Yingzhou Temple Site (Yingzhou Temple Former Site) Memorial Hall of the Model Village in Yingqian

Memorial Hall of the Model Village in Yingqian (Yingzhou Temple Former Site)

The Memorial Hall of the Model Village in Yingqian (Yingzhou Temple Former Site) is a cultural heritage site protected by Changle District.

The original name of this building is unknown, and Yingzhou Temple is likely its colloquial name. According to the "Chronicles of Liuli in Changle," the area is centered around Fufeng Mountain, with surrounding villages called Yingqian, also known as Yingtian, and referred to as Yingzhou. The temple was named after the locality (Yingqian was historically called "Yingzhou" or "Yingqian"), and the place name became widely known because of the temple.

Yingzhou Temple was first built in the second year of the Qiande era (964 AD), but its original name is unclear.

It is recorded that during the Ming Dynasty, Qi Jiguang entered Fujian to suppress the Wokou pirates and once stationed troops in Yingqian (the so-called Yingqian refers to the area in front of General Qi’s camp). As a result, this farmland was called Yingtian, also known as "Yingzhou" or "Yingqian," and the temple was also called Yingzhou Temple, experiencing cycles of prosperity and decline over the years.

In December 1927 (the 16th year of the Republic of China), Huang Zhanyun and others founded the "Model Village in Yingqian" in Yingqian Town as a provincial demonstration, implementing measures such as prohibition of drugs.

In 1928 (the 17th year of the Republic of China), Wang Jieshan, the brother of Wang Hebo (a martyr and then member of the Provisional Politburo of the CPC Central Committee) and an underground CPC member, returned to Fuzhou. Introduced by Guo Shousheng, he took up the post of captain of the village guard team in the Model Village in Yingqian. He led efforts to "eliminate superstitious and outdated customs," destroying nearly a thousand Buddhist statues in Yingzhou Temple, and repurposed the temple as the village office.

Later, the model village also established the first primary school in the Model Village in Yingqian here — Yingzhou Primary School.

It is still unclear what happened to Yingzhou Primary School during the War of Resistance; whether it relocated inland to avoid the chaos, disbanded on the spot, or fell under enemy control. (Flame Mountain believes: based on existing information, by the end of the war, this site was likely no longer in use as a school.)

Possibly in the mid-to-late 1940s or early 1950s, the Yingzhou Temple building was demolished and rebuilt as a two-story brick structure.

After 1949, it was long used as the Yingqian Town Grain Station, and was converted into the Memorial Hall of the Model Village in Yingqian in October 2011.