Founder of Zhuhai's first CPC branch

Kuang (Kwong) Rensheng established Zhuhai's first Communist Party of China branch in Doumen Town's Xiaohaochong Village, sparking the grassroots organization to form the first anti-Japanese armed forces brigade in the Zhuhai area.

Kuang was born Sept 28, 1911. He was exposed to Marxism during his middle school days in Guangzhou and devoted himself in the revolution under the influence of CPC members Chen Jie and Xie Ying. He became a teacher at Paishan Primary School in Bajia Village of Doumen in 1930 but had to leave town after organizing a peasant association and becoming wanted by the local Kuomintang government. In 1933, he and progressive classmates at Guangdong Maritime School established a communist sympathy group. Returning home in 1935, Kuang promulgated advanced thoughts and songs among the public, and mobilized teachers and literates in the Eighth Division of Zhongshan County (now Doumen, Qianwu, Baijiao, and Sanzao towns) to take part in anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism activities.

Statue of Kuang Rensheng [Photo courtesy WeChat account: meilidoumen]

Kuang became Doumen's first CPC member in 1936 and set up Zhuhai's first Party group in Xiaohaochong along with Kuang Shuming and Kuang Zhenda. (Kuang is a common surname in Doumen Town). Kuang firmly established the city's first Party branch in the village on Sept 20, 1937, which was 73 days after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (starting the Second Sino-Japanese War) outside Beiping (now Beijing), and took up service as Party secretary. The same year, the Japanese army occupied Hebao (Hope) Island and Doumen became Zhuhai's frontier against Japanese invasion.

One year later, the CPC Committee of the Eighth Division of Zhongshan County was established in Xiaohaochong. As Party secretary, Kuang recruited advanced youths into the Party and expanded its organization. By 1944, eleven Party branches and three Party groups were set up in Qianwu, Dashaxiang, Yuekeng, and Longtan, with the number of Party members expanding to 213.

Kuang, then head of the Publicity Department of Nanhai-Panyu-Zhongshan-Shunde Central County, was stabbed by Japanese soldiers when chairing a secret conference at the house of an undercover traffic staff in Shunde on March 25, 1942. He remained tight-lipped about the Party's secrets even after arrest and died unyieldingly at the age of 31.

Xiaohaochong (Small Haochong) Village has a history of 584 years and is located on one side of the Hutiaomen Waterway in the Pearl River Estuary. It faces Xinhui of Jiangmen City to the north and lies against Yingshan Mt in the south. In 1919, Xiaohaochong Jianmin Primary School and 40 other Doumen schools had organized teachers and students to promote "new culture and ideology."