Huntang, the cave entrance is 2 meters high and 2.8 meters wide. The exact depth is hard to determine but is at least over a thousand meters, with significant underground water flow. Dibao Cave is situated on the eastern foothills of Yuanbao Mountain, with an entrance 1.8 meters high and 2 meters wide. Its depth exceeds 500 meters, featuring interconnected large and small chambers. Dajiaxiang runs north to south, is 215 meters long, 20 meters wide, and 40 meters deep (or high), resembling a canyon shape, with its southern end connecting to Dayandong. Gongwangmiao Pass has a mining area of over 20 acres and an average depth of 10 meters. High-grade lead-zinc ore was mined here, once called the “Great Gong (Ore) King,” hence a “Gongwang Temple” was built at the pass, though it has now collapsed.

According to the Shuicheng County Annals·Mining, the ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine was exploited during the Ming Dynasty. However, large-scale mining began from the Qianlong era, based on evidence such as the tomb epitaph of Lei Lilu’s mother and the Mawang Stele, flourishing most during Lei Lilu’s management in the Jiaqing and Daoguang periods.

Since the 1980s, this site has drawn increasing attention from relevant departments and experts, attracting numerous visitors for research. On October 20, 1987, a team led by Su Rongyu from the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, concluded: “The scale is extremely grand, quite rare, a national treasure with great development potential.” On June 3, 1989, it was designated as a county-level cultural relics protection unit.