Tales of momentous journey linger in rural Gansu

Long before asphalt roads and university degrees came to Hongbuzi village in Huining county, Gansu province, a family's quiet acts of kindness helped sustain the Red Army during one of the most pivotal chapters of Chinese history.

Today, 75-year-old farmer Ma Guitang spends his mornings in the fields, keeping both his crops and that 90-year-old legacy alive.

Ma was not yet born when the Red Army spent more than 50 days in Hongbuzi in the autumn of 1936. But the stories have lived on through generations of his family.

"My father was born in 1914, and my mother in 1920. In the 1960s, when things were quieter on the farm, they would tell me stories about the Long March. I was in my teens, and I just listened," Ma said.

He is no historian, but a farmer who has spent a lifetime tending both his land and his family's oral history.

In October 1936, the First and Fourth Front armies of the Red Army joined forces in Huining. While the troops were stationed in Hongbuzi, Ma's father followed them to help collect grain.

"They would weigh the grain and write us a receipt," Ma said, recounting his father's words. "They said, 'Don't worry. When the revolution succeeds, we will repay you'."

One soldier, in particular, forged a bond with the family that no receipt could capture.

Wang Rong was just 14 when he fell dangerously ill with a high fever. Ma's mother spotted him from a mill house about 20 meters from the command post.

"She immediately made him a bowl of ginger soup. Then she went to the medical station and got a herbal remedy. She boiled it and had him drink it. He recovered quickly," Ma said.

Grateful for her care, the young soldier began calling her "elder sister".

For Ma, such stories were more than childhood memories. His admiration for the Red Army inspired him to retrace its footsteps.

"I admired the Red Army's history so much that I walked almost all the routes they took near my home. I investigated it myself," he said.

That admiration is reflected not only in the stories he tells but also in how he lives. Although meat is now on the table almost every day, Ma is careful not to waste food.

"Sometimes the little ones, too young to know better, drop food on the floor. I tell them to pick it up. This life did not come easily," he said.

The village has changed considerably during Ma's lifetime. Its roads are now paved with concrete, and every April, the township sends medical staff members to provide residents aged 60 and above with health checks, including blood pressure and blood sugar measurements and ultrasound examinations.

He still spends two hours tending his land every morning.

"It's my exercise. We eat what we grow, and we barely spray pesticide," he said.

His two grandsons — one a university graduate and the other a sophomore — embody a transformation that his parents could hardly have imagined.

"In the old days, only the landlord's sons went to school. Now most of the young people here are educated," he said.

Ma is not alone in preserving the memory of the Red Army. In nearby Tuoying village, a group of farmers has formed a folk music ensemble to perform traditional ballads about the Long March.

"If nobody digs these things up now, the memories might disappear forever," said Xing Jiankuan, the troupe's director.

Since June 2021, the ensemble has staged 116 performances for an audience of about 289,000 people.

One of its plays recounts the death of a military officer surnamed Huang in a skirmish and the story of an elderly Huining villager surnamed Song who gave up her own coffin so that he could be buried.

"The performance touched audiences deeply. Once, after the play, no one left. Everyone was absorbed in it. An old man came onstage and said his two grandsons had been moved to tears and had really understood the story," 68-year-old Xing said.

"The happy life we have today didn't come easily. We must never forget the revolutionary martyrs. It was the Long March, one step at a time, that got us here," he added.