Site of Cai Gongshi’s Martyrdom in the May 3rd Tragedy

Site of Cai Gongshi’s Martyrdom in the May 3rd Tragedy

The Site of Cai Gongshi’s Martyrdom in the May 3rd Tragedy is a cultural relic protection unit of Shandong Province.

The Site of Cai Gongshi’s Martyrdom in the May 3rd Tragedy is located at No. 370 Jingsi Road, Wuligou Subdistrict, Huaiyin District, Jinan City. At the time, it served as the Negotiation Office. The site features a Western-style two-story building, with a partial basement, facing south and situated on a roughly square floor plan. It is 19 meters wide from east to west and 18.6 meters deep from north to south, covering a land area of approximately 311 square meters and a building area of about 760 square meters. The structure is made of brick, stone, and wood, with rendered walls. Cai Gongshi (?-1928) was from Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province. At the time, he served as a member of the War Zone Political Affairs Committee and Director of its Foreign Affairs Office, as well as the Negotiating Officer for Shandong. In the spring of 1928, while the Nationalist forces were advancing northward into Shandong, Japanese invading troops, under the pretext of protecting their nationals, began arriving in Jinan in late April. The Japanese military created disturbances in Jinan, bombarded the city with heavy artillery, massacred Chinese soldiers and civilians indiscriminately, looted shops, and assaulted women. On May 3rd, Japanese atrocities reached their peak. That night, Japanese troops stormed into the courtyard of the Negotiation Office, stripped Cai Gongshi and more than ten of his staff of their clothes, cut off their ears and noses, and then executed them by shooting. They later burned the bodies to destroy evidence in an attempt to cover up their crimes. This became the shocking “May 3rd Tragedy” of Jinan, which drew international attention. During the tragedy, the total number of Chinese military and civilian casualties exceeded 11,000, with property losses amounting to over 240.08 million yuan. The site of Cai Gongshi’s martyrdom is one of the important memorial locations of the “May 3rd Tragedy” in Jinan. The building is one of the earlier constructed, better preserved, and architecturally superior examples of modern German-style villas among Jinan’s surviving modern structures. Its façade features a well-balanced and distinctive design, the floor plan is flexible and compact, the interior layout is fully functional, and the construction quality is excellent. The building exemplifies a perfect combination of advanced Western construction techniques and traditional Chinese building methods, the use of new modern building materials, and sophisticated artistic treatment of the building’s façade—each aspect of which holds significant historical, artistic, and scientific value. It was designated as part of the second batch of cultural relic protection units in Jinan in 1995, and in December 2006, it was listed as part of the third batch of provincial-level cultural relic protection units.

Source: People's Government of Huaiyin District, Jinan City

Further Reading:

· Third Batch of Cultural Relic Protection Units of Shandong Province