The Qiongya Column is known as “the armed forces of the people.” The military contingent, led by the Communist Party of China, was founded during a peasant uprising on the southernmost Hainan Island, in 1927.

That same year, a civil war broke out between the Chinese Communists and Chinese Nationalists.

In 1932, the Nationalist Party’s Kuomintang troops assembled large forces to encircle the Qiongya.

In that battle, the Qiongya lost most of its army.

Feng Baiju, Secretary of the Qiongya Special Committee, ordered a retreat. The remaining troops were led into the forest of Murui Mountain.

They continued to fight with the Kuomintang army for more than eight months.

During breaks in the battle, Secretary General Wang Yexi often played the flute to encourage despondent soldiers.

In 1945, the negotiations between the Nationalist Party and Communist Party failed, and the war of liberation broke out.

On April 16, 1950, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) landed on Hainan Island.

In northern Hainan, the Qiongya Column fought alongside the PLA until the Kuomintang forces were defeated.

The Qiongya played an important role in liberating Hainan Island and the triumph of the PLA in the revolution.

In 1956, to commemorate the difficult months the Qiongya Column spent on Murui Mountain, artist Pan He carved the sculpture “The Hard Time.”

This work conveys the optimistic outlook of two Qiongya Column soldiers, one old, one young, who relied on each other through extremely difficult conditions.

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