Memorial to 27 Fallen Heroes, Military memorial temple in Chongwu Town, China.
This memorial is a commemorative complex in a town district featuring a main building, a dedicated remembrance hall, open pavilions, and residential spaces. The rooms contain wooden figures and inscriptions that resemble traditional ancestor tablets.
On September 17, 1949, Nationalist aircraft attacked a PLA brigade on the beach at Chongwu as it prepared for landings on Xiamen and Jinmen; 24 soldiers died. Residents buried them and built the Twenty-Four Lords Shrine, destroyed in 1971. Zeng Hen, saved during the raid, raised funds and built the present temple in 1996, later renamed for 27 martyrs.
The temple is formally named the Shrine of the Twenty-Seven Lords. Paper offerings left at the statues include cars, motorcycles, planes, ships and mobile phones, and the song "I Am a Soldier" plays daily. Local troops visit when recruits join or leave, and oath ceremonies for the Party, Youth League and Young Pioneers are held by the monument.
The complex is open to visitors and receives both military personnel and local residents, giving it an active character. The different areas are easy to explore and offer multiple spaces to view.
Two other Chongwu sites, the Martyr's Palace and the Memorial Hall, also venerate the twenty-seven soldiers and dispute Zeng Hen's account of the 1949 attack. As of December 2022, the identities of twenty-five of the twenty-seven men had been confirmed.
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