Approach the southern facade of Huixin Lou, and your eyes meet a bluestone plaque bearing the building’s name. Zou Lu, the first president of National Guangdong University, carved those characters into the cold stone in 1936. The Kuomintang general Ye Gang spent three years raising this 1,100-square-meter Hakka enclosed house in Zhoutian Village. He envisioned a perfect four-corner fortress. The outbreak of the Japanese invasion halted construction permanently, leaving the two rear corner towers forever unfinished.

This architectural phantom limb tells the story of a home forced to become a shield. Behind the three front doors, a central corridor organizes a symmetrical world of courtyards and side lanes. You can trace the transition from traditional Chinese timber framing to modern brick-and-concrete resilience. The walls wear Western-style gray plaster moldings, while the roof railings feature green ceramic bottle-shaped balusters. Arched windows punctuate the facade, filtering sunlight onto the wooden screen doors inside.

During the war, these thick walls absorbed the hushed conversations of resistance fighters. The East River Column used the estate as a command post. In 1941, intellectuals and democratic figures fleeing Hong Kong found a secret sanctuary within these rooms, their exhausted footsteps echoing across the front threshing floor and past the semicircular pond. By 1945, the Ludong Administrative Committee operated from these very halls, organizing supply lines and civilian support for the South China battlefield.

Today, a newly built 200-meter wooden walkway connects Huixin Lou to the nearby Liao Siguang Former Residence, guiding visitors through the surrounding farmland. Government-funded preservation efforts have stabilized the brickwork and restored the green ceramic roof details. Standing by the tranquil water of the front pond, you feel the weight of the 1930s mortar. The unfinished towers remain exactly as the war left them—a permanent pause in brick and plaster, holding the memory of those who sought refuge behind its arched windows.