The Eighth Route Army Office in Lumu Village

The Eighth Route Army Office in Lumu Village

The Eighth Route Army Office in Lumu Village is a national AAA-level tourist attraction.

In the northern suburbs of Guilin, the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station of the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office, set up by our Party during the War of Resistance Against Japan in Dingjiang Town, Lingchuan County, served as a crucial component of the former site of the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office. It played an extremely significant historical role, made major contributions to the liberation cause of the Chinese nation, and holds a high historical status and great social influence. It is rich in resources for social education and patriotic education.

The Eighth Route Army Guilin Office was established in November 1938. It consisted of an external office located at No. 138 Old North Road (now No. 14 Middle North Road, Guilin), originally known as "Wanxiang Distillery," and its main base — the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station in Dingjiang Town, Lingchuan County (8 kilometers away, now called Luxi Village). Li Kenong, Secretary-General of the Yangtze Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary-General of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters, served as the head of the office. The office was a public and legitimate military institution of our Party in the Kuomintang-controlled area and also served as a branch of the CPC Southern Bureau. Zhou Enlai visited three times to guide the work, convey instructions from the CPC Central Committee, listen to work reports, and assign tasks. Under the direct leadership of the CPC Southern Bureau, the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office was responsible for liaising with CPC organizations in Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. It helped establish and develop the Guangxi Anti-Japanese National United Front, promoted the anti-Japanese cultural movement in Guilin, strengthened the logistics work of the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army, and carried out extensive efforts in various areas.

When the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station was established, it rented many civilian houses in the village for office use, using the local Mo Family Ancestral Hall as the station's Salvation Room, Tao Yongxian’s private residence as the radio room, and other rented civilian houses as accommodations for staff. The Lumu Village Material Transfer Station was primarily responsible for disseminating our Party’s anti-Japanese salvation policies via radio, raising and transporting anti-Japanese military supplies for the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army fighting on the front lines, and receiving and escorting underground Party members, cadres, patriotic overseas Chinese, and revolutionary youth en route to Yan’an and the front lines. Often, two to three hundred people would gather at the station. When the two guesthouses could not accommodate everyone, they were housed in local villagers’ homes, turning the entire village into a veritable “Eighth Route Army Village.” On February 16, 1939, Zhou Enlai, representing the CPC Central Committee, stopped in Guilin on his way to southern Anhui to guide the work of the New Fourth Army. In the evening, accompanied by Ye Ting, Commander of the New Fourth Army, and Li Kenong, head of the office, he came to Lumu Village and personally addressed over 200 office staff and Guilin cultural figures — all Party members — at the Dragon King Temple. He conveyed the spirit of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee and delivered a three-hour report titled “The Current Situation and Tasks.” In January 1939, Li Kenong, head of the office, represented the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army in holding a ceremony in Lumu Village to accept donated cars from overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and the banner “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood.” Ye Jianying, Deng Yingchao, Xu Teli, Ye Ting, Guo Moruo, Li Da, Zhang Wenbin, Fang Fang, and Fan Changjiang all engaged in revolutionary activities at the Lumu Village Transfer Station.

From December 1938 to December 1940, Ho Chi Minh, Chairman of the Communist Party of Vietnam, used the alias Hu Guang and worked here in secret as a Second Class Private of the Eighth Route Army. He also served as the Honorary Director of the Salvation Room. His work during this period greatly deepened his understanding of the Chinese revolution and the Chinese Anti-Japanese National United Front. He frequently wrote articles, reports, commentaries, and materials sent to the Comintern or published domestically, promoting Mao Zedong’s concept of People’s War and our Party’s strategies, guidelines, and policies regarding the Anti-Japanese National United Front. These had not only guiding significance for the Vietnamese revolution but also played a positive role in Vietnamese support for China’s resistance efforts. Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary history in Lumu Village has been included in Vietnamese textbooks, making “Lumu Village” a well-known place among the Vietnamese people. In recent years, several groups of Vietnamese party and government officials, state agency officers, and international students have visited annually and participated in activities such as “Tracing Ho Chi Minh’s Footsteps.”

The Salvation Room often hosted various types of lectures and recreational activities, most commonly rehearsing and performing self-written and directed skits and plays reflecting the war of resistance. In early 1939, the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office also held a fairly large-scale sports meet in Lumu Village. Participants included all comrades from the office, as well as those from the Xinhua Daily, the Salvation Daily, and the New Knowledge Bookstore. Events featured basketball games, obstacle races, relay races, and table tennis matches, bringing liveliness to the entire village throughout the day.

The radio room set up at the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station was one of the office’s key institutions. The radio operator was Shen Guang, while successive station chiefs were Liu Jianhui, Zheng Zhizhong, Wang Qingsheng, and Liu Chengqing. The room was mainly responsible for leading and liaising with the secret work of CPC member organizations across southern provinces and overseas. It also served as the command center station linking and directing local radio stations in the south on behalf of the Party Central Committee and the Southern Bureau. It transmitted the Party’s directives accurately and promptly, reported the situation of struggles across regions quickly to the central leadership, and made due contributions to advancing the nationwide war effort and achieving final victory in the Anti-Japanese War. Additionally, it undertook the task of helping establish secret radio stations for CPC underground organizations in other regions, training and deploying radio personnel, and providing telecommunication equipment. It trained and produced a group of leadership talents and technical experts for the nation’s defense and civil communication sectors in the post-liberation socialist construction era. Figures such as Shen Guang, former Minister of Posts and Telecommunications of the People’s Republic of China, Liu Chengqing, former Vice Minister, Xiao Min, former director of the Stamp Factory, and Zou Huaqing and Kang Ying, who held key positions in the national posts and telecommunications sector, all worked as radio personnel at the station.

In January 1941, due to the “Southern Anhui Incident,” the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office was ordered to withdraw to Yan’an, and the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station also ceased operations along with the office.

Currently, the former site of the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station of the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office consists of the Salvation Room, the Radio Room, the site where Zhou Enlai conveyed the spirit of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee (the former Dragon King Temple site), Ho Chi Minh’s Former Residence, the Former Residences of Li Kenong and his family, military supply warehouses, and guesthouses. Due to the high historical status and great social influence of the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station, as well as its wealth of educational resources, since the 1990s, large numbers of students, government officials, and civilians from within and outside the region, as well as veterans who fought here, their families, and national leaders, have visited to pay tribute to the great achievements of the older generation of proletarian revolutionaries.

In June 2001, it became a “National Patriotic Education Demonstration Base” announced by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee. In 2005, it was included in the list of 30 National Red Tourism Classic Routes and Scenic Spots released by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Publicity Department, and the National Tourism Administration. In November 2009, it was designated as a “National Defense Education Demonstration Base.” On May 9, 2019, the Guangxi Cryptographic System Revolutionary Tradition Education Base was inaugurated here. With the positive impact of the China-ASEAN Expo on the region, the former site of the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station of the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office has increasingly become an internationally influential revolutionary landmark and an important component of the cultural brand for establishing the Pan-Beibu Gulf Economic Development Zone.

Since being designated as a Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in 1963, the Lumu Village Material Transfer Station has been managed by the cultural relics department. In 1996, it was listed together with the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit. Before 2000, it was managed by the Guilin Eighth Route Army Office Memorial. Later, in accordance with the “Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics,” it was transferred to the Lingchuan County Cultural Relics Management Office in 2000. In July 2013, the People’s Government of Lingchuan County approved the establishment of the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office Lumchuan County Lumu Village Military Supply Transfer Station Memorial through document Lingbian [2013] No. 26. The memorial now features the following three exhibitions: “The Red Star Shines Over the South” at the former Dragon King Temple site, “The Salvation Room of the Eighth Route Army Guilin Office” at the former Salvation Room site, and “The Immortal Radio Waves” at the former Radio Room site.