There is the Great Wall in the north and Liancheng in the south.

There is the Great Wall in the north and Liancheng in the south

“There is the Great Wall in the north and Liancheng in the south.” If the Great Wall is a fortification in the cold weapon era, then it is located in Pingxiang and Longzhou, Guangxi The large and small connected cities are the fortifications in the era of alternation of hot and cold weapons. Dalian City is an important southern border defense fortification in my country's modern war. It consists of Dalian City in Pingxiang and Xiaolian City in Longzhou. Although they are not as long-lived or as long as the Great Wall, their buildings are as luxurious as palaces.

Longzhou is connected to Vietnam by water and is the center point of the China-Vietnam border. At the same time, it is also the central contact point of the "three passes" of Zhennanguan, Pingerguan and Shuikouguan, with one town locking three passes. It has important strategic significance and has been a battleground for military strategists since ancient times. In 1885, the fight against the French invaders led by Feng Zicai was based in Longzhou. In 1930, during the Longzhou Uprising led by Deng Xiaoping and others, the Eighth Red Army headquarters was located in Longzhou County.

In 1885, Su Yuanchun, then the governor of Guangxi, accompanied Feng Zicai to defeat the French army at Zhennanguan.

Su Yuanchun, courtesy name Zixi, was born in Yong'an, Guangxi. A general of the Hunan Army in the late Qing Dynasty. In the second year of Tongzhi, Wu Tong surrendered to the Hunan Army, followed Xi Baotian to suppress the Taiping Army, and was promoted to a general. Later, he led his troops to suppress the Miao people in Guizhou and became an official. During the Sino-French war, he helped Feng Zicai defend the French army. The peace was negotiated and he stayed in Guangxi. In his later years, he was impeached and removed from his post due to the gradual decline in military management. He guarded Xinjiang. He died of illness in Dihua on June 13, 1908, at the age of 64.

Between 1885 and 1903, the Qing government ordered Su Yuanchun to supervise border defense and defend southern Xinjiang. Su Yuanchun moved the Guangxi Admiral's Office from Liuzhou south to Longzhou. Su Yuanchun personally surveyed the terrain and selected Yuangeng Village, 2 kilometers northwest of Pingxiang, as a frontline military base and Guangxi's former enemy command center.

Surrounded by rocky mountains, this place is naturally dangerous and dangerous. It is the central point from Zhennanguan to Longzhou via Pingxiang, and is also the choke point from Zhennanguan to Longzhou, Chongzuo and Nanning.

Su Yuanchun built 8 medium-sized forts on the surrounding hills, connected by city walls. The city wall undulates along the ridge, which is quite spectacular and is called Dalian City. Under the valley, there is a command center building complex, including the Admiral's Office, the martial arts hall, the training ground, the Wusheng Temple, the Temple of Wealth, etc.

Four large wells were dug - the Fu Well for soldiers to drink, the Lu Well for officers to drink, the Longevity Well for elders to drink, and the Happy Well for weddings and weddings. There is a school ground for tens of thousands of soldiers to train, and four rows of houses 30 meters in front of the government office serve as barracks.

On the mountain behind the Admiral's Yamen in Dalian City, there is the White Jade Cave, which was Su Yuanchun's military location and a place for spiritual nourishment. At that time, he expanded the three caves of Lingming, Lingguang and Cinnabar, built stairs, built walls, covered rooms, sculpted statues of gods, built flowerbeds and fish ponds, and built pavilions and archways.

At the same time, Su Yuanchun also built another Liancheng fortress in the same way at Jiangshan in the northwest of Longzhou. Because the scale of the fortification was slightly smaller than that of Dalian City, it was called Xiaolian City. As a result, two lines of defense were formed in the north and south of Longzhou. Both of them could defend Longzhou and serve as independent military command centers to guard the border.

According to the mountain topography of Jiangshan, 15 artillery forts were built on the main peak and the five peaks on the left and right peaks, as well as in caves between the mountains, as well as single and double fort walls connecting the forts. Nearly 6 kilometers long. There are beacon towers, one commander's flag each, two city gates and two mountain gates, training ground, military room, Lai'an Pavilion, Xizi Pagoda, Yuanchun Pavilion, Baoyuan Palace and other facilities.

The Zhenlong Fort on the main peak originally housed a German Kluber 120mm cannon. It covers an area of ??1925 square meters and contains barracks and ammunition depots. The forts are connected to the city, guarding the Zhennan Pass tunnel and Shuikou Pass, becoming a large-scale and majestic border fortress.

Su Yuanchun also opened Pingshi in Liancheng Fortress, built shops and stages, encouraged inland people to immigrate to the frontier fortress, and implemented a real-border immigration policy, making Longzhou the first treaty port in Guangxi, thus forming a facility Complete frontline command center and forward supply base.

In order to strengthen defense, Su Yuanchun also built an underground Great Wall in Pinggang Ridge as an underground passage connecting the two forts in the north and south of Pinggang Ridge, with a total length of more than 1,000 meters. There are two exits every 10 meters connected to the outside world. There are garrison rooms, ammunition depots, command rooms, etc. underground. There is an underground passage in the middle that leads directly to the Pinger River, the China-Vietnam border river.

The entire underground fortress and passages cover an area of ??dozens of acres, are criss-crossed and ingeniously structured, like an underground maze. It is known as the most secret underground fortification in the Qing Dynasty in China. The Pinggangling Fort left a glorious page in the War of Resistance Against France and the War of Liberation in aiding Vietnam and resisting the United States.

As the largest military fortress in Guangxi’s border defense in modern times, it made the French invaders give up their plans to attack my country on the Longzhou section of the Sino-Vietnamese border. However, Su Yuanchun was not reused by the court. In the end, he was demoted and sent to Xinjiang because of the saying "the bright moon is half as talented", and died in a foreign land.

As time goes by, the smoke and fire of history have dissipated, and the military defense functions of the large and small Liancheng have also faded, but they have left us a relic of the war against the invaders. They have witnessed the history of the Chinese military and civilians united to fight against the French invaders.