ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine Site

　　Located 10 kilometers southeast of the city center, at the junction of Baini Village in Lanba Town, Shuicheng County, and Shiqiao Village in Fenghuang Subdistrict. ChuanYanDong is a natural karst cave. Together with nearby ancient lead-zinc mines, it is collectively named the ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine Site. The entire site covers an area of 1.5 square kilometers, including areas such as Baishapo, Yuanbao Mountain, Maoyanshatang, Upper and Lower Huntang, and ChuanYanDong. It contains nearly 100 large and small lead-zinc mine entrances, 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 mining 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 depth is hard to determine precisely but is at least over a thousand meters, with significant underground water. Dibao Cave is situated at the eastern foot of Yuanbao Mountain, with a cave entrance 1.8 meters high and 2 meters wide. Its depth exceeds 500 meters, and it features interconnected large and small chambers. Dajiaxiang runs north-south, is 215 meters long, 20 meters wide, and 40 meters deep (high), shaped like a canyon, 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 excavated here and was once known as the “Great Gong (Ore) King,” hence the construction of the “Gongwang Temple” at the pass, which has since collapsed.

　　According to the “Shuicheng County Annals · Mining” section, mining at ChuanYanDong Lead-Zinc Mine began in the Ming Dynasty. However, large-scale mining, as evidenced by the epitaph of Lei Lilu’s mother and the Mawang Stele, started during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, reaching its peak under the management of Lei Lilu during the Jiaqing and Daoguang eras.

　　Since the 1980s, this site has increasingly attracted attention from relevant departments and experts, with many visiting for research. On October 20, 1987, Su Rongyu and his team from the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences concluded after investigation: “The scale is extremely grand and quite rare, a national treasure with great development potential.” On June 3, 1989, it was designated as a county-level cultural heritage protection unit.