Yingshouyingzi Mining District 鹰手营子矿区

History

The name means "camp of the hawk-handlers". Late in the Kangxi reign, a site called Menhulu (闷葫芦场) inside the restricted zone of the Eastern Qing Tombs (清东陵) was chosen as an imperial falcon-training ground. Four hawk-handlers, soldiers who trained hawks for hunting, settled there, and their camp (营子, yingzi) gave the place its name.

The area belonged to Xinglong County after that county was founded in 1930. A mining district under Chengde was first set up in 1957, returned to Xinglong in 1958 and passed back to Chengde in 1965; the present district government dates from 1981. Coal from Yingshouyingzi and copper from Shouwangfen were among the reasons given when it was decided in 1953 to reroute the Beijing–Chengde railway through the area; the line opened in 1960.

Copper working here is old: the Shouwangfen copper-smelting site (寿王坟铜冶遗址), in the Shouwangfen mining area of Chengde, is dated to the Han dynasty and has been a provincial protected site since 23 July 1982. Shouwangfen (寿王坟镇) is one of the district's four towns.

Setting and landscape

Along the Liu River (柳河) the land is high on all sides and low in the middle, forming a mountain valley made up of the Liu valley, the centre of the Xinglong coalfield and the river plain east of Shouwangfen. The Liu, a first-order tributary of the Luan (滦河), is the district's only main river and runs 12.5 km within it. The Laoniu (老牛河), Wangjiazhuang (汪家庄河) and other seasonal streams feed into it. Spring is windy and dry, summer brings most of the rain, and winter is cold, windy and dry with little snow.

Getting oriented

The Beijing–Chengde railway crosses the district between Xinglong County and Chengde County, with stations at Beimajuanzi (北马圈子) and Yingshouyingzi; a branch line from Xiataizi (下台子) station serves the Shouwangfen copper mine.

Highlights

• Shouwangfen copper-smelting site 寿王坟铜冶遗址: Han-dynasty copper-smelting site, provincial protected site since 1982.