Former Site of the Qufu-Sishui Work Committee of the CPC & Former Residence of Martyr Qian Jiadong

Former Site of the Qufu-Sishui Work Committee of the CPC & Former Residence of Martyr Qian Jiadong

The former site of the Qufu-Sishui Work Committee of the CPC and the former residence of martyr Qian Jiadong is a cultural heritage protection unit in Shandong Province.

The former site of the Qufu-Sishui Work Committee of the CPC and the former residence of martyr Qian Jiadong is located in Yangliu Town, Sishui County, dating back to the Republic of China era.

On July 8, 1912, Qian Jiadong was born into a well-off farming family in Xiaoyanmiao Village. Intelligent and self-reliant, he was deeply loved by his elders. The family hired a private tutor to teach him reading and writing, making him the first literate member of the Qian clan in the village.

In 1926, his hometown was raided by bandits. Qian Jiadong’s house was burned down, belongings looted, and the whole family fled to Qufu city. He began observing injustices and the suffering of the people through the eyes of a teenager. He studied even harder to further his education and was admitted to the affiliated high school of Qufu Provincial No. 2 Normal School in the summer of 1926.

In June 1928, after graduating from high school, he was admitted to Jining Provincial No. 7 Middle School. It was a time of revolutionary downturn in China, with white terror gripping the nation. Faced with the Kuomintang reactionaries’ suppression of revolution and massacre of Communists, progressive teachers and students at No. 7 Middle School launched student movements demanding democracy and freedom against dictatorship and civil war. Amid this fervent revolutionary wave, Qian Jiadong was deeply inspired. His political awareness leapt forward, and he quickly transformed from a participant into a backbone of the movement.

In the summer of 1929, the school authorities expelled Qian Jiadong on the charge of “instigating student unrest.” Leaving Jining No. 7 Middle School, Qian Jiadong, with the help of progressive teachers and students and through the introduction of Chu Bucheng, a former progressive teacher at No. 7 Middle School and then principal of Jinan Zhengyi Middle School, transferred to Zhengyi Middle School and changed his name from Qian Rubin to Qian Jiadong.

Here, Qian Jiadong met progressive classmates such as Cheng Minghan and Lu Shengsan. Influenced by them, he began to read Marxist-Leninist books. The new learning environment and struggles gradually enriched his thinking, transforming him from a justice-seeking, progressive student into a conscious revolutionary.

In February 1931, Qian Jiadong joined the Communist Party of China. At that time, he frequently participated in revolutionary activities in Licheng, First Normal School, and Beiyuan Township Normal School. During one operation at Cheeloo University, he was detected by an enemy spy but managed to escape in advance and narrowly avoided arrest.

After the September 18th Incident, when the Japanese invaded China’s northeast, the Kuomintang adopted a policy of compromise. A nationwide anti-Japanese salvation movement surged, with student protests spreading rapidly. Under the leadership of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the CPC, students from Qingdao, Jinan, and elsewhere prepared to organize a southern petition group to appeal to the Nanjing government for resistance against Japan. Qian Jiadong actively joined this revolutionary action. Together with his classmates, braving heavy snow and defying repression by reactionary police, they lay on the tracks at Jinan Railway Station to stop trains, spreading the message of resisting Japan and saving the nation to citizens and soldiers. After six days and nights of determined struggle, they forced Han Fuju to prepare train cars, achieving victory.

In July 1932, Qian Jiadong graduated from Zhengyi Middle School. After failing the entrance exam for Provincial No. 1 Normal School, he was recommended by the Party organization to teach at Boxing County No. 1 High School. Using teaching as a cover, Qian Jiadong actively organized teachers and students to promote new culture, introduce progressive publications, and carry out anti-Japanese propaganda, exposing the Kuomintang’s focus on civil war rather than resistance. He also organized multiple student strikes.

Qian Jiadong’s revolutionary actions drew attention from the Boxing County KMT Committee, which had him dismissed by the school at the end of the year. Qian Jiadong returned home and then went to Jinan to reconnect with the Provincial Committee. Under its direct leadership, he continued his revolutionary activities.

In July 1933, due to betrayal, the Shandong Provincial Committee of the CPC suffered a major crackdown, severely impacting school Party organizations. Qian Jiadong’s activities were somewhat exposed, so the organization decided he should go into hiding. During the summer vacation, he was admitted to Shandong Provincial Third Normal School (later Liaocheng Normal School), placed in Class 9-2. At that time, Party activities at Liaocheng Normal School were also in a low ebb, with Communists at constant risk of arrest. Unable to act openly, Qian Jiadong secretly gathered information, united students, and prepared for restoring and developing the Party organization at the school. In the second half of 1934, as the situation stabilized, Qian Jiadong began recruiting members and establishing the organization. He first recruited Yang Xuming (aka Su Ming) into the Party. The following spring, he contacted Communists Sheng Beiguang and Wang Lianji to re-establish the Party Central Branch at Liaocheng Normal School. Sheng Beiguang served as branch secretary, Wang Lianji as organizational committee member, and Qian Jiadong as publicity committee member. Qian Jiadong also recruited Geng Jingshan and Zhao Fangzhou into the Party, and actively cultivated Geng Wei, Ren Ruzhou, Shi Zhanqi, Shao Yuzhuo, and Li Xiangsan as potential Party members. The Central Branch also took charge of leading Party organizations in Liaocheng, Yanggu, Shouzhang, Tangyi, and Guanxian.

At a meeting in April, Qian Jiadong proposed organizing debates among students under legal forms to propagate revolutionary ideas and expand political influence. The branch agreed, drafting two debate topics: “Is state power beneficial to the people?” and “Do landlords feed peasants or do peasants feed landlords?”

The debates were divided into two groups—one representing the so-called orthodox faction of the Kuomintang government, the other representing the oppressed working masses. To gain legality, they requested approval from the academic affairs office under the guise of an academic discussion, which was granted by Dean Huang Cangxi. They also secured approval from Feng Xunyu (nicknamed “Feng the Dog”), a KMT-appointed student monitor. Thus, under legal pretenses, they fiercely exposed the reactionary nature of the Kuomintang and its dark regime, promoted proletarian revolutionary truths, and dealt a crushing blow to the KMT orthodox faction, creating a huge impact across the school. Although the school authorities later realized the seriousness of the matter, they dared not investigate due to prior approval, leaving them frustrated.

In the winter of 1935, the December 9th Movement erupted. In response to the student protests in Beiping, the Central Branch mobilized the entire school for demonstrations and planned to organize a “petition group to Nanjing.” Alarmed, the school authorities banned gatherings on campus, while the Boxing KMT Committee sent police to obstruct. By then, Qian Jiadong was suffering from tuberculosis, but despite the pain, he remained active among the masses, leading students in struggles against school authorities and KMT hardliners. His classmates called him “Iron Qian.”

Due to the absence of a restored Provincial Committee from December 1933 to May 1936, the struggle failed to secure proper leadership or strong support from higher Party levels, and the effort to petition Nanjing did not succeed. Learning from this failure, Qian Jiadong recognized the importance of upper Party guidance. That winter, he and Sheng Beiguang braved heavy snow, cycling along the Yellow River embankment through Yanggu and Fanxian—a 200-kilometer journey—to Puyang’s Guyunjixian area to seek Party connections. Finally, after the Spring Festival, they connected with Zhao Jianmin.

In the spring of 1936, to build local forces and expand influence, Han Fuju established a Rural Construction Training Center in Jinan, requiring one-year training for graduates from 12 normal schools across the province. Following Provincial Committee instructions, Qian Jiadong and other Communists established a Party branch at the training center. Zhang Yuanxiu served as branch secretary, Sheng Beiguang as organizational committee member, and Qian Jiadong as publicity committee member. The branch led trainees in direct struggles against the KMT’s rural construction faction, driving out an Italian-trained military director with the rank of lieutenant general. Qian Jiadong played an active role in these political battles.

In February 1937, Qian Jiadong completed training and was assigned to Leling, where he became publicity committee member of the Leling County Committee, helping lead the county’s Party work. Within half a year, he recruited a group of Party members and established Party organizations within the intelligentsia. After the July 7th Incident, following the Party’s policy of forming an anti-Japanese national united front, he actively engaged with local elites, persuading the KMT county magistrate of Leling to allow the establishment of anti-Japanese forces in township schools and rural areas.

When advancing Japanese troops neared the Yellow River and attacked Leling from three directions, Qian Jiadong and Yang Xuming led forces from the Third Township School and local peasant militias in a fierce defensive battle in Qingyun. The fighting lasted half a day and night without resolution. Later, enemy artillery bombardment and advances from the western and northern routes captured Leling, leaving Qian Jiadong’s forces surrounded. During retreat, lack of combat experience caused dispersion. Qian Jiadong broke through and made his way to Tai’an, where he found the Provincial Committee.

By the end of 1937, the Japanese had breached the Yellow River, occupied Jinan, and advanced south along the Tianjin-Pukou Railway, creating extreme tension. Following Provincial Committee instructions, Qian Jiadong returned to his hometown, Sishui County, to organize anti-Japanese forces. He quickly reconnected with local Party organizations, adopted the alias Jiang Hong, and immersed himself in urgent anti-Japanese salvation efforts.

By then, Qian Jiadong’s tuberculosis had worsened significantly, leaving him increasingly weak. His parents and wife urged him to rest at home, but he remained focused on Party work and the resistance movement, traveling tirelessly through northern Sishui villages to rally progressive youth and various social groups for resistance. His home became a secret meeting place for underground Party members and progressives. Many Communists, including Zhou Lantian and Qiao Haiqiu, often gathered there to discuss work.

In early 1938, Sishui Party organizations responded to the Provincial Committee’s call to launch an armed uprising. Zhou Lantian, Guan Ge, and Liu Haiyan led forces to join the Fourth Detachment under Provincial Committee leadership. Seeing key cadres leave the area, Qian Jiadong sought Provincial Committee approval to establish the Qufu-Sishui Work Committee in the border region between Qufu and Sishui. Qian Jiadong and Qiao Haiqiu became the committee’s key leaders.

To strengthen local Party leadership and build anti-Japanese forces, the Qufu-Sishui Work Committee assigned Xia Yun, Wu Yuqin, and Xia Feng to persuade the locally incorporated KMT Seventh Fifth Brigade—led by diehard Qin Qirong—while also requesting armed cadres from the Fourth Detachment’s Second Regiment. Upon receiving the letter, Political Commissar Cheng Zhaoxuan of the Second Regiment immediately dispatched Zhang Linfu and Zhou Qingbiao back to Sishui. The Provincial Committee also sent Red Army cadre Xue Yunting and Zhou Lantian. Soon, part of the Seventh Fifth Brigade accepted Party leadership, forming the Sishui Independent Battalion—the first local armed force under Party leadership in Sishui.

In mid-June, the Shandong Provincial Committee sent Sun Hanqing to Sishui, convening a county Party cadre meeting outside Houjiazhuang in Gaoyu Township. The Sishui County Committee was officially established, with Sun Hanqing as secretary, Zhou Lantian as organizational minister, Wu Yuqin as publicity minister, Zhang Linfu as youth minister, Xia Yun as united front minister, Qiao Haiqiu as Party secretary for the Second District, and Qian Jiadong—as seriously ill—serving only as a committee member. By late October, Sun Hanqing was transferred, and the Su-Lu-Yu-Wan Border Region Provincial Committee decided to establish the Qufu-Sishui-Ningyang County Committee, appointing Zhou Lantian as secretary and Qian Jiadong—who was still ill—as organizational minister.

In January 1939, Zhou Lantian was reassigned to the Taishan Special Committee, and Qian Jiadong became secretary of the Qufu-Sishui-Ningyang County Committee. In September, the committee was upgraded to the Qufu-Sishui-Ningyang Central County Committee, with Qian Jiadong remaining as secretary.

Facing brutal struggle conditions and harsh living environments, Qian Jiadong completely disregarded his illness. Leading the county committee team, he traveled across the vast region south of the Wen River, north of the Si River, and east of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway, mobilizing the people to fight the enemy and contributing to local Party organization development.

Within a year, the Quxi-Ninghai Border Area Base was consolidated and developed. Nine district Party committees were successively established, along with nearly 100 grassroots Party branches, and over 200 Party members were recruited. The base also trained a large number of cadres for the Party and sent hundreds of soldiers to the main forces of the Eighth Route Army. At the same time, transportation and liaison stations were set up. Under the public guise of the "Self-Government Association" in Dongzhuang, it successively escorted leaders such as Luo Ronghuan, Chen Guang, Zhu Rui, Xu Xiangqian, and Xiao Hua across the railway line. It carried out extensive reconnaissance, guard duties, guiding, and protection work for the 115th Division's advance into central and southern Shandong and the coastal region. It also sheltered a group of wounded soldiers for recuperation locally, delivered large quantities of supplies to the main forces, and transmitted messages, bringing a new momentum to the anti-Japanese struggle in the Quxi-Ninghai Border Area. In December, as the situation of the struggle evolved, the Quxi-Ninghai Central County Committee was disbanded, and Qian Jiédōng was transferred to serve as head of the Cadre Section in the Organization Department of the First Regional Party Committee under the Shandong Sub-bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

In March 1940, he was transferred to serve as head of the Organization Department of the Third Regional Party Committee under the First Regional Party Committee. In June, the Southern Shandong Regional Party Committee was established, and Qian Jiédōng was then transferred to serve as head of the Organization Section in the Organization Department of the Southern Shandong Regional Party Committee. In April 1941, while studying at the Senior Party School of the Shandong Sub-bureau of the CPC Central Committee, he passed away in Junan County due to overwork at the age of just 29.