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Site of the Gutian Meeting

Updated: 2018-08-22

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[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Site of the Gutian Meeting, located in Xibei Village, Gutian Town of Shanghang County, was built in 1848. Formerly, it served as the ancestral hall of the Liao clan, and was then used as a primary school when a major force of the Red Army was stationed in Gutian.

It is a one-storey house made from bricks and wood, covering an area of 826 square meters and consisting of two halls in the front and back and two wing-rooms on the left and right. The back hall was the classroom for senior pupils, where in December of 1929 Mao Zedong held the Ninth Party Congress of the 4th Corps of the Red Army, passing a resolution of historical significance. General Chen Yi presided over the 3-day meeting, while Mao Zedong delivered a report of political resolution. Gutian Meeting plays a vital role in the history of the Chinese Communist Party and the survival and development of the Red Army. The resolution adopted at the meeting maps out a great program for building the Red Army.

[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Today the meeting hall has been restored to the original scene with such things in place as the seats, logo, rostrum, slogans, the Party flag, wall clock and pictures of Karl Marx and Lenin. The left wing-room served as Mao Zedong’s office. And the mark left on the ground still reminds people of the scene of the delegates warming themselves by the fire. Outside, on the right side is the reviewing stand. On the left are a lotus pond and a well. Erected behind the house is a board with big red characters reading "Everlasting the Gutian Meeting".

[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Further back is a dense forest. On its opposite is an exhibition hall built in the 1960s and opened in October 1974. Covering an area of 38,151 square meters and a floor space of 11,324 square meters, it mostly exhibits valuable cultural relics in West Fujian during the revolutionary period. Here you will find different versions of "The Resolution of the Gutian Meeting" printed in different historical periods. It is a memorial that houses the largest number of revolutionary relics in Fujian. In March 1961, the Site of the Gutian Meeting was named as one of the first important cultural relics under state protection.