A week-end in Xianning (2) - Historic part

One afternoon my friend’s family took us in a very interesting place. During one hour we went back 60 years in the past while we were visiting Lin Biao’s underground bunker. This bunker had been built by Lin Biao (who was second in command under Mao’s republic) to protect all the communist authorities in case or a nuclear war against Russia would start. This bunker was really impressive and interesting to see, indeed I am not a specialist of the cold war period in our world History but being in this bunker which have been kept intact with all the furniture, all the pictures of communist army’s chiefs with their family, while they were meeting, doing their job, it was impressive. A 60 years back jump in the History (is that right?). This bunker have been built in the nowhere of China because in case of nuclear war, Russia would have attacked the big cities so it was not safe at all and furthermore, Lin Biao comes from the city nearby so he knew the region which is practical when you are doing a war I guess… This building had never been finished totally because Lin Biao died in an “accidental” place crash and afterwards there was no war anymore, Mao never even came to this place who had been built for him originally. You have more than 200 rooms for all the chiefs of the communist army and it's very interesting because all the rooms are built 50/100 cm away from the bunker's wall so in case of attack, they could just open a hidden door and run away in the long thick corridor between the bunker itself and the wooden building, everywhere you had steel doors, behing painting, behind beds, behind sofas, you could escape the rooms from everywhere, same for the bathrooms! And there was a room where the food was tasted by someone before being served to the chiefs and so to avoid them to die poisoned..!

About the description, I take the one I found on this blog (http://pacejmiller.wordpress.com) because he is an English native speaker and I can not do a better job and I have nothing more to say, obviously we had the same guide who told us the same story ^^ 


“It’s like a mini-maze, with cold, stuffy air and long corridors enforced by thick steel doors.  Paranoia must have been rife back in those days.

The story of Lin Biao’s life and his ultimate demise was also compelling to learn.  According to official reports, Lin Biao (who was second in command by that stage) attempted to assassinate Mao several times before he and his family died in a plane crash while defecting to Russia.  Despite all the battles he fought for China and everything he did for the Communist Party, Lin Biao is still officially condemned as a traitor.

Others suggest that was not that case at all.  Lin was a war hero and highly respected in the Communist Party, but had apparently become too respected, to the point where Mao got a little nervous.  The ‘accidental’ plane crash?  More like a pre-emptive strike.

Who knows what really happened? “

Here the pictures :)

A long corridor with 200 rooms