Former Residence of Chen Jincheng and Chen Boda

Former Residence of Chen Jincheng and Chen Boda

The former residence of Chen Jincheng and Chen Boda is a cultural tourism attraction.

The former residence of Chen Jincheng and Chen Boda is located in Meiling Village, Luoyang Town. It is a revolutionary base village and lies along the ancient post road from Quanzhou to the provincial capital. Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty once passed through here and noticed that the village was shaped like a five-petaled plum blossom — truly a feng shui treasure spot. He remarked to those around him, “This is a feng shui treasure land; surely extraordinary people will emerge from here.” He then inscribed the words on a cliffside stone. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, as predicted, a scholar-official named Chen Jincheng emerged. Today, Chen Jincheng’s former residence has been designated as a county-level cultural heritage site. Chen Boda, his great-grandson, lived in a residence right next to Chen Jincheng’s.

The residence covers an area of over 1,600 square meters, consisting of three main sections and five bays, with a brick courtyard at the front and a “Mianzhai Study Hall” nearby. Inside the residence are plaques commemorating Chen Jincheng’s success in the imperial examinations, as well as displays of stone tablet fragments from ancestral memorial archways such as the Filial Piety Arch and the Filial Front Arch. In the old house where Chen Boda was born, there is a display featuring a catalog of his life’s works, along with some photographs and calligraphy pieces. The most distinctive feature of the residence is found on the walls of a small hall, where four placards hang, inscribed with “Catalog of Chen Boda’s Works from 1970 to 1992.” These include political essays, poetry, and even novels. The first entry is titled “Soldiers? Bandits?” dated April 1922. Essays he wrote in 1949, such as “China’s Four Big Families” (July), “The National Thief Yuan Shikai” (July), and “The Public Enemy of the People Chiang Kai-shek” (August), brought him widespread literary fame.

Chen Jincheng was Chen Boda’s great-grandfather. He had notable interactions with Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan, participated in the anti-British resistance, and authored the four-volume Collected Writings of the Yiyi Hall. He was a patriotic scholar-official during the Opium War period. In June 1840, when the First Opium War between China and Britain broke out, he wrote essays such as “On Subduing the Barbarians,” “Proposals for Defending Fuzhou,” and “Proposals for Defending the Quanzhou Forces,” in which he proposed strategies for strengthening military defenses, advocated for training both soldiers and civilians to defend against foreign aggression, and called for governance based on public opinion. He also urged severe punishment for royal figures like Qi Shan. His views were widely praised across official and public circles. During his lifetime, Chen Jincheng oversaw renovations of the Luoyang Bridge and inscribed the words “The Number One Bridge Under Heaven” at the bridge’s central pavilion, earning fame throughout Fujian.

Chen Boda, originally named Shengxun, also known as Jianxiang, with the courtesy name Shangyou, was a native of Luoyang Town, Quanzhou Taiwan Investment Zone, Fujian Province, and a Chinese Communist Party politician. He served as Mao Zedong’s most important public spokesperson, and later came to be regarded as the “Fifth Figure” of the Cultural Revolution era, second only to Mao himself. Among Mao’s many secretaries, Chen Boda served the longest tenure, a total of 31 years. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, he held positions including Deputy Director of the Cultural and Educational Committee of the Government Administration Council, Director of the Central Party School’s Political Research Office, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Vice President of the Marx-Lenin Institute, Standing Committee Member of the Third National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Vice Minister and Advisor of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, Vice Director of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Hongqi (Red Flag), and Deputy Director of the State Planning Commission.

Attraction Location

7.9 km southwest of Hui’an County, Quanzhou City, Fujian Province

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