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Ren Bishi 任弼时 (1904-1950), one of the military and political leaders of the early CCP (Chinese Communist Party), was born on 30 April 1904 to a teacher’s family whose residence was located about 45 kilometers south to today’s City of Miluo. Ren had spent his childhood and teenage years there before leaving for Changsha in 1915 to receive further education at the primary school attached to Hunan First Normal School, where he came to know Mao Zedong and communism. Ren studied between 1921 and 1924 in Moscow at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) and became a party member in 1922. A veteran leader weathering almost all important military, political, and ideological campaigns of the CCP, from the Hunan-Jiangxi Soviet in the early 1930s, the Long March (1934-36) to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) and the Second Civil War (1945-49), including the Yan’an Rectification Movement in 1942, Ren was generally considered as one of the founding figures of the People’s Republic of China. He was a member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee from 1945 to his death in 1950. Ren Bishi was the first high-ranking Party leader to be buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, whose gravestone was graced by Mao’s calligraphy.Picture 1: Ren Bishi on a stamp issued in 1984 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of his birthdayThe birth house of Ren Bishi was built in the late Qing Dynasty, with thirty-one rooms that used to be home of seven families of the Ren clan. The northern part of the house consists of six rooms, including the bedrooms of young Ren Bishi and his parents. The bed, the tea table, and the study desk used by Ren were displayed in the room, in which he lived as a child. The rooms on the southern side serve as exhibition halls telling Ren Bishi’s life story. Preserved and displayed on exhibition are 146 pieces of objects that were used by Ren. In 1927, Ren Bishi went back to this house for the last time of his life to visit his family. The residence was declared in 1956 a key heritage site at the provincial level and one at the national level in 1988. Since 2005 it has served as a national-level demonstration base for patriotism education全国爱国主义教育示范基地 and entered the list of national-level Red Tourism classical destinations in 2016.Bibliography:Hung, Chang-tai (2011):&#160;Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic.&#160;Ithaca: Cornell UP.Ren Zhiyuan 任志远 (1997). Wo de fuqin Ren Bishi 我的父亲任弼时. Shengyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe.List of Picture:Featured Image: The Birth House of Ren Bishi. Source: The People's Government of Milu official website: http://www.miluo.gov.cn/25214/25218/28529/content_650443.html