Memorial Hall of the Last Battle of the Anti-Japanese War

On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its unconditional surrender, ending the fourteen-year War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. But the fighting had not yet ceased: until the end of 1945, one county town south of the Jiangsu-Anhui Border Region government was still occupied by Japanese and puppet forces, and that was Gaoyou. On December 19, 1945, the New Fourth Army Central China Field Army launched the final assault on the refusing-to-surrender Japanese and puppet forces in Gaoyou. On December 26, the Gaoyou campaign ended in victory, and Su Yu accepted the ceremonial sword from Japanese Colonel Iwasaki in an auditorium in Renmin Park. Gaoyou was finally liberated. This was the final battle of the Chinese people's War of Resistance, and the last city liberated during the war. Seventy years have passed, the smoke of battle has long dispersed, and the site where the invading Japanese army surrendered to the New Fourth Army still stands in the middle of the bustling city, quietly recounting that magnificent chapter of history. Over the seventy-plus years since the war, the park auditorium, the former Japanese surrender site, has become mixed together with the Gaoyou Martyrs Cemetery, Renmin Park, the Senior University, the old government office building, the state yamen gate, and various residential buildings. The project by TJAD creates a memorial hall that respects the historic surrender site while providing a proper space for commemorating this pivotal moment in Chinese history.