Zunyi history · History of Zunyi
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History of Zunyi
History of Zunyi
Like most cities in China, Zunyi claims a long history. It served as the seat of government power in northern Guizhou during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. During the 19th century, the walled city of Zunyi enjoyed prominence as a trading town but became a Chinese landmark after the 1935 Zunyi Conference. After breaking out of the KMT encirclement around the Jiangxi Soviet, the CCP and Red Army fled west across Hunan and into Guizhou. During the retreat they suffered extremely heavy losses due to the aggressive and direct military confrontation tactics favored by the pro-Soviet or Comintern faction of the CCP leadership. Arriving in Zunyi, the party convened an expanded politburo meeting during which Mao Zedong offered scathing criticism of the urban-insurrection and large-scale direct military tactics of the Comintern faction. When Zhou Enlai gave his support to Mao's position, the tone of the meeting, and indeed the Chinese revolution, changed.
With Mao and Zhou now in charge of military tactics, the next problem was how to escape a new KMT encirclement forming in the Daloushan mountains around Zunyi. Under Mao's leadership, the Red Army made a series of famous military manoevers of the Red Army to break out of the KMT encirclement in the winter and spring of 1935 without having to fight straight through. In order to break out, the Red Army crossed the Red River (Chishui) four times in a series of deceptions, feints, and counter-marches which enabled the bulk of the Red Army to escape into Yunnan. The prefecture surrounding Zunyi bears monuments to the Long March, the Chishui campaign and the revolution in Guizhou.
After the establishment of the People's Republic, a new era for Zunyi's development began. Under Mao's leadership, cities like Zunyi in the Southwest became home to a hidden heavy military-industrial infrastructure known as the Third Front. The purpose of locating heavy industrial and military factories in such remote areas was to create a base for military industry out of the range of US and Soviet bombers. In the event of war, even if eastern and northern China were overrun, the southwest could continue to support a mechanized military effort on the front while Chinese guerrilla armies harassed the invaders behind the lines. Mountains were hollowed out and heavy-industrial factories hidden in remote valleys. Zunyi's hills still contain many such caves and passages - which can be identified by the heavy iron doors leading into mountains.
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Zunyi Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.