Balujun Xi'an Office Memorial Hall

This guide to the Balujun Xi'an Office Memorial Hall opens on a courtyard compound in 1936 where visitors thought they were seeing a dentist. It follows the real story behind that door: Zhou Enlai's agent Liu Ding renting rooms in Seven Sages Manor, and a real dental practice run by Dr. Herbert Wunsch, suggested by the American journalist Agnes Smedley, that let couriers move medicine, radio parts, and instructions to the Communist base at Yan'an. You'll hear how the cover held through the Xi'an Incident of December 1936 and the uneasy alliance with the Nationalists that followed. Look closely at the plain doorway you're standing at, built to be missed.