Fanke Hotel (Site of the Zunyi Conference)

From January 15 to 17, 1935, the Central Government held the Extended Conference of the Political Bureau, known as the Zunyi Conference, in this building after the First Army of the Red Army reached Zunyi in early January during the Long March. The meeting criticized Left opportunism during the Fifth Anti Encirclement Campaign and the start of the Long March. It upheld Mao Zedong’s military principles, made him a member of the Political Bureau’s Standing Committee, and transferred top command from Bo Gu and Li De to a Central Commanding Group made up of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Wang Jiaxiang. The conference is considered a key turning point in the history of the Communist Party of China, credited with saving the party, the Red Army and the revolution. The conference room is a 27-square-meter rectangular hall on the east side of the second floor. Windows line the west wall, while two closets and a clock are on the east. A rectangular table sits in the middle, ringed by folding chairs. The building also contains former living quarters and offices for Zhou Enlai, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Committee, Zhu De, Commander in Chief of the Red Army, Liu Bocheng, General Chief of Staff, Ye Jianying, Chief of Staff, Peng Dehuai, Commander of the Third Corps, Yang Shangkun, the Comissar, and others. The building itself is a two-storey wood-and-brick structure from the 1930s, originally the private mansion of Bai Huizhang, a warlord and Commander of the Second Division, No.25 Army of Qian (Guizhou Province) Army. There’s a corridor on the first floor, and colonnades around all sides of the floors. It measures 25.75 meters wide, 16.95 meters deep and 16.95 meters high, with a ground area of 528 square meters.