Red Army Headquarters in Xiangyun

At No. 23 Beizhong Street in Xiangcheng Town, the General’s Mansion stands as a quiet junction of two distinct eras. Built in the late Qing Dynasty for Yang Fagui, an Admiral of the Guangdong Beihai Fleet, this 640-square-meter residence represents the traditional Bai and Han brick-and-wood architecture of western Yunnan. Its east-facing facade features decorative bracket sets and a grand entrance gate. Above the gateway, a cool marble plaque bears the inscription "General's Mansion."

Inside, the compound unfolds across forty rooms arranged in a classic layout of four courtyards with five lightwells, corridors wrapping around a central courtyard, and three bays with a screen wall. In the central courtyard, the scent of sweet osmanthus drifts past a blooming red bougainvillea.

On April 19, 1936, this private estate became a military nerve center. The Red Army’s Eighteenth Regiment of the Sixth Division captured the county seat. Political Commissar Yang Xiushan had led his men through the dark to the south gate. Hearing the low, rhythmic bubbling of water-pipe smoke from the unsuspecting guards inside, Yang and his soldiers used a three-meter-long wooden log to batter the gate. When the wood splintered, a fifteen-year-old medical orderly stripped off his bulky rice bag, squeezed through the narrow breach, and unbolted the heavy doors.

Following the victory, commanders He Long, Ren Bishi, Guan Xiangying, Xiao Ke, and Wang Zhen established their temporary headquarters within these forty rooms. From this courtyard, they directed military operations, distributed confiscated grain to local peasants, and mobilized residents before crossing the Jinsha River. Nearby, He Long brushed a calligraphic inscription, "Educating Talents for the Nation," for the local school. A local resident named Ding Maodong brought his prized, well-fed red-brown horse to the mansion as a gift for the Red Army; He Long rode and groomed this horse throughout the Long March.

Today, preserved under the National Long March Cultural Park initiative and registered as one of Yunnan’s Non-movable Revolutionary Relics, the mansion remains intact. The quiet timber columns and stone thresholds preserve the memory of the night the old empire's architecture welcomed the vanguard of a new nation.