Chen Yi's Hometown 陈毅故里

About Chen Yi's Hometown

The residence is a three-hall courtyard house of timber construction with tiled roofs, in the central-Sichuan vernacular manner; it covers 750 square metres, or 6,050 counting the surrounding yards. It was first built in the early Qianlong reign with mortise-and-tenon framing, 36 rooms large and small, and courtyards totalling 1,026 square metres. Chen Yi's ancestor Chen Yaoqin and his brothers had reached Lezhi with a party of migrants around the beginning of the Kangxi reign and settled there. Chen Yi was born in a tiled room on the left of the first hall on 26 August 1901 and spent his infancy and childhood in the house.

Lezhi County set about restoring the house in December 1979, under the county party committee and government; the National Cultural Heritage Administration allocated 100,000 yuan and the provincial cultural relics authority sent specialists to guide the planning, and the work followed the scale and layout of the building's most flourishing period. The restored house was formally opened to the public in 1980, after Chen Yi's relatives had inspected it. In June 2006 the State Council published it as a nationally key protected cultural relic unit. The wider Chen Yi Guli scenic area is a national classic red-tourism area, a national AAAA-grade tourist area, a national patriotic-education base and a national defence-education base, and the Chen Yi Memorial Hall within it is a national third-grade museum.

What to look for

• The plaque over the centre of the main gate, carrying the four characters of the house's name in Deng Xiaoping's own hand, with a couplet by the calligrapher Zhao Puchu on either side.
• The tiled room on the left of the first hall, where Chen Yi was born on 26 August 1901.
• The three-hall courtyard plan itself: mortise-and-tenon timber framing, 36 rooms large and small, and courtyards totalling 1,026 square metres.
• The Chen Yi Memorial Hall, a national third-grade museum standing within the same scenic area.

Location & getting there

Getting to Chen Yi's Hometown

Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.

• Search for 陈毅故里 with 资阳市 and 乐至县.