Hongwen School's Gongzi Building

Hongwen School's Gongzi Building

Hongwen School's Gongzi Building is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Sichuan Province.

Hongwen School is located 200 meters north of Qingxi Township Street in Xuanhan County. It was founded in the 30th year of the Guangxu reign (1904) by Wang Zuqing, the brother of Wang Weizhou. Initially, it used an old temple on the street as its schoolhouse, with conservative teachers enforcing rote memorization. Student enrollment often didn’t exceed a hundred. In early 1923, after Wang Weizhou took over as principal, he relocated the campus to Qingxi Temple on the opposite bank of the town. He raised funds to build a new “Gongzi” (工-shaped) style school building, symbolizing that education should serve workers and peasants. The Gongzi Building is a one-story-over-one-story brick-and-wood structure facing south, with small clay tiles, a covered corridor, a single-eave lifted-beam frame, and measures 31 meters in width (both upper and lower horizontal sections), 9.8 meters in depth, and 9 meters in height. The central vertical section is 15.4 meters wide, 6 meters deep, and 10.5 meters high. The bricks are imprinted with the raised characters “Hongwen School” in regular script. The total floor area is 1,639 square meters.

During his tenure as principal, Comrade Wang Weizhou recruited progressive young intellectuals such as Song Gengxin and Ran Yusheng as teachers, establishing a new teaching staff. He also connected with more than ten social youths including Lei Yushu, Ran Nanxuan, Ran Haifang, and Zhou Boshi to form a communist cell. They actively spread Marxist revolutionary thought both inside and outside the school, promoted the Party’s democratic revolutionary platform, and carried out revolutionary activities.

At the same time, the school introduced modern curricula, abolished Confucian classics, encouraged teachers to create and select their own teaching materials, taught scientific knowledge, disseminated new culture, and instilled revolutionary ideas. It replaced rote memorization with interactive methods, requiring teachers to use visual aids such as specimens, models, and charts. Hands-on experiments were conducted to encourage students to think, act, speak, and apply what they learned. Emphasis was placed on physical fitness for both teachers and students and on beautifying the campus environment. A grading system including promotions, demotions, and retentions was implemented, along with scholarships to encourage diligence. A reading room was opened, offering progressive publications such as *The Guide* and *New Youth*, allowing teachers and students to learn about Marxism, the revolutionary ideals of the Communist Party, and the global socialist movement.

After the May Thirtieth Incident, the school established a support committee. Teachers and students took to the streets to protest Japanese imperialism’s aggression against China, raising 150 silver dollars which were sent to the Shanghai Relief Committee to support the struggle of the Chinese working class. The school also made full use of holidays to organize students and teachers in writing and performing new plays (then called civilized dramas) to expose political corruption and mobilize the people to rise up. Meanwhile, they ventured into rural areas to establish night schools for farmers and set up peasant associations. The school achieved remarkable results, growing to over 300 students and gaining fame both within and beyond the county. The 1931 (20th year of the Republic of China) edition of the *Xuanhan County Annals* recorded that after Wang Weizhou took over as principal of Hongwen School, “he added school buildings and teaching aids, books, instruments, reformed school regulations, and was hailed by contemporaries as a model higher elementary school.”

With members of the communist cell at its core, the school connected the campus with society, linked in-class and extracurricular activities with the Chinese revolution, and adhered to the principle of serving workers and peasants. It educated, united, and inspired the people, laying a mass foundation, training key personnel, and providing ideological and organizational preparation for later struggles, including the East Sichuan Guerrilla Army, the establishment of the 33rd Red Army, and its cooperation with the 4th Red Army in developing the Sichuan-Shaanxi Soviet Area. In 1982, the Xuanhan County People’s Government designated the former site of the school as a county-level key cultural relics protection unit.

Through years of effort and with government support, Hongwen School has continued to grow, nurturing batches of outstanding talents for the nation and fostering a positive campus culture.

Protected area: 10 meters beyond the drip line of the Gongzi Building of Hongwen School.

Construction control zone: 10 meters beyond the protected area.