The Meixian Museum on the top of The Golden Hill, once the highest point of Meicheng, is now surrounded by modern high-rise buildings.
Nanfang Daily reporter He Senyao photographed
In 1945, Jinshan Peak contacted more than 1,000 teachers and students in Laimei for accommodation. The picture shows the memorial column of the temporary office of Sun Yat-sen University. Nanfang Daily reporter He Senyao photographed
Old photos of the Red Fourth Army attacking the site of the Battle of Meicheng. Historical infographic
This was once the highest point in the Meicheng area, so when people named it, they specially used "top" to highlight its characteristics; this is the cultural and leisure place of the meizhou people in the old days, the county library and the Meixian museum were built here; it is also a famous battle site, and the most tragic battle of the Red Army attacking Meicheng took place here.
Returning to the scene of the bloody battle, every grass and tree is loyal to the soul. The Battle of Jinshan Peak was the most critical battle of the Red Army's siege of the city, when in order to occupy the commanding heights of Meicheng, the soldiers rushed up layer by layer, fearless of sacrifice, and forged ahead. At the height of the fighting, the sound of rifles, machine guns, mortars, and shouts of death was overwhelming and heard for miles.
Today, after 92, the smoke has dissipated, and the ruins and broken walls have been buried underground in the process of urban development, leaving only a small part of the mottled wall. We can only look for red marks in written records and simple depictions of predecessors.
Southern Daily reporter Huang Sihua
(The Party History Research Office of meizhou municipal party committee and the party history office of Meijiang District also contributed to this article)
Inherit the chronicles
Hakka culture and red culture shine together
The roof is covered with green tiles, the red windows are dotted, the walls are red and yellow, and there are 6 large pillars about 7 meters long standing around. In Meizhou, it is rare to see such a magnificent xieshan temple-style building. On Wenbao Road, Hongqiao Neighborhood Committee, Jinshan Subdistrict Office, Meijiang District, this two-storey building that is incompatible with the surrounding modern houses but attracts attention has become a highly representative cultural symbol of the local area.
"Culture" here includes both Hakka culture and red culture.
In 1935, the first county library in Meicheng was set up on the top of The Golden Mountain. At that time, the county magistrate saw that Meicheng had a strong reading atmosphere, but there was no place for the citizens to read, so he demolished the Guanyin Hall on the top of the Golden Hill and converted it into a two-story palace-style library with red walls and green tiles, and the collection of books and newspapers was abundant.
"Jinshan Peak was a famous library at that time, and I read many literary and artistic works there, such as "Workers, Peasants and Soldiers" (a publication published by shantou special district, meizhou belonged to Shantou special district at that time), "Guangxi literature and art", "Bud" and so on." Qiu Feng, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and a distinguished professor at Tongji University, said.
At the same time, the top of Jinshan Mountain, located at the highest point of Meicheng, also played an important role in the second attack of the Red Fourth Army on Meicheng. In 1929, the Red Fourth Front attacked Meicheng twice, leaving not only a red memory in the land of Meizhou, but also a valuable spiritual wealth here.
At the top of the towering golden hill, the ancient city wall snuggles quietly, telling the red memories that have long been deeply rooted in the rings of history.
"The old people often tell us stories about the ancient city, such as several family treasures, where there have been celebrities, where commerce and trade have flourished, where they have been destroyed because of war..." Following the direction of the citizen Hou Yongtai's fingers, in his slightly hoarse narration, time seems to be pulled back to more than 90 years ago.
In April 1928, Zhu De and Chen Yi led the remaining troops of the August 1st Nanchang Uprising and the Shonan Peasant Army to Jinggangshan, where they met with the autumn harvest uprising troops led by Mao Zedong and formed the Fourth Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Revolution, the most powerful armed army of the Communist Party of China at that time, and then renamed the Fourth Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
Zhu De served as commander of the Fourth Army of the Red Army, Mao Zedong as party representative, and Chen Yi as director of the Political Department. "Zhu Yunqing, a Meizhou native who was only 21 years old at the time, served as chief of staff in the army." Jiang Wenxiu, director of the Meijiang District Party History Office, mentioned it.
On September 28, 1929, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a directive from Shanghai for the Red Fourth Army to march into eastern Guangdong. Zhu De, Chen Yi, and Zhu Yunqing led the first, second, and third columns, totaling more than 6,000 people, to advance from Fujian to eastern Guangdong. After capturing Songyuan and Jiaocheng, the Red Fourth Army decided to attack Meicheng.
"At that time, the Red Fourth Army set out from Jiaocheng, arrived at Dalangkou via Shifan and Yang Wen in Meixian County, and then made contact with the guards led by Hou Miao." Jiang Wenxiu explained that the first attack on Meicheng was relatively easy, when the enemy did not expect the Red Fourth Army to attack here, so it did not send a large number of troops. After 1 hour of resistance, the guards stationed in Meicheng fled in the direction of the south entrance, and the Red Fourth Army easily captured Meicheng, followed by the famous "Zhu De Speech" incident.
During the speech, there was a sudden burst of unidentified gunfire. Because the enemy army was not known and feared that the enemy army would gather forces to counterattack, the Red Fourth Army decided to temporarily withdraw from Meicheng. However, when the Red Fourth Army attacked Meicheng for the second time, it was far less so easy than the first.
Why attack Meicheng for the second time? "One reason is to destroy the enemy's living forces of a regiment and seize a large number of guns and ammunition. At the same time, in order to make a promotional political influence in the East River. Jiang Wenxiu said.
Spread the red tinder
The fiercest battle to attack Meicheng
Turning over the Qing Kangxi "Chengxiang County Chronicle" and Qianlong's "Jiaying Prefecture Chronicle", we can see such records: "Jinshan, the county office after forty zhang, high thirty zhang, Saturday ten zhang", "towering north of the city, the female wall across it". Therefore, it is known as "the highest in the county" and "the top of the golden mountain", "the golden mountain, standing tall, the situation is abrupt, condescending, bird's eye view of the whole city".
Covering an area of more than 4,600 square meters, this place was formed by artificial fortifications during the Song Dynasty and was the commanding height of Meicheng. During the Ming Dynasty, the local county officials used the original river here as a moat and built an earthen city wall, and the northern wall was built along the highest point on the top of the Golden Mountain, which was majestic. By the time of the Qing Dynasty, the earthen city wall had been slightly damaged, and in order to consolidate the wall, the officials at that time converted part of the city wall into a brick wall.
Militarily, occupying the commanding heights is of great significance to winning the battle.
On October 31, 1929, six days after the evacuation of Meicheng, the Former Committee of the Red Fourth Army decided to attack Meicheng for the second time. As soon as the sky was dark, the Red Fourth Army set out from Meinan, and three columns tightly surrounded Meicheng on the east, west, and north sides, and the headquarters of the Red Fourth Army was set up on the slope of Huangtang, which was more than a mile away from the city in the northwest suburbs outside the city.
At 10:00 a.m., the battle was first fought in front of Zhonghua Road and the New Temple in the west of the city. However, the west of the city was densely built, and the enemy army occupied favorable terrain such as the city wall and the arcade tower, and was condescending, so the Red Fourth Army still did not break through the city until the afternoon.
As a result, the Red Fourth Army shifted the focus of its attack from the west of the city to the North Gate and the top of the Golden Mountain. "There are two reasons why it is difficult to attack, one is that the terrain is unfavorable to our army, and the other is that there is an error in the survey. It was thought that there was only 1 regiment of the garrison in Meicheng, but in fact it was a reinforced regiment, and the strength of the troops was equivalent to 2 regiments. Jiang Wenxiu said.
The battle at the North Gate and the top of the Golden Mountain was also very difficult. North Gate Gang and Chi Qian Gang are an open grave slope, so the top of Jin Mountain and the North Gate are easy to defend and difficult to attack. At that time, the Red Army rushed to the area under the North Gate, Guanyin Hall, and the Top of the Golden Mountain dozens of times, but still failed to occupy the North Gate and the Top of the Golden Mountain.
The place with the size of the projectile has simply become a hell of death. The Red Army launched one attack after another on the top of the Golden Mountain, the warriors came out of the sand to aim, and the wounded also took up arms and fought back tenaciously. Luo Ronghuan, a marshal of the People's Republic of China and who led a column at the time, was also wounded in this battle. When he led the ninth detachment to attack the north gate, he was wounded in the waist and carried down the line of fire by Tan Zheng and others.
Later, a number of soldiers of a column heroically attacked the top of Jin Mountain, wounding the face of Guo Siyan, the leader of the White Army, and killing the regimental deputy surnamed Zheng. But in the end, because they were outnumbered, all the soldiers died heroically. These exhausted and badly wounded warriors, whose will was as strong as steel, marched wave after wave toward the top of the Golden Mountain, without flinching. The sound of rifles, machine guns, mortars, and shouts of death was earth-shattering and heard for miles.
At 5:00 p.m., the Red Fourth Army had a large number of casualties, and Zhu De saw that it was difficult to capture Meicheng, and heard that reinforcements from the White Army in other places were coming, so he ordered a truce and evacuation. "The Battle of Jinshan Peak was the most tragic battle of the Red Army to attack Meicheng, and the Red Army lost 293 elite people, most of whom died here." Jiang Wenxiu said.
Although Meicheng was not captured, the heroic fighting spirit of the Red Army soldiers shocked the enemy army. When the Red Army withdrew that day, the enemy army shrank into the city and did not dare to go out of the city to pursue. Moreover, traffic inside and outside the city was cut off for 3 consecutive days, and until November 7, it was still actively on guard.
How to view this Red Fourth Army attack on Meicheng campaign that lasted nearly half a month? "It has greater political significance than military significance. Although this battle was not successful in the end, it left our army with many experiences and lessons worth summing up. More importantly, after two attacks on Meicheng, the red seeds were sown in the local area, and the Dongjiang Agrarian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet District in northeast Guangdong were also promoted. Jiang Wenxiu concluded.
Inheritance of light and history
Renovate the old as before to create the Golden Peak Park
After withdrawing from Meicheng, the Red Fourth Army withdrew in two ways, one along the direction of Yushui, the other from the direction of Zatian and Qunyi in the north of the city, and finally met at Daping in Meixian County. The red story also comes to an end here, but the more than 200 Red Army soldiers who died were buried on the top of the Golden Mountain, blending in with the land.
The green mountains are still there, where is the hero. Today, the mottled ancient city wall on the top of the Golden Mountain, which is still about 4 meters long, is like a red monument, inspiring future generations.
In recent years, in order to strengthen the protection and management of Meizhou National Historical and Cultural City and further inherit and promote the hakka culture, in accordance with the "Notice of the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of Guangdong Province on the Implementation of the "Measures for the Approval of the Preparation and Approval of the Protection Plan for famous towns and villages in famous historical and cultural cities" on the work requirements of "accelerating the preparation of the protection plan for historical and cultural blocks" and the work deployment of the municipal government, Meizhou City launched the organization and compilation of the "Meizhou Jinshan Peak Historical and Cultural Block Protection Plan" (hereinafter referred to as the "Planning") in early 2018.
The "Planning" mentions that the Golden Peak Historical and Cultural Block has five valuable features. It is not only an important witness to the history of the Red Revolution, the origin of Meizhou City, but also the landmark of Meizhou Historical City, the political and cultural highland of the central axis of the ancient city, and the concentrated embodiment of Hakka clan culture and traditional life.
For a long time, Meizhou has regarded the golden peak as one of the inheritance sites of the thousand-year-old cultural context. It is a paradise for children born in the 1930s and 1990s to read books. "Both adults and children like to come here to read and play." Zhu Diguang, the former director of the Meixian Museum, said that he often came here to read books when he was a child, and later after the Meixian Museum was built here, he also went to work here and began to study Hakka culture.
In June 1962, due to the implementation of the state to streamline the organization, the Meixian Museum, which was established in August 1959 and located next to the "Martyrs' Shrine" in Meicheng Dongbeichang (Cultural Park Stadium), was abolished, and the staff and cultural relics in the collection were merged into the Meixian Library, and since then the Meixian Library at the top of jinshan has had two functions.
In May 1979, Meizhou City (county-level city) resumed the museum, and the personnel and cultural relics originally merged into the Meixian Library were returned to the museum. The museum is named Meizhou City Museum, and the site is still on the top of Meicheng Golden Hill and the former Meixian Library, and the museum building covers an area of about 180 square meters.
Later, the Meixian Museum was relocated to the new county seat of Meixian District, and the old museum at the top of the Golden Peak was left idle. In order to protect the ancient city of Jiangbei, inherit Hakka culture and improve the living environment, Meijiang District has accelerated the construction of Jinshan Peak Park, improved public supporting service facilities, and planned to build it into a park that integrates displaying the new appearance of the city, emergency evacuation, leisure and entertainment.
As a result, this place that retains the memories of the old Meicheng and the nostalgia of the citizens was named Golden Peak Park, and construction began in November 2018. The original broken staircase and the three-storey building built on the west side were gradually demolished, and the old building of the original library was restored according to the principle of repairing the old as before.
Hearing that the summit of The Golden Peak was being reused, many citizens expressed great anticipation. "The construction of Jinshan Peak Park is not only the protection of historical memory objects such as the ancient city wall, the Seven Sages Pavilion, and the Meixian Museum on the top of Jinshan Mountain, but also the protection of the red stories that occurred here and the youth memories of Meicheng people." Citizen Hou Wentai said.
■Related
The past and present lives at the top of the Golden Peak
From the east-west direction of Meicheng Jiangbei Cultural Park, across the Hongqiaotou, the old Meizhou Cigarette Factory dormitory, and then connected to Wenbao Road, Jinshan Lane to the south, the hill is commonly known as "Jinshan" or "Jinshan Peak". It is under the jurisdiction of the Jinshan Office of Meijiang District, and is historically the highest place passed by the old city walls.
Seven Sages Pavilion
The "Seven Sages Pavilion" is located on a small hill above the former Meixian Museum (Laomei County Library) in Old Meicheng.
According to research, during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the people of Meizhou built the Shuangzhong Academy in Baihuazhou in order to praise the loyal martyrs Liu Yuancheng and Wen Tianxiang. During the Ming Chongzhen period, 3 former sages related to the history of Chengxiang County: Zhang Jiuling, Di Qing, and Cai Mengji, were renamed Wuzhong Ancestral Hall and built in Panguifang, east of the city. In the second year of Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty (1645), the then Cheng Xiang Zhi County was renamed Han Yu and Cheng Min Erxian and changed to the Seven Sages Academy.
Later, the Seven Sages Academy was destroyed. In order to commemorate the seven former sages, a hexagonal Seven Sages Pavilion was built on the top of the Golden Peak in 1937. The pavilion is hexagonal, with green glazed tiles and a treasure bottle roof. Standing in the pavilion, the railing can overlook many scenery of Meicheng.
In 1987, the Qixian Pavilion had a large crack, and the government carried out a repair. However, due to a shortage of funds, the foundation was not completely consolidated. A few years later, the Seven Sages Pavilion cracked again, and the gap became larger and larger. In 2009, the Seven Sages Pavilion was seriously tilted and became a dangerous pavilion, and in order to avoid harming the innocent, it was demolished in 2014.
Today, along a path next to the old museum, under the shade of green trees, next to a platform that has been dismantled and sorted out, a lone cement stele is erected. This is the inscription of the Seven Sages Pavilion on the top of the Golden Mountain, which has not yet been uprooted, and the platform full of stone and gravel is the original site of the Seven Sages Pavilion.
Former site of the Mei County Library
In May 1935, Major General Liang Hanzhao of the Republic of China Army became the county magistrate of Meixian County, and launched a four-year reconstruction of the city's appearance such as demolishing the city wall and expanding the streets. At that time, there was still a Buddhist temple and Guanyin Hall at the northern foot of Jinshan Mountain, and it took Liang Han two years to demolish the Buddhist temple and Guanyin Hall. Under the city walls was moved to Jingfu'an, and the original site was converted into a two-story steel structure with red walls and green tiles. The palatial Meixian Library covers an area of nearly 3,000 square meters, including more than 1,870 square meters of open space on the east and west sides, with a construction area of 1,000 square meters and a collection of nearly 300,000 books.
Former site of the Meixian District Museum
At the beginning of this century, after the completion of the Meizhou Library in Jiangnan, all the books of the original Meixian Library were moved to the new library and renamed the Meixian District Museum. There are more than 7,000 cultural relics over a thousand years in the collection here, of which more than 860 are listed as cultural relics of the third level or above in the country, and 5 are listed as national first-class cultural relics.
Temporary office of CUHK during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
In the autumn of 1944, the Third Northern Guangdong Campaign broke out, the Japanese army captured Shaoguan, and the National Sun Yat-sen University, which was run in Pingshi, was once again affected by the war and forced to relocate for the third time since the War of Resistance. During the same period, famous schools such as the private Guangzhou University and Lingnan University were equally miserable in the indiscriminate bombardment of the Japanese army. In such a difficult background, the education circles in South China tried to preserve the foundation of national education, so they began to move colleges and universities inland.
In 1945, Jinshan Peak served as the temporary office of Sun Yat-sen University, and more than 1,000 teachers and students in Laimei were contacted for accommodation. In addition to Sun Yat-sen University, 8 universities, including Hong Kong's South China College and Lingnan University, relocated to Meizhou during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, with a total of 18 former school sites.
On September 3, 2020, the unveiling ceremony of the memorial column of the provisional office of Sun Yat-sen University and the listing ceremony of the memorial site for running the school were held at the former Meixian Museum at the top of Jinshan Mountain in Meijiang District. The column of this octahedral memorial column is symmetrical and the base is thick, and each floor of the column displays the portraits of celebrities of Sun Yat-sen University, the old traces of the college examination papers, and the old traces of related research.