The Red Detachment of Women

A call to the women

In spring 1930 the communist underground in what was then Lehui County, today's Qionghai, put up a call: the county's women should take up arms and fight side by side with the men. More than seven hundred volunteered within a month.

The reason lay in their daily lives. Many girls were betrothed as children or sold as concubines. Pang Qionghua, the later commander, had been promised to a stranger at the age of four and refused to go through with the marriage at sixteen. Fifteen-year-old Wang Shixiang went round the markets recruiting women with self-composed verses in Hainanese — roughly: the darker the night, the more you hope for light, and the poorer you are, the more courage you need.

A hundred women, under twenty

On 1 May 1931, a Red Army company made up almost entirely of women was sworn in in the schoolyard of Neiyuan village. Around a hundred were chosen from the volunteers, most of them not yet twenty. Only a quartermaster, a porter and a bugler were men.

The company was structured like any other: three platoons of three squads each. Pang Qionghua became company commander, Wang Shixiang political leader.

A year and a half of war

The first mission came three months after its founding. In an ambush at Shamaoling hill the women lured enemy troops into a trap and captured the local commander. In 1932 a second company was added.

That same year the Nationalist government sent several thousand soldiers against the area. The women suffered heavy losses; ammunition and supplies ran out. In November 1932 the unit was disbanded, and the survivors went into hiding in the villages under false names.

What came after the war

The story of the leaders is harsher than the myth. Pang Qionghua was removed as an alleged deviationist in an internal purge by her own party as early as 1932, and Feng Zengmin took over the company. After the disbanding she and other women leaders were captured and spent about five years in prison, finally in a re-education institution in Guangzhou.

They were only released in 1937, when the Communists and the Nationalist government were cooperating against Japan. Pang Qionghua later married an official of the Nationalist government as his second wife — of all things. He was killed during the Japanese occupation. Wang Shixiang died in 1998.

How it became a myth

In 1957 a journalist wrote a report based on the recollections of one of the company leaders. From it, Xie Jin made the feature film “The Red Detachment of Women” in 1961. The film's villain, a cruel landlord, is based on two men the women had actually captured at the time. The ballet version followed in 1964.

During the Cultural Revolution the ballet became one of the eight “model works”, practically the only stage pieces allowed to be performed for years. In February 1972 Richard Nixon sat in the audience during his historic visit to Beijing when exactly this ballet was performed. That's how a small unit from Hainan became one of the best-known images of revolutionary China.

The memorial park

The memorial park is on the edge of Qionghai, right by the Guantang motorway exit and so only a few minutes from the hot-spring area. Since a renovation in 2023, admission has been free. Incidentally, the big statue doesn't show Pang Qionghua but Qionghua, the heroine of the film and ballet — the film character is better known than the real woman.

Since 2000 there has again been a “Red Detachment of Women” as a militia unit that performs at celebrations. School classes and organised groups often come through the park.

How to approach the visit

An hour is enough for the park. It's quietest on weekday afternoons. The exhibition is mostly in Chinese; a translation app with a camera function helps a lot.

The exhibition tells the story entirely from the Party's point of view. The visit becomes exciting if you watch for which images from film and ballet are presented here as history — and which parts of the real life stories are missing.