Site of the Iron Pit Village Guerrilla Base

Iron Pit Village: Site of the Guerrilla Base

The site of the Iron Pit Village guerrilla base is located in Iron Pit Village, Rixi Township, Jin'an District, Fuzhou City.

In August 1945, the Party organization sent Zhu Honglian to secretly carry out guerrilla activities in Iron Pit and actively recruited a group of Party members. That same year, an Iron Pit guerrilla outpost was established and gradually developed into a guerrilla base.

In 1946, the disconnected Urban Work Department shifted its main forces to the countryside to wage guerrilla warfare. In early March, Comrade Lin Bai led revolutionaries in relocating the Five-County Central County Committee from Xiaobeiling to Iron Pit Village. They covertly transferred revolutionary forces in Iron Pit Village, mobilized the masses to develop guerrilla warfare, and carried out struggles against local despots, breaking into grain storage facilities and redistributing food supplies.

Iron Pit Village is located at the junction of Lianjiang, Minhou, and Luoyuan counties, featuring complex terrain. At the time, hundreds of revolutionaries entered and exited Iron Pit Village every day. The villagers used their familiarity with the terrain to guide, shelter, and help gather and transport military provisions for the revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the Nationalist troops often got lost in the mountains and were ambushed by the guerrillas.

To protect the revolutionaries, the villagers of Iron Pit Village paid a heavy price. Chen Yan-kui, who was arrested due to a security breach, chose death over surrender and was eventually buried alive. During the three “encirclement and suppression” campaigns by the Nationalists, more than 20 houses in Iron Pit Village were burned down and over 20 draft oxen were slaughtered. To rescue captured guerrillas, the villagers sold everything they had, using old currency worth 3.5 billion yuan and 80 dan (approximately 4,000 kg) of rice among other valuables to ransom the hostages and safeguard the revolutionary forces. Subsequently, the Xiaobeiling Guerrilla Unit grew to over 400 members, expanding its organizational activities to Minhou, Gutian, and Minqing, and establishing large areas of guerrilla zones.

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