Soul mates, sisters, and soldiers

Editor's Note: Whampoa, China's first modern military academy, founded 90 years ago, was a beacon of liberation and the training ground of many of China's best-known revolutionaries during the following three decades. World War I, in which 140,000 Chinese served on the European Western Front, ended 100 years ago, and next year will be the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the most devastating global conflict in history, marked by the Holocaust and prefigured in China by the start of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1937 and the Nanjing Massacre that followed. In this series, China Daily honors those whose sacrifices in the wars of the last century helped to ensure the peace and prosperity enjoyed by the vast majority of humankind today.

The first generation of female students to enroll at China's first and best-known military academy not only struck a blow for women's rights, but also played a major role in defeating the Japanese during World War II, as Zhao Xu reports.

Huang Jingwen lay on a hospital bed desperately clinging to life. At 108 years old, there's very little about Huang to remind people that she once fought for the freedom of her country and herself, but that's what she did for more than two decades.