Linshui County

Linshui County (simplified Chinese: 邻水县) is a county in China, administratively governed by the prefecture-level city Guang'an, birthplace of Deng Xiaoping, in eastern Sichuan province.

The county, which is not large, is accessible via a four-hour shuttle coach riding on the Chengnan expressway from Chengdu (Shiling public bus station) and a two-hour driving from the municipality city Chongqing on the south. The county is rich in natural resources, and has reservoirs of coal and sweet natural gas.

Strategically, Linshui County is on the only path out of Sichuan province in the east, as the connecting point between Dazhou – a municipal city in the north – and Chongqing, the municipality city in the south. The local economy is largely dependent on livestock and agricultural farming.

Transportation

Due to the peculiar local terrain—a series of parallel mountain ranges running in the SW to NE direction --, most roads in the area run in the valleys, also in the SW-NE direction. The G65 Baotou–Maoming Expressway runs through Linshui County, but no railway does. The closest railway to Linshui, the Xiangyang–Chongqing line, runs west of these ranges, outside of the county's borders; the closest railway station, in Huaying, is almost 30 km away by road, and has very limited service.

Plans exist for a high speed railway (Dazhou-Chongqing Intercity Railway, 达渝城际铁路) that would run from Chongqing to Dazhou, roughly parallel to the older Xiangyang–Chongqing Railway. In early May 2015, Linshui people learned that the railway would be routed (i.e. the valley in which it will run) was to be via Guang'an, hometown of Deng Xiaoping. Tens of thousands of residents marched in protest and were met by violent attacks by local police, including a Special Police Unit team, with two people reported dead. A violent reaction followed and the confrontation lasted all day and well into the night with many police cars damaged.