Xuhui unveils walking tour map tracing CPC story

A HISTORIC walking route has been drawn up that incorporates key sites of the Communist Party of China and the former residences of CPC members and reformists.

The route in Xuhui District was where the early CPC members and reformists carried out secret activities. The map, which has 16 sites to see, include the former base of the New Fourth Army, the site of the Party’s secret radio station as well as former residences of Qu Qiubai, a CPC leader, and Tian Han, who wrote the lyrics of the national anthem.

Visitors can trace the history of the Party, witness the frugal lifestyle of the leaders as well as feel the passion of early Party members and reformists, the Xuhui District government said.

The walking tour starts from the former residence and now a memorial museum of Soong Ching-ling on Huaihai Road M. and goes along the Yuqing and Tianping roads.

The highlight of the tour is the secret base and supply station of the New Fourth Army.

The base of the army, a unit of the National Revolutionary Army led by the CPC, was hidden within a shikumen, a stone-gate style residential building on Jiashan Road. The building is now a residential property so it can only be admired from outside.

The secret base was established in March 1941, two months after the Wannan Incident, when the army was ambushed and attacked by the Kuomintang army in the south of Anhui Province. The base was set up to transfer survived soldiers, doctors and technicians to CPC-controlled regions.

Among those rescued include famous composer He Luting and well-known journalists Zou Taofen and Fan Changjiang.

Jacob Rosenfeld, an Austrian doctor who came to Shanghai to escape the Holocaust in 1939 and joined the Chinese people’s fight against the Japanese, Polish writer Hans Shippe and his wife were also among those who were rescued.

The base was shut down at the end of 1942.