Shahezi Martyrs' Cemetery

Shahezi Martyrs' Cemetery

Shahezi Martyrs' Cemetery is a classic red tourism attraction.

Shahezi Martyrs' Cemetery is located on a hillside terrace 500 meters south of Shahezi Village, Daohe Town, Dongning County, Mudanjiang City. The GPS coordinates are 130°44′15.4″N, 44°09′35.1″E, at an elevation of 300 meters. In December 1946, the First Detachment of the Second Regiment of the People's Liberation Army, which came from Hailin to Dongning to suppress bandits—including the unit where Yang Zirong served—engaged in a fierce battle with over 100 remnant Kuomintang bandits holed up at the battalion headquarters in Shahe Village. The battle resulted in the annihilation of two battalions of bandits and the killing of their leader. During this intense anti-bandit operation, ten officers and soldiers from our Second Detachment unfortunately sacrificed their lives heroically. To commemorate and honor these martyrs, the people of Dongning built Shahezi Martyrs' Cemetery in late December 1946. On October 1, 1978, the Dongning County Revolutionary Committee further erected a memorial monument. The cemetery has a rectangular layout, covering an area of 620 square meters, with its front facing south. The architectural arrangement features the memorial monument at the front and the martyrs’ tombs at the rear. The monument stands 8 meters tall and covers an area of 48 square meters, while the ten martyrs’ graves are all earthen mounds. Over time, due to lack of maintenance and years of erosion from wind, rain, lightning, and natural weathering, the Shahezi Martyrs' Cemetery fell into disrepair. In 2009, the Daohe Town Party Committee and government decided to rebuild the cemetery to standardized specifications. The newly constructed cemetery spans 1,600 square meters, enclosed by 160 linear meters of iron fencing, and includes an 8-meter-high martyrs’ memorial monument, ten cement-structured martyr tombs, as well as landscaping trees and lawns planted throughout the site and its surroundings. The newly rebuilt Shahezi Martyrs' Cemetery has now become one of the town’s key patriotic education memorial sites.