The epigraph on the south side inscribed by Zhou Enlai is as follows:
Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past three years!
Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past thirty years!
Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who from 1840 laid down their lives in many struggles against domestic and foreign enemies for national independence, freedom and the well-being of the people!
(Note: the "past three years" refers roughly to the Chinese Liberation War (1946-1949); the "past thirty years" refers to the New Democratic Revolution from the May Fourth Movement in 1919 to the end of the revolution in 1949; and "from 1840" refers to the general struggle of the Chinese people against the various external and internal strife from the beginning of the Opium Wars to the establishment of the People's Republic of China.)