Site of the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising

Site of the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising

The Site of the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit and a patriotic education base.

In 1987, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising, the provincial Party committee and government built a 23-meter-high monument in front of Matou Mountain at the uprising site. Xu Xiangqian inscribed the words “Monument to the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising,” and Wu Zhongqi wrote the stele text in clerical script. In December 1977, it was announced as one of the first batch of provincial-level key cultural relics protection units. It is an important patriotic education base in Shandong Province.

The Site of the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising is located at Dasi (Great Temple) in Heishibufu Village, Fangcun Town, Daiyue District, Tai’an City, Shandong Province, at the foot of the Culaishan Mountain range southeast of Mount Tai. In early October 1937, as Japanese forces advanced into Shandong, the situation became critical. On January 1, 1938, the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party organized and mobilized local masses from Tai’an, Xintai, Laiwu, and Sishui, as well as students from Beiping and Tianjin who had fled the occupied areas, to take an oath here and declare the launch of the anti-Japanese armed uprising. They established the Fourth Detachment of the Eighth Route Army’s Shandong Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Forces. Hong Tao served as detachment commander, Zhao Jie as deputy commander, and Li Yu as political commissar. The Culaishan Armed Uprising fired the first shot of the anti-Japanese resistance in Shandong and holds an important place in the history of the Chinese nation’s War of Resistance against Japan.

The site of the uprising, Dasi (Great Temple), was anciently known as Sichan Temple and was first built in the second year of the Heqing era during the Northern Qi Dynasty (563 AD), with renovations carried out in subsequent dynasties. According to the “Tai’an County Annals · Culaishan Annals”: “Sichan Temple is located at the western foothills of Culaishan Mountain. It was built in the second year of the Heqing era of the Northern Qi Dynasty, renovated during the Jin and Yuan dynasties, and was damaged by mountain rains in the 24th year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty. It has since been rebuilt.” The original structures were destroyed in the late Qing and early Republican periods. The existing Sichan Temple complex was rebuilt later but not according to the original design. Within the temple grounds stand five stone steles recording renovations from the Jin, Qing, and Republican periods. The current structures include the surviving buildings, stone steles, and the Monument to the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising.

In 1987, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising, the provincial Party committee and government built a 23-meter-high monument on Matou Mountain at the uprising site. Xu Xiangqian inscribed the words “Monument to the Culaishan Anti-Japanese Armed Uprising,” and Wu Zhongqi wrote the stele text in clerical script. In December 1977, it was announced as one of the first batch of provincial-level key cultural relics protection units. It is an important patriotic education base in Shandong Province. In March of this year, the State Council listed it as part of the seventh batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units. This upgrade of the cultural relic site facilitates its rational utilization and holds significant importance for inheriting and promoting the nation’s outstanding cultural traditions and fostering patriotism.

Further Reading:

· First Batch of Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units