TIGHTLY BONDED AS FISH AND WATER
The history of the Long March is one that reflects the inseparable relationship between the army and the people.
"Those men and women did everything for the people, by the people, and valued the people's interests most of all. It was what drove them to go forward without fear of sacrifice," said Hu Qunsong, a Long March history researcher.
Shangshaozhai Village in southwest China's Guizhou Province was once separated from the outside world by a raging river for hundreds of years before the Red Army passed by and built a wooden bridge together with local villagers in December 1934.
"They brought out all the available timber at home, and many of the villagers even volunteered to provide their bed and door boards," said 68-year-old Wu Xiyan. Wu's uncle was among the villagers who worked with the soldiers in building the "Red Army Bridge," a name then given to commemorate the close relations between the Red Army and the people.
Villagers walk on a Red Army Bridge in Liping County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, July 2, 2019. (Xinhua photo/Yang Wenbin)
In an ethnic Dong village in Hunan, everyone knows the story of the "Red Army Lantern." It was a gift to Yang Zaineng, a native who showed the way for the Red Army soldiers on a dark winter night of 1934.
The lantern has become an heirloom of the Yang family since then and was passed on to the owner's youngest son Yang Zhengyi who told his own son to join the military and be like the Red Army soldiers.
"When my grandson grows up, I'll tell him the story of the lantern," Yang Zhengyi said.
The Long March, in a sense, was a grand armed publicity tour during which tens of millions of the poor came to understand the CPC's aims of agrarian revolution and their anti-Japanese aggression determination.
Many fell or dropped out both in battles and from the harsh environments, while more of the disinherited joined in -- farmers, workers, serfs and KMT deserters.
