Former Site of the Fujian Students’ Federation

Former Site of the Fujian Students’ Federation

The former site of the Fujian Students’ Federation is a cultural heritage site protected by the Fujian Provincial Government and a classic destination on China’s red tourism trail.

The former site of the Fujian Students’ Federation, the Xie Family Ancestral Hall, is located at No. 60 (formerly No. 22) on the north side of Jibi Road, Gulou District, Fuzhou City.

On May 4, 1919, a massive revolutionary movement opposing imperialism and feudalism broke out in Beijing. That afternoon, over 3,000 students from 13 higher education institutions including Peking University gathered at Tiananmen to protest the Beijing warlord government’s plan to sign the “Twenty-One Demands” treaty with Germany, which would have ceded Shandong to Japan. The Beiyang warlord government dispatched large numbers of troops to arrest the students, sparking nationwide outrage. On May 7, in support of the Beijing May Fourth Movement, more than 8,000 students from various schools in Fuzhou gathered at Nanzhaochang (now May 1st Square) to stage a protest, taking to the streets to voice their solidarity with the Beijing students. They shouted slogans such as “Punish the traitors,” “Release the arrested students,” “Abolish the Twenty-One Demands,” and “Boycott Japanese goods.” The Fujian warlord Li Houji deployed soldiers and police to the streets to stop the demonstration, but seeing the overwhelming number of students, they dared not suppress them.

To sustain their long-term struggle, after the protests, the students established the Fujian Students’ Federation, using the Xie Family Ancestral Hall at No. 22 Jibi Road as its headquarters. They also formed the All-Fujian Students’ Daily Publication Society and a Japanese Goods Investigation Department. The former focused on promoting patriotic ideals and the boycott of Japanese goods, while the latter organized students to inspect businesses in the city, seizing or destroying any found Japanese products and mobilizing the public to reject them—achieving significant results. They launched the Academic Weekly and the Xinmin Drama Troupe, staging plays often referred to as “civilized dramas,” performing them in busy areas and pushing the anti-Japanese movement in Fuzhou to new heights. The Xie Family Ancestral Hall became a historical witness to the fight against imperialism and feudalism.

The Xie Family Ancestral Hall was originally built during the Ming Dynasty and underwent multiple renovations during the Qing Dynasty and the Republican era. In 1958, it was further modified due to road expansion. It faces south and covers a land area of 1,025 square meters, with a built-up area of 946 square meters. The structure consists of four courtyards, surrounded by firewalls on all sides. The front section is a shallow hall with two rooms and one main room. Passing through the blue stone-framed main gate leads to the principal building. The gate frame is exquisitely crafted, with a pair of blue stone door knockers above the lintel—a design typical of the Ming Dynasty and rare in the city. The main structure uses large materials, featuring corridors on three sides, a central courtyard paved entirely with flagstones.

On either side of the courtyard are drainage ditches over a meter deep, with covered corridors above. The hall features a post-and-lintel wooden frame, a double-sloped roof, and saddleback gables. It is five bays wide and seven rafters deep, with four carved wooden screens separating the front and rear halls. On both sides are front and rear side rooms. The blue stone bases of the pillars are adorned with bas-reliefs of eight steeds and the twelve zodiac animals. In the center of the whitewashed back hall hangs a “Fu” (福, meaning fortune) character, one meter in diameter, with bats painted in each corner. Under the eaves are plaster reliefs depicting scenes such as the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea and Two Lions Playing with a Ball. A door on the west side of the first courtyard leads to a small, exquisite flower hall, which historically served as a study. Beyond a partition wall is the second courtyard, built to Qing Dynasty specifications, also with seven rafters and three bays. There is a well in the courtyard, and covered corridors on both sides. The third courtyard is three bays wide and five rafters deep, with wall passageways on both sides. The fourth courtyard is a flower hall, a three-bay inverted building with a tower; it once had rockeries and gardens, now ruined. The back wall is adjacent to No. 30 Gongxiang. Inside the ancestral hall, two “Martial Arts Champion” plaques were discovered. One of them has the inscription: “Presented by Zhong □yin, Vice Minister of War, Right Censor-in-Chief of the Metropolitan Surveillance Bureau, Governor-General of Fujian, Commander of Military Affairs, and Superintendent of Grain Supply, Hereditary First-Class Light Chariot Marquis”; the bottom reads: “Erected by Xie Yuanbin in the 48th year of the Qianlong reign.”

In the late Qing Dynasty, Lin Juemin and others founded a reading room here to enlighten the public. During the Kuomintang rule, the Kuomintang’s Minhou County Party Headquarters and the Minhou Daily Newspaper Office were both located here. On December 11, 1930, to commemorate the third anniversary of the Guangzhou Uprising, the Fuzhou branch of the Chinese Communist Party organized a demonstration here. Li Guang, leader of the Fuzhou Mutual Aid Association and a Communist Party member, was arrested and later sacrificed despite rescue efforts. When Huang Zhanyun established the “Model Village of Yingqian,” he also used this site as an urban office.

In January 1992, the Fuzhou Municipal People’s Government listed it as a representative building under protected status. In May 2005, the Fujian Provincial People’s Government designated it as a Fujian Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

(Source: “A General Survey of Revolutionary Sites in Fujian Province,” “Annals of the Three Lanes and Seven Alleys”)