Former Site of the "Gung Ho" Peace Office

Former Site of the "Gung Ho" Peace Office

The former site of the "Gung Ho" Peace Office is located at the Heping County Printing Factory, No. 119 Jindai Road, Heping County.

During the Anti-Japanese War, to accommodate unemployed workers and meet the supply needs of the liberated areas and the rear base of the resistance, international friends Edgar Snow and his wife, as well as Rewi Alley, established the "Chinese Industrial Cooperatives" (abbreviated as "Gung Ho") with the strong support and assistance of the Communist Party. In 1937, Communist Party member Zhang Shirén and engineer Ye Rongjiàn, who returned from Britain to work with "Gung Ho," came to Heping to establish the organization. In March 1939, Zhang Shirén and Ye Rongjiàn returned to Heping again and, with the help of the Heping County Committee of the CPC, founded the first "Gung Ho" organization in Guangdong Province — the "Chinese Industrial Cooperatives Heping Office." Its office was located at the Heping County Printing Factory, with Ye Rongjiàn serving as director and Zhang Shirén as instructor. After its establishment, "Gung Ho" organizations in the surrounding areas developed rapidly, and the Heping "Gung Ho" Office became a guidance station overseeing the operations of nearly 20 counties’ "Gung Ho" efforts.

Major contributions of Heping’s "Gung Ho": first, sheltering underground Party activities; second, training construction personnel and developing handicraft production; third, printing a large number of documents and leaflets for the Party organization, effectively supporting anti-Japanese salvation efforts; fourth, providing operational funds for the Party organization.

This former site was initially built in the late Qing Dynasty, covering an area of 900 square meters. It has an earthen-brick-tile structure with a flush gable roof, side-room hip-and-gable roof, gray tile roofing, roof tiles used for ridges, pebble stone foundations, mud-brick walls, and a surface coated with lime plaster. The layout consists of two courtyards and one floor, with the entrance facing the old street on Jindai Road in Heping County.

In January 2012, it was included in the Heping County Inventory of Immovable Cultural Relics.