Former Site of He Long Middle School

The former site of He Long Middle School is located in Dawu No. 2 Village, Dawu Town, Fangshan County. Facing the east, the former site is 44.75 meters long from south to north, and 27.3 meters wide from east to west, covering an area of 1,222 square meters. In September 1945, a middle school affiliated to Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia-Shanxi-Suiyuan Joint Defense Force in Shanxi Province was established in Wenshui County, with He Long serving as the principal. In October of the same year, the school was relocated to Dawu Village and was renamed He Long Middle School on January 1, 1946. From the summer of 1946 to the autumn of 1947, the second and third school sections were set up in Jingle County and Shuo County successively. In 1948, the school was expanded into Northwest Military and Political University and moved southwards to Linfen. He Long Middle School was housed in Fusheng Nunnery in the north of the village. It is unknown when this nunnery was established. According to the former site's tablet inscriptions, it was repaired in the ninth year (1744) under the reign of Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty, and the existing main structure is the remains of Qing Dynasty. The school building features a one-courtyard layout. The Yuelou pavilion and the main hall are distributed in order from east to west on the central axis, while on the north and south sides are the side halls and two portals. The Yuelou pavilion is a two-storey building of masonry-timber structure. The first storey is a brick-built north-south archway, and the second storey is three bays wide and four rafters deep, with a single-eave overhanging gable roof and five protruding purlins supporting the eaves of front colonnade. There are 9 stone tablets from Qing Dynasty in the courtyard, among which there is a masterpiece of calligraphy by Wang Jixian, the governor of ancient Yongning Prefecture. Some student notes and pictures are preserved here. The former site of He Long Middle School was selected into the third batch of provincial-level cultural relic protection units by the People's Government of Shanxi Province in 1996.