Former Residence of Martyr Leng Shaonong

The former residence of Martyr Leng Shaonong is located south of Weng’an County town in Qiannan Prefecture, Guizhou Province. It is entirely made of wood, with the main house consisting of four bays and three rooms, and side rooms each having three bays and two rooms. The roof is covered with blue tiles, the courtyard is paved with stones, and the walls are built with blue bricks. The residence is well-preserved. In November 1985, it was listed as a provincial-level key cultural relics protection unit. In March 1988, it was designated as a prefectural-level patriotic education base. In March 2010, it was approved as a “Provincial Patriotic Education Base.”

Leng Shaonong is one of the ten most important revolutionary martyrs in our province. Born in January 1900, he graduated from the Guizhou Provincial Law and Politics Specialized School. In 1925, he went to Guangzhou’s Whampoa to join the revolution and was assigned to work in Zhou Enlai’s office, joining the Chinese Communist Party the same year.

In 1926, Leng Shaonong followed the National Revolutionary Army during the Northern Expedition and moved to Wuhan. Assigned by the Party organization, he infiltrated the Training Directorate of the Nanjing Nationalist Government to gather intelligence. He secretly participated in organizing the Anti-Japanese and Anti-Imperialist Alliance and the Revolutionary Mutual Aid Association, instigated defections within the Nationalist army, covertly developed Communist organizations, and was one of the key leaders of the underground Communist Party in Nanjing. Intelligence on the Nationalist Party’s first, second, and third encirclement campaigns against the Soviet Area was all obtained by Leng Shaonong and relayed to the Central Committee by Qian Zhuangfei.

In March 1932, he was unfortunately arrested and heroically executed at Yuhuatai in Nanjing in May of the same year at the age of 32.

In 1952, the Central People’s Government posthumously recognized Leng Shaonong as a revolutionary martyr.

Ticket: Free admission. Visitors can register and collect tickets at the scenic area by presenting their ID card or relevant documents.

Driving route to the Red “Spy” Martyr Leng Shaonong’s Former Residence: Take bus No. 1 in Weng’an County town and get off at the Leng Shaonong Martyr Former Residence stop; the residence is 3 kilometers south of Weng’an County town, about a 10-minute drive by car.

Leng Shaonong (1900–1932), originally named Zhao Long, was from Weng’an. In 1923, after graduating from the Law and Politics Specialized School, he worked successively as an editor for the Minyi Daily and as a stamp tax supervisor for the Ziyun and Kaiyang districts under the Guizhou Fundraising Bureau. During this period, he extensively interacted with various social groups, witnessed the tragic lives of working people, and observed the profound suffering caused by warlord conflicts. He asserted, “The brutality of warlords will lead to their downfall, and the revolutionary cause will prevail,” and resolutely resigned from his position to return home. In 1925, as the national revolutionary movement gained momentum, Leng Shaonong traveled south to Guangdong to join the revolution and applied to enter the Whampoa Military Academy.

Leng Shaonong, a native of Weng’an County in our prefecture, risked his life numerous times to infiltrate dangerous situations for the Party and the people, delivering many critical pieces of intelligence that helped the Party organization avoid major losses and prevented the Red Army from facing annihilation. He made outstanding contributions to safeguarding the Party and the victory of the Red Army in anti-encirclement campaigns, and is considered one of the most distinguished red operatives in the history of the Chinese Communist Party, an outstanding son of the Chinese nation, and a source of pride and honor for the people of Guizhou. In carrying out the Party’s mass line educational practice activities and practicing socialist core values, we should learn from Comrade Leng Shaonong’s spirit of firm belief and dedication to purpose, contributing to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

On well-preserved, yellow-toned Xuan paper, neat and clear running script written with a brush fills a thick stack of fourteen pages. These are letters written by Martyr Leng Shaonong to his mother while engaged in revolutionary activities in Nanjing. Having endured the turbulent years of war and over ninety years of time, the letters were selected in 2012 as part of Jiangsu Province’s precious archival documents in the collection of the Yuhuatai Martyrs Memorial.

Leng Shaonong, originally named Leng Zhao Long, was born on January 25, 1900, into a poor farming family in Lengjiabao, Weng’an County, Guizhou Province. He began schooling at age six in a private tutor’s home and enrolled in the Weng’an County Higher School at age fourteen. In 1917, at seventeen, he entered the Law Department’s third cohort at the Guizhou Provincial Law and Politics Specialized School. During his time at school, the May Fourth Movement broke out, and he joined student movements in Guiyang in solidarity with students in Beiping, protesting the rule of the Beiyang warlords. From then on, he became more concerned with national affairs, frequently reading progressive newspapers and books, and taking extensive reading notes. After being exposed to a wealth of communist literature, Leng Shaonong actively participated in patriotic movements against imperialism and feudalism. He changed his name from “Zhao Long” to “Shao Nong,” vowing to dedicate his life to the liberation of the working masses.

In 1921, after graduating from the Law and Politics Specialized School, Leng Shaonong worked successively as an editor for the Minyi Daily and as a stamp tax supervisor for the Ziyun and Kaiyang districts under the Guizhou Fundraising Bureau. During this period, he extensively interacted with various social groups, witnessed the tragic lives of working people, and observed the profound suffering caused by warlord conflicts. He asserted, “The brutality of warlords will lead to their downfall, and the revolutionary cause will prevail.”

In 1925, Leng Shaonong bid farewell to his mother, wife, and children and went alone to Guangzhou to join the revolution. On his way through Guiyang, he wrote to his mother: “... Among all provinces in China, only Guangdong has facilities that are quite ideal... The purpose of my journey this time is to devote myself fully to the revolution, doing everything I can for the country and the people.” Upon arriving in Guangzhou, he applied to enter the Whampoa Military Academy and was assigned to work in its Political Department. At that time, Zhou Enlai was the head of the Political Department, and Leng Shaonong began his revolutionary career under Zhou’s direct leadership. During his time at the academy, he secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party.

In July 1926, the National Revolutionary Army launched the Northern Expedition. Leng Shaonong followed the Eastern Route Army and fought across several provinces. In April 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek launched the anti-revolutionary “April 12” coup and carried out a purge of Communists, Leng Shaonong, whose political identity had not been exposed, remained undercover in the Nationalist army.

In May 1927, Zhou Enlai, then head of the Central Military Affairs Department (Military Department), drew lessons from the bloodshed and initiated the establishment of specialized intelligence and security operations for our Party. Subsequently, Leng Shaonong was tasked with leveraging his teacher-student and fellow-townsman relationship with He Yingqin to infiltrate the upper echelons of the Nanjing Nationalist military where He served. Leng Shaonong first worked at the Training Directorate and, after He Yingqin became Minister of Military Affairs of the Nanjing Nationalist Government in 1930, served as his secretary.

During his time in Nanjing, to carry out underground work, Leng Shaonong maintained contact with other progressive Guizhou officers who had participated in the Eastern and Northern Expeditions and were stationed in Nanjing, such as Zheng Zhongjian, a lieutenant in the Infantry Supervision of the Training Directorate, as well as other progressive individuals from Guizhou. Together with Chen Chunzhai, a progressive figure who had served as secretary of the Guizhou Branch of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance and participated in leading the 1911 Revolution in Guizhou, he set up a secret liaison point in Jiangjun Lane, Dasha’mao Alley in Nanjing to circulate progressive publications and exchange information. He also secretly developed members of the Chinese Communist Party and built working relationships at places like the Nationalist Central Military Academy in Nanjing and the Guizhou Provincial Government Office in Nanjing, guiding them to carry out revolutionary activities as opportunities arose.

Due to long absences from home, his family worried about him and repeatedly wrote urging him to return, accusing him of being “unfilial and ungrateful.” With a heart filled with pain and gratitude, Leng Shaonong wrote a lengthy 5,000-word letter to his mother, explaining: “I have transferred my filial piety to serve the majority of suffering humanity, loyally striving for them...” “Our actions naturally displease some people—some do not understand, some have vested interests that conflict with us, and they constantly obstruct and oppose us, even seeking to kill us...” As for whether to return home, he said: “The matter of returning home cannot be decided. If the revolution succeeds later or encounters setbacks, I may die out there, and I won’t even know where I’ll end up, let alone whether I can return.”

From October 1930 to autumn 1931, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized heavy forces to launch the first, second, and third military “encirclement campaigns” against the Central Revolutionary Base Area and the First Front Red Army. To support the counter-encirclement struggle, Leng Shaonong sought every means to obtain intelligence on the Nationalist army’s plans to encircle the Red Army. At that time, Zheng Zhongjian, serving as an aide-de-camp and operations section chief under He Yingqin, Minister of Military Affairs of the Nanjing Nationalist Government, accompanied He during the campaigns to Wuhan, Nanchang Field Headquarters, and the Linchuan Front Command, directly participating in drafting the Nationalist plans to encircle the Red Army. Following Leng Shaonong’s instructions, Zheng copied the plans in secret and handed them over to Leng Shaonong, who then sent them via covert communication methods to Shanghai and ultimately to Zhou Enlai, Secretary of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party. Leng Shaonong and other unsung heroes of the Communist underground made outstanding contributions to the Central Revolutionary Base Area’s victories in the three anti-encirclement campaigns.

In March 1932, due to betrayal by a traitor, the Nanjing underground Party organization was compromised, and Leng Shaonong was arrested. He Yingqin was furious, and many high-ranking Nationalist officials tried to persuade him to surrender, offering high positions and wealth, all of which he refused. When soft tactics failed, the enemy resorted to torture. Leng Shaonong remained steadfast and unyielding, courageously denouncing the crimes of the Nationalist Party. Faced with temptation, threats, and torture, he upheld his revolutionary integrity and resisted fiercely, enraging his captors. In early June, Leng Shaonong and other Communists were heroically executed at Yuhuatai in Nanjing at the age of 33.

In December 1934, when the Central Red Army passed through Weng’an County during the Long March, Zhou Enlai sent someone in disguise to visit the home of Martyr Leng Shaonong in Lengjiabao, Weng’an County, to check on his widowed mother, wife, and children, and presented silver dollars as compensation. In October 1952, the Central People’s Government issued a certificate to the family of Martyr Leng Shaonong in commemoration of his honorable sacrifice in the revolutionary struggle.