Gutian Congress 古田会议会址

About Gutian Congress

In December 1929, the Red Army meeting held here established principles of party control over the military. The surviving hall and the large slogan behind it represent different layers of that memory: the meeting space predates the commemorative lettering installed decades later. Nearby museum interpretation helps distinguish the event itself from its later public presentation.

The meeting hall began as the Liao clan's ancestral hall, known as Wanyuan Ci (万源祠), built in 1848 during the Qing Daoguang era at the foot of Bijia Mountain in Gutian town. A courtyard-style brick-and-timber building of a single story, it has a front courtyard, front hall, a sky well and rear hall along its central axis; the main hall is three bays wide, with wing rooms on either side. In 1917 the town's first primary school opened inside the hall, and in May 1929, after the Red Army's Fourth Corps entered Fujian for a second time, it was renamed Shuguang Primary School.

The rear hall served as the meeting venue for the December 1929 congress, attended by more than 120 delegates representing the army's party members, soldiers, local cadres and women; the left wing held Mao Zedong's and Chen Yi's offices during the meeting, and the right wing held Zhu De's office. The site was listed among the first batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level in 1961, and in 2006 ten related Gutian conference sites, including Songyin Tang (松荫堂) and Zhongxing Tang (中兴堂), were merged into the same designation.

What to look for

• The former ancestral hall and school used as the conference venue.
• The large commemorative slogan behind the building and the adjoining memorial interpretation.

Location & getting there

Getting to Gutian Congress

Go to the Gutian conference-site visitor area in Gutian Town, Shanghang County. Arrange the final road connection to the historic hall and memorial complex, rather than to Gutian County elsewhere in Fujian.