Huanquan Academy: Interpreting the eternal red legend

On the banks of the Huanshui River in the northwest corner of Yanling County (formerly Shuxian County) in the western foothills of the Luoxiao Mountains, there is an ancient academy built in the Song Dynasty, called Huanquan Academy. The college is a three-entry, two-compartment civil structure building, sitting north and facing south, with a construction area of about 2,000 square meters and 58 large and small rooms. The first entrance of the college is a patio-style indoor courtyard; the second is the middle hall, that is, the lecture hall of the academy, which is the place where teachers have taught in the past generations, and a wooden plaque "KuiXing Diandou" hangs high at the head of the door; the third entrance is the Dacheng Hall, which originally has the seat of Confucius, and the two sides are Mr. Bedrooms.

On the surface, it seems that The Academy is nothing more than an ordinary ancient academy, but in this ordinary academy it not only interprets the red legend of the "first handshake" of the two historical giants in the history of China's modern revolution, but also becomes a witness to the difficult and tortuous history of the Chinese revolution.

The college is small but has a long history

Approaching the "Huanquan", the gate of the academy is impressively hung with the plaque of "Huanquan Academy", and the circular columns on both sides of the courtyard door are hung with the couplet of "MoSiShancheng Academy is small, and there are many sages in the land of Chu", which shows that although the scale of this ancient academy is not very large, its architectural style is simple and elegant, exquisite and exquisite, unique, and the institute has a long history and is a place where talents are born.

Huanquan Academy was founded in the Song Jiading period and was formerly known as Huanglong Academy. In the eighteenth year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1753), it was renamed Lieshan Academy, taking the meaning of the birthplace of the Yan Emperor. In the second year of Jiaqing (1797), when the local academy was expanded, it was renamed "Huanquan Academy". In the fifth year of Daoguang (1825), Shen Daokuan of Zhixian County moved the site of the courtyard to the school shooting field outside the north city (now Gaoshangping), built a new courtyard, "according to the lake in the county (Hengyang) east forty miles, the county attacked the lake name, the hospital attacked the county name", renamed "Lake Lake Academy". In the fifth and sixth years of Xianfeng (1855 and 1856), the Shuhu Academy was destroyed by war and deserted. In the second year of Tongzhi (1863), Wan Dianzhang moved the academy back to its original site and renamed it "Huanquan Academy".

The scale of Huanquan Academy is not large, nor is it as famous as Changsha Yuelu Academy and Hengyang Shigu Academy, but it has always been a cultural powerhouse in yanling area, where students and scholars used to gather. The academy is like a trickle of water, cultivating many talents. In the Song Dynasty, where academies were everywhere, there were 16 academies in Shuxian County, which had less than 120,000 people, and the fame of Huanquan Academy was among the best among all the academies at that time. According to some data, from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, there were 11 jinshi in The county, 43 people, and 374 Gongsheng, most of whom were from the Huanquan Academy. In the history of China's modern revolution, the founding leaders Mao Zedong and Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Chen Yi, as well as Zhang Yunyi, Xiao Ke, Wang Zhen, Li Tianyou, and a number of other founding generals, all had intersections and contacts with the Xunquan Academy, and left their historical imprints here many times.

Mao Zedong lived here

Looking back at the red legend interpreted by Huanquan Academy, the biggest attraction is that it had close "close contact" with Mao Zedong, which directly contributed to the "first handshake" between the two historical giants Mao Zedong and Zhu De, thus changing the historical process and direction of the Chinese revolution.

In mid-March 1928, in order to prepare for and greet the Shonan uprising troops led by Zhu De, Mao Zedong personally led the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army to march into Xiangxian County (present-day Yanling County) in three ways to Shonan. On the way, when he heard of the "March Rebellion" in Yuxian County, he immediately commanded the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army to go to support and capture the county seat. On March 15, Mao Zedong went to the Xunquan Academy in the west of the county, because he loved to read all his life, so he used the academy as his residence and the residence of the leading organs of the army. Mao Zedong lived in the gentleman's bedroom on the right side of the back hall of the academy. On the same day, Mao Zedong held a mass meeting at Dacaoping in front of the Huanquan Academy, mobilizing the toiling peasants to rise up and make a revolution, beat up local tycoons, divide up the land, and be the masters of their homes. This was Mao Zedong's first close contact with the Xunquan Academy.

In mid-April, Mao Zedong led the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army back to the county seat of Shuxian County, where he lived for the second time at the Xunquan Academy. Shortly after staying, he learned that the Kuomintang troops were preparing to stop the Shonan rebel forces from going to Jinggangshan in the area of Shuxian County. Therefore, Mao Zedong did not care to rest, and immediately summoned a regiment of cadres at and above the regiment level to a meeting in the lecture hall of the central hall of the Xunquan Academy, studied the enemy's situation, deployed to block the enemy's attack from Chaling to The county, and decided to place the ambush site at the Solitaire Bridge on the western outskirts of the county seat. At the meeting, Mao Zedong analyzed the situation in which the enemy is strong and we are weak, and he held that the two commanding heights of Tianhe Mountain and Xiangshan Mountain are the key to whether this battle can be won. Only by firmly controlling these two commanding heights can we form a front-back attack on the enemy army and win the victory in this ambush battle of short-term contact.

The victory in the solitaire bridge ambush created favorable conditions for the Shonan rebel forces led by Zhu De to jump out of the enemy's encirclement. In late April, Zhu De led the Shonan rebel forces to successfully reach Chudu (沔渡) in Yanxian County (present-day Yanling County). At the same time, after mao zedong's victory in the ambush at solitaire bridge, he also led his troops out of The Xunquan Academy to reach Shidu. Zhu De, who had just arrived at Qiudu, heard that Mao Zedong had arrived in Shidu and immediately rushed to Shidu to meet him. On April 24, at the Ten Thousand Lives Palace, Mao Zedong and Zhu De finally came together after going through hardships. Here, they discussed issues such as the division of the two armies, the reorganization of the troops, and the construction of base areas, and decided to hold a meeting meeting in Ninggang, Jiangxi.

Years later, Mao Zedong and Zhu De still remember their first meeting vividly and unforgettablely. Zhu De wrote in his 1940 autobiography: "Then the team retreated to Yuxian county and met with Comrade Mao Zedong, who was retreating from Rucheng in guidong to the south, and this was the first meeting between the two of us. ”

Continue the red legend

The first meeting between Mao Zedong and Zhu De and the meeting of the two armies were epoch-making historical events in the history of the Chinese revolution, which strengthened the strength of the Jinggangshan revolution and accelerated the historical process of the Chinese revolution. Mao Zedong's initial revolutionary activities and arrangements at The Huiquan Academy and his victory in the Solitaire Bridge Ambush directly contributed to the "first" historic handshake between Mao Zedong and Zhu De, two great men, which played a great role in the later establishment of the Zhumao Jinggangshan Division and the Red Fourth Army, as well as the development and expansion of the Jinggangshan revolutionary base area. Therefore, the Study of the History of the Shonan Uprising, the Study of the History of the Gangshan Division of Zhumao Jingshan, the Study of the History of the Establishment and Development of the "Zhumao Red Army," and the Historical Study of the Revolutionary Base Area of Jinggangshan are of extreme value.

In addition to the "red legend" interpreted by Mao Zedong in the modern history of the Chinese revolution, Zhu De, Chen Yi, Peng Dehuai, Zhang Yunyi, Xiao Ke, Wang Zhen, Teng Daiyuan, Li Tianyou, Zhang Pinghua and other proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation all stayed here when they carried out revolutionary activities in Yanling County (present-day Yanling County).

In July 1928, Zhu De, commander of the Fourth Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, led two regiments, the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Regiments, from Ninggang to Yanling County (present-day Yanling County). After conquering the county seat of Shuxian County, the headquarters was also located in the Xunquan Academy. After Wang Zhen arrived in Shuxian County, he also stayed at The Xunquan Academy.

Because it carries too many red legends in China's modern history, like the Chinese revolution, It has experienced countless "baptisms of blood and fire". In the autumn of 1928, the academy was burned down due to military chaos, and three houses were entered, and only the back building remained. Later, the school continued to run the school under the auspices of the parties involved in the college.

After the founding of New China, history has not forgotten the important position and role of The Huquan Academy in the history of the Chinese revolution, the people have not forgotten, and the Republic has not forgotten.

In 1968, the county party committee of the CPC 's County (present-day Yanling County) restored the Shuquan Academy in accordance with its original appearance during the Tongzhi period; in 1970, the county built the "Exhibition Hall of Mao Zedong's Revolutionary Activities in The County" on the left side of the academy, which, with rich revolutionary cultural relics and detailed historical materials, truly recorded a series of pioneering revolutionary activities, such as the founding of the first company, the first meeting between Mao Zedong and Zhu De, the first land reform in the base area, and the first political training. In September 1977, Guo Moruo personally inscribed the name of the museum.

In 1984, The Academy was included in the Zhuzhou Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit; in 1996, the Hunan Provincial People's Government announced that the Hunan Provincial People's Government announced that the Academy was a provincial-level cultural relics protection unit and a provincial-level patriotic education base. In 1997, the Hunan Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics designated The Academy as the "Memorial Site for the Revolutionary Activities of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in Yanling County" (later changed to a memorial hall), and supplemented and injected some important contents to reproduce the red historical legend of the thousand-year-old academy in the form of pictures and texts: the first part is "Memorial Hall of revolutionary activities of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army", the second part is "Eighteen Years of Reform and Opening Up Construction Achievement Exhibition", and the third part is "Yanling County Museum Yanling Celebrity Exhibition". In May 2013, the State Council announced that Huanquan College was a national key cultural relics protection unit.