Standing before a display case at a museum in Yudu County, Jiangxi Province, 23-year-old Zeng Yan read a letter written by a Red Army soldier nearly a century ago.
The letter's writer, Liu Xingfa, was just 19. In the letter, he repeatedly reassured his family that he was safe and well, concealing the hardships he was enduring amid the fighting at the time.
After reading it, Zeng wrote a reply from the perspective of a young person today. She told Liu that China had changed profoundly, that people now lived in peace and that his sacrifice had not been forgotten.
"The letter was not only meant to comfort a fallen soldier," Zeng said. "It also reminded me that I cannot simply be moved by his story and leave it at that."
The exchange across time was part of a five-day journey undertaken by 11 students from the School of Marxism at Jinggangshan University. From July 2 to 6, they traveled through Ningdu, Yudu, Shicheng and Guangchang in Jiangxi Province, as well as Jianning in Fujian Province, retracing the footsteps of young Red Army soldiers before and during the Long March (1934-36).
According to Li Qiong, the team's instructor and a teacher at the university, the journey was intended to create a dialogue between young people from two different eras.
"The young soldiers were about the same age as my students," Li said.
"I hoped the students could experience history in a more personal way by reflecting on their own choices and responsibilities," she added.
The year 2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Long March. In October 1934, the Central Red Army began a strategic transfer to break through Kuomintang's encirclement.
The university program focused on the Young Communist International Division, a special Red Army unit established in Bosheng County (present-day Ningdu County) in 1933. Composed mainly of young soldiers, the division had an average age of just 18.
During the Long March, it carried out missions including protecting the main force and serving as the rear guard. The unit suffered heavy casualties during the Battle of the Xiangjiang River in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in 1934, and its remaining troops were later incorporated into other Red Army units.
He Xin, 24, who led the student team, was born in Ningdu but had never visited the historical sites associated with the division.
Standing on a former racecourse where the unit was established, she found herself looking back 93 years.
"Many people that age today are sitting in classrooms, while those young soldiers had to take up arms to defend their homeland," He said.
"We share the same youth. Standing there, I suddenly felt that the distance between history and the present had disappeared," she continued.
Walking into History
As the journey continued, history gradually moved beyond textbooks and became something the students could see, touch and feel.
That sense of connection deepened as He encountered the ordinary objects that had accompanied the soldiers on their journey.
One object seen repeatedly in museums and at historical sites offered her a glimpse into the hardships of the march: straw sandals.
Made from rice straw, the footwear accompanied countless soldiers along the route.
In Yudu, He met an 80-year-old veteran from Guangdong Province, who told her that making a pair of straw sandals took two days, yet they could wear out in as little as 15 days.
"Comparing them with today's leather combat boots gave me a much clearer understanding of the shortage of supplies and the hardships the soldiers endured," He said.
While such objects helped He imagine the soldiers' daily struggles, walking part of the route gave Zheng Ting a more immediate sense of the dangers they had faced.
At a battle memorial in Guangchang, the 24-year-old stood in silence and felt what she described as "history coming toward me".
She compared learning about the Long March from a textbook to viewing a river from above: readers may know where it begins and ends, but they cannot experience every bend along the way.
By walking the route, feeling the mud beneath her feet and enduring the July heat of southern Jiangxi, Zheng gained a deeper understanding of the uncertainty faced by the young soldiers.
"They did not know how much farther they had to go or whether they would live to see New China," she said. "What sustained them was the belief that they could not accept oppression or lose their homeland."
Carrying Memory Forward
Those encounters did more than make the past feel real. They prompted the students to consider what their own generation should do with that history.
For Zeng, the answer begins in the classroom. After graduation, she hopes to become a politics teacher and introduce students to the Long March through the lives of real people and their individual stories.
"I want to bring these stories into the classroom in a warmer and more personal way, so students can understand how history continues to unfold through time," she said.
For others, the answer lies in protecting the physical traces that allow such stories to be told.
One of He's most memorable moments came at a memorial hall in Ningdu, where the deputy director explained how memories of the Long March had been preserved across generations.
The woman's father began collecting historical materials related to the Red Army in 1969. She has continued his work by visiting villages across Ningdu, collecting objects from descendants of Red Army soldiers and preserving them in archives.
The conversation helped He understand that without people collecting letters, protecting former sites and recording family memories, many individual stories could disappear.
Preserving these materials, she realized, allows young people to examine the choices made by those who came before them and reflect on their own responsibilities.
Similar efforts can be seen in Danxi Village in Shicheng, where residents have preserved former Red Army sites and maintained slogans painted on village walls more than 90 years ago.
"The person who wrote those words left no name, but his spirit has endured," Zeng said. "History lives through a wall, a stroke of writing and the people who protect it."
After returning to campus, the students began exploring their own ways of carrying those memories forward.
They drew a replica of the Young Communist International Division's armband by hand and created digital maps, magnets and badges inspired by the relics, documents and stories they encountered during the journey.
Through these creative forms, they hope to make the history of the Long March more accessible to young people who may never have the opportunity to visit the sites themselves.
He also plans to draw on what she learned in her future academic research.
"Ninety years ago, young people defended their homeland with their lives," she said. "Today, young people are using their knowledge to build the country. Times have changed, but the courage and determination of youth remain unchanged."
(Source: China Daily)
Editor: Cheng Yijia
