【Haichuan Chemical Industry Site】Yueyang 6501 Underground **Project
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On April 18, 2014, the People’s Government of Yueyang City, Hunan Province, issued the \"Notice on Announcing the Second Batch of Municipal-Level Cultural Relics Protection Sites in Yueyang City\" via Document No. (Yuezhengbanhan [2014] 29). Designating this network of artificial caves as a municipal cultural heritage site is in recognition of its status as an important historical site and representative building from the modern era – it is known as the 6501 Underground **Project. Protection zone: Starting from the entrance of the tunnel, it extends 30 meters in each of the four directions. Construction control zone: It extends 50 meters beyond the boundaries of the protection zone in each of the four directions. The tunnel has an upper, middle, and lower layer structure; it’s expanded on a cosmic scale, resembling an ant nest or a gourd with vines bearing fruits. Halls, domes, corridors, and passageways are all connected to one another, with every tunnel linking to every other one. There are 25 halls (rooms) and 17 courtyards, with a total length of about 17,000 meters and an area of about 80,000 square meters ； The larger tunnel allows trains from outside the mountains to pass through, while trucks can use the smaller tunnel for detoured deliveries; it has been hailed as the \"first artificial tunnel\" in the Jiangnan region, as well as the \"underground Great Wall\". In which year, month, by whom, and why was it excavated? What is the purpose of hollowing it out? Why is it called the “6501 Project”? Why was it suddenly abandoned again? Is it an underground **engineering project of the People’s Liberation Army? It leaves countless speculations.
The project was not only concealed but also kept strictly secret from the outside world; the local residents thought it was the military carrying out mining activities. By the early 1970s, the workers had essentially emptied a mountain, but the project was not completed. In 1973, work on the project was suddenly halted and the entrance was sealed off. The project has now been decrypted, and parts of it are open to the public.
Every visitor who comes here is amazed by the massive scale of the project. The project is divided into upper, middle, and lower levels, which are connected to each other; the tunnels are linked together, creating a maze-like structure. The total length of these caves is 17 kilometers, with an area of over 800,000 square meters. The larger tunnels are designed to accommodate trains, while the smaller ones can be used by cars.
In December 1965, the Ministry of the Petroleum Industry instructed the design unit for the Changling Refinery to \"go into the mountains and caves.\" The plan is to hide the refinery, with an annual processing capacity of 1.5 million tons, by burrowing it underground; railway tracks from the Beijing-Guangzhou line will be connected to the cave through a track leading from the Tao Mine, so that trains and trucks can pass through the tunnel, allowing thousands of tons of oil products, supplies, and mechanical equipment to be handled inside the cave. The scale of the project has changed several times, with the annual processing capacity of crude oil increasing from 1.5 million tons to 2.5 million tons.