Qigong Town Uprising Memorial Hall

Qigong Town Uprising Memorial Hall

The Qigong Town Uprising Memorial Hall is located on the street of Qigong Town, about 30 kilometers northeast of the county seat. It was built to commemorate the “Qigong Town Uprising” that took place during the Great Revolution period. During the Republican era, Qigong Town was the central area of the ninth district of Yiyang County. Before and after the Great Revolution, reactionary warlords occupied Qigong Town. At the local Temple of the City God, there was a police substation under the Jiangxi Police Department. This substation had an armed force of 10 guns. Colluding with local feudal landlords, they oppressed the people, sabotaged the peasant movement, and suppressed the revolution. In his youth, Fang Zhimin, while studying in Nanchang, out of righteous indignation and on behalf of the people, once filed a complaint with the provincial police department about the misconduct of Yu Mazzi, the inspector of the Qigong Town Police Substation. However, due to the corruption of society, the complaint went unanswered. In the autumn of 1926, the Northern Expeditionary Army entered Jiangxi, and the Great Revolution as well as the peasant movements across the regions reached a climax. Yet, under the control of Yu Mazzi, the Qigong Town police substation still acted against the tide and became a stumbling block to the peasant movement in Qigong Town. Under the specific instructions and guidance of Fang Zhimin, the temporary branch of the Chinese Communist Party in Qigong Town decided to mobilize the peasants to smash the police substation and strike against the reactionary forces. One winter night in 1926, Fang Yuanjie and Huang Zhongzhong, in the name of the Peasant Association, secretly gathered over 200 key members of the Peasant Association from the Qigong Town area in Hutang Village and organized an uprising team. They announced their plan to destroy the Qigong Town Police Substation, seize weapons, arm themselves, and launch an uprising. The uprising members took action that very night. They marched forward with red flags and torches lighting the way. Some were armed with sabers and spears, others carried shotguns and hoes. Led by Fang Yuanjie and Huang Zhongzhong, they stormed the Qigong Town Police Substation. The reactionary policemen, awakened from their sleep, knelt down and surrendered their weapons. Yu Mazzi fled amid the chaos. The police substation was destroyed, and seven homemade guns and three foreign rifles were seized. The uprising was a success. Qigong Town implemented the principle that all power belonged to the Peasant Association. The broad masses of peasants held their heads high, and the peasant movement surged to new heights. Among the three guns seized, one was a German-made “double-barreled rifle,” one was a “Hanyang-made” rifle, and the third was a damaged “Mauser nine-shot rifle.” Lacking a cartridge extractor and with half of its barrel sawed off, it could only be counted as half a gun—hence the term “two and a half guns.” This is the origin of the story widely told among the people of Northeastern Jiangxi: “Fang Zhimin started a revolution with two and a half guns.”

To commemorate the famous Qigong Town Uprising in the revolutionary struggle history of Northeastern Jiangxi, the People’s Government of Yiyang County erected a stone tablet inscribed with “Qigong Town Uprising Site” at the original location of the Qigong Town Temple of the City God in August 1959. In April 1977, the county government funded the construction of the memorial hall here, along with a monument in front of the hall, which was completed in October of the same year. The hall is divided into two sections and, through rich textual historical materials, images, photos, and some revolutionary relics, comprehensively displays the glorious history of the people of Qigong Town courageously and tenaciously carrying on the revolutionary struggle under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and Fang Zhimin. It has now become a base for patriotic education and revolutionary tradition education at both the county and town levels.