As an isolated county, with relatively low education levels and a weak orthodox gentry, Guan long served as center for secret societies and heterodox sects. For example, Guan was one of the earliest places where Yi-he boxing was practised, namely in 1779. This material arts style later served as base for the prominent
Yìhéquán (Boxer) movement. In 1861–63, the county was also the center of a rebellion against the
Qing dynasty, led by
Song Jing-shi and supported by the
White Lotus. In the last decades of the Qing Empire and the early
Republic, Guan County was home to the Red as well as
Green Gangs, the
Yellow Sand Society, and the "
Way of the Sages". In the
Second Sino-Japanese War, the county was on the frontlines of battle between
communist and
Japanese forces. During the
Great Leap Forward, Guan County was governed by local cadres (many of them veterans of anti-Japanese resistance) who vigorously resisted collectivization, mitigating the famine mortality rate in the county. This conservative clique held power well into the
Cultural Revolution, which it also resisted, until it was violently unseated in 1969. Ensuing clashes resulted in the deaths of sixty people. ==Administrative divisions==