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Through the time of the Cultural Revolution China built defense facilities in remote regions away coastal areas, a network of factories was built in the interior of the country under the assumption that a full-scale war was likely. Many of China's largest defense-industrial facilities are located in the relatively remote interior, constituting the so-called "third line" of production from the days of the "People's War" doctrine. The location of these facilities has made it difficult for research and production facilities to sustain themselves under modern economic conditions.

Starting in the early 1980's the government worked to relocate some of these military research institutes and factories from these remote interior regions to urban areas. Due to the emphasis that China has placed on concealment of its special weapons capabilities, it is doubtful whether any other country, perhaps even including the United States, has identified all of China's special weapons related facilities.

With the evolution of the international situation, the situation around China has become more and more serious. After 1956, Sino-Soviet caused great dissatisfaction in the ideology and other aspects, causing great dissatisfaction with the Soviet Union, unilaterally tearing up contracts, withdrawing experts, and forcing debts owed by the arms purchase during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid, and the Soviet Union also instigated Xinjiang separatists held armed rebellions. With the further deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, the 7300-kilometer border line between the two countries has seen unprecedented tension. The US Seventh Fleet openly entered the Taiwan Strait . He also forced my neighboring countries to sign treaties, form an anti-China alliance, and establish military bases in these areas to form a semi-circular encirclement of the east and south of China. India, Japan, South Korea and other countries are also hostile to China.

"Three-line construction" is a major strategic decision made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao Zedong in the mid-1960s. It was an upward trend in the situation of strengthening the readiness and gradually changing the layout of China's productive forces in the midst of the increasingly tense international situation. The strategic shift of the western transfer, the focus of construction is in the southwest and northwest.

In August 1964, the State Construction Commission held a first- and second-line relocation meeting, proposing a large dispersion and small concentration. A few defense-oriented projects should be “backward, scattered, and concealed” (referred to as Shan, San, and Dong). Some have to go into the hole. The construction of the third line was announced.

During the period 1964-1980, the state approved more than 1,100 medium and large-scale construction projects in the third-tier areas. A large number of factories and talents originally located in large cities entered the western mountainous areas. There are also slogans such as "preparing for the reserve for the people" and "good people are good for the third line" and so on, calling on people to go to the third-line area. In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, the third line was also the place where a large number of educated youths were. The former Chinese President Hu Jintao was once assigned to the Liujiaxia Hydropower Station in Gansu . Due to national defense considerations, the locations of these factories are remote and scattered, leading to the subsequent development of enterprises into bottlenecks.

Between 1964 and 1980, in the 16 years of the three-year plan, the country invested more than 40% of the total investment in the country's capital construction in the middle and western regions of the 13 provinces and autonomous regions belonging to the third-tier region. 4 million workers, cadres, intellectuals, officers and men of the People's Liberation Army, and migrant workers of 10 million people. Under the call of the era of "preparing for the reserve for the people" and "the good people are good for the third line", they started to pack their backpacks, wading through the mountains, and coming to the motherland. In the southwest, the northwest of the deep mountain gorge, the desert wilderness, the wind meal, the shoulders and the shoulders, with hardships, sweat and life, more than 1,100 large and medium-sized industrial and mining enterprises, research institutes and colleges and universities.

The so-called "three lines" generally refer to the three lines of the coastal areas of the coastal areas where the economy is relatively developed and at the front of the national defense. The first-line area refers to the front line area along the coastal side; the second-line area refers to the eastern half of Anhui, Jiangxi and Hebei, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan provinces between the first-line area and the Beijing-Guangzhou railway; the third line refers to the south of the Great Wall and the Shaoguan of Guangdong. The west of the Beijing-Guangzhou-Guangzhou Railway and the east of Wushaoling , Gansu Province , mainly including Sichuan (including Chongqing), Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and other provinces, as well as Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Hubei, Some areas of Guangxi, Guangdong and other provinces, including the southwestern Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and northwestern Shaanxi, Gansu, Ning, and Qing customs are called “the third line”, and the hinterland of the first and second line areas is commonly known as the “small third line”.

Roughly from the administrative division: first-line areas : Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Xinjiang, Tibet. The third-line region : Sichuan (including Chongqing), Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, seven provinces and regions and the hinterland of Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi and other provinces, involving 13 provinces and autonomous regions. The area between the first and third line areas is the second line area.

At the same time, the provinces located in the first-line and second-line provinces each built a group of provincial “small third-line local military industrial enterprises”, led by the provincial defense industry office, producing semi-automatic rifles, 7.62 mm intermediate power rifle, grenade, fuze, mortar shells, Heavy machine guns, medium and small caliber mortars, rockets, rocket launchers, high-altitude machine guns, and recoilless guns are also the firepower of the infantry battalion. Strive to achieve the "provincial" self-defense war in the future anti-aggression war.

Guizhou, Sichuan's eastern mountainous areas, Sichuan's central plains, Hanzhong, Qinling, Beibei and other areas had a large number of new projects, large scale, and more industrial population. Among them, Sichuan Chengdu mainly received light industry and electronics industry, Mianyang and Guangyuan receive nuclear industry and electronics industry, Chongqing was a conventional weapon manufacturing base, and even included the third production reactor (816 factory) and conventional submarine manufacturing (Wangjiang Shipyard) ); Guizhou Guiyang mainly accepts the optoelectronic industry, and Anshun mainly accepted the aircraft industry.

The construction of the third line was mainly carried out during the " Cultural Revolution " and was obviously political. At that time, the way to promote the construction of the third line was mainly political means, including: political mobilization and call, stage struggle and conference war.

The investment direction of the third-line construction is mainly concentrated in heavy industry and national defense industry. The policy of “mountain, scattered and cave” affects the development benefit as a war preparation project. According to the topography of the third-line area, Mao Zedong puts forward the opinions of “great dispersion, small concentration” and “mountain camping in the mountains and waters”. The construction policy of “backing, scattered, and concealed” has its rationality, especially some cutting-edge defense projects related to national security, and should first consider its concealment. However, the principle of mountain, scattered and cave was overemphasized.

The construction of the third-line construction was initially progressing rapidly. After the outbreak of the "Cultural Revolution", the situation changed dramatically. Many leading cadres at all levels of the three-line construction "shouldered by the side", and the wave of rebellion against the military caused the local "three-line" construction projects to be in chaos. Many technologies and personnel were injured and the important scientific research projects were stagnant.