Wanzhou Guanyinge

Wanzhou Guanyinge

Wanzhou Guanyinge is a cultural relic protection unit of Wanzhou District and a classic red tourism site.

Guanyinge is located within Guoben Primary School at No. 190 Guoben Road, Wanzhou District, Chongqing.

Guanyinge is a Qing Dynasty structure. The building is square-shaped, three-story pavilion-style with a pyramidal roof, standing 18 meters tall and 4.9 meters per side. The ground floor is surrounded by a 7.7-meter-wide and 0.8-meter-high platform. It is a brick-and-wood structure with fourteen roof trusses, featuring an outer corridor and staircase. The interior currently displays historical relics related to the Party, photographs, and documentary materials.

In the spring of 1938, the local Communist Party organization in Wanzhou was re-established. To provide office space and activity venues for the reorganized Party, as well as to set up contact points and safe havens for Party members, it was decided to establish a primary school. The Wanzhou Oil and Grain Trade Association Guild took charge of resolving funding and all preparatory matters. After the Spring Festival, the "Private Guoben Primary School," founded by the local Communist Party organization in Wanzhou, was officially established at Guanyinge on the city outskirts. Shortly after the school opened, the Wanzhou Special Branch of the CPC was formally established. Under the guidance of the Special Branch, all operations of Guoben Primary School proceeded in an orderly manner, with Li Yingcai, a member of the Special Branch, serving as the academic affairs director and overseeing all school activities. To strengthen Party organizational development, Li Yingcai recruited three individuals — Lu Jizhou (Chairman of the Wanzhou Oil and Grain Trade Association Guild and chairman of the school board), Xiong Daobing (acting principal), and others — into the Party, and established the Party branch of Guoben Primary School. In May 1938, the Wanzhou Special Branch was upgraded to the Wanzhou County Committee, which was then headquartered at Guoben Primary School.

Due to its location on the city outskirts, which made it easier to conceal activities, the school not only facilitated the development of rural Party branches but also helped avoid enemy air raids. As a result, it became the center of activities for the Wanzhou Party organization at the time and played a significant role in reforming feudal and enslaving education and advancing the anti-Japanese salvation movement. In 1939, when the reactionary faction of the Kuomintang launched the first wave of suppression, it targeted Guoben Primary School in June of that year, and in January of the following year, ordered agents to arrest Lu Jizhou, the honorary principal and Communist Party member, Mou Zhongyu, the Party branch secretary, and progressive teacher Xiang Yunhu. At the same time, the school was taken over by the Wanzhou Prefecture government under the Kuomintang administration.

In June 1999, Guanyinge was designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Wanzhou District by the Wanzhou District People’s Government.

Source: Chongqing Party History Website