On November 8, 1937, Taiyuan fell and the army retreated south to Linfen. For a time, this Jinnan town became the center of the War of Resistance in Shanxi and even North China. At this time, a special formation unit of the Eighth Route Army, the Eighth Route Army Academy, was established in Liucun Town, Linfen. In more than one hundred days, more than six hundred bloody youths "cast into steel" in this anti-Japanese war furnace.
