Ancient Path Ancestral Home

Ancient Path Ancestral Home

The Ancient Path Ancestral Home is located in Guwu Village, Gonglian Community, Wanjiang Subdistrict. GPS coordinates: 23°02'07.5"N, 113°42'15.9"E, at an elevation of 17 meters.

Gu Dao, also known as Jin Rong, was born in 1919 in Gonglian Village, Wanjiang. In 1937, while attending high school at Dongguan Middle School, he often went to the countryside with classmates such as Luo Yao to promote resistance against Japan, establish progressive student organizations, and publish the progressive publication "The Crucible," actively engaging in anti-Japanese salvation activities. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1938. During the provincial high school graduation class training, he joined the "Students' Training Corps Anti-First Team." In the summer of 1940, he assisted the Kuomintang county government of Dongguan in distributing pensions to the families of martyrs who died resisting the invading Japanese army in Hengkeng, Liaobu, promoted the CCP's policy of persistent resistance against Japan, and inspired local residents to fight for the nation's salvation.

From the summer of 1941 to November 1942, he served successively as the Propaganda Commissioner of the Shuixiang District Committee of the CCP and the Organization Minister of the Frontline County Committee of Dongguan. Using teaching as a cover, he carried out anti-Japanese work in the Shuixiang area. In March 1943, he was transferred to the mountainous region, where he worked under the cover of being a teacher in Xiekeng, Qingxi, leading the underground party work in the Qingxi area. When a great famine struck Dongguan, he organized local anti-Japanese mass groups to vigorously carry out self-rescue production, implemented a "25% rent reduction," mobilized local gentry to donate money and grain, and led guerrilla squads and militias to ambush Japanese soldiers who went up the mountains to cut and transport timber, sabotaging roads and bridges, attacking Japanese blockhouses, thereby preventing the Japanese from easily harvesting timber in the mountains. This helped the mountain people survive the famine, and the funds generated from production were used to purchase supplies to support the anti-Japanese guerrilla forces. In April 1945, he was appointed as the Organization Minister of the Luxi County Committee of the CCP; in July, he was transferred to serve as the Political Commissar of the First Detachment of the Guangdong People’s Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Forces Dongjiang Column and the Secretary of the Luxi County Committee of the CCP; in August, he led two battalions to destroy several puppet army strongholds that refused to surrender along the Baotai (An) Highway trunk line.

In December 1945, when the Kuomintang army launched a major offensive against the liberated areas of Dongguan, Gu Dao was captured while leading his troops in a breakout. On January 31 of the following year, he heroically sacrificed himself by jumping off a train while being escorted to Guangzhou.

The Ancient Path Ancestral Home originally consisted of three side-by-side earthen-brick tile-roofed houses, facing east and situated west, with farmland and waterways in front of the house. The home was continuously inhabited by his parents, and after their passing, it was maintained and used by his younger brother. In 1980, his brother demolished the northern part of the old house and rebuilt a 75-square-meter blue-brick house; in 1995, the southern part of the old house was demolished, and a new 160-square-meter red-brick house was constructed. It has been rebuilt three times in total. Currently, part of the ancestral home has become an overgrown vacant lot, and his descendants walled it off with red bricks in 1997.

Gonglian Community: Overview of Gonglian Community

The Gonglian Community Neighborhood Committee is located in the western part of Wanjiang District, Dongguan City, situated between the city's main highways, Sihuan Road and Wuhuan Road. To the south is Xinwan Road, and to the north is Taixin Road, forming a grid-like encirclement of highways. Large-scale development projects and commercial-residential central areas surround the Gonglian Community Neighborhood Committee. To the east are South China Mall and the city’s bus terminal; to the south is the large-scale commercial-residential area of Sunshine Coast and the city’s largest municipal People’s Hospital; to the north is the Jin’ao commercial-residential area. Transportation is very convenient, with highways extending in all directions, making it a central hub of transportation in Dongguan City... Detailed information about Gonglian Community++