One Battle Flag, One Drama — They Made the Silent Battle Flags Speak

One Battle Flag, One Drama

■ Niu Hui, Li Xingchao

Stepping into the general-purpose hall of a certain brigade under the 78th Group Army, a wave of heat hit us alongside the sounds of battle cries. The reportage drama (报告剧) "Our Troops March Toward the Sun" was in rehearsal here.

This production weaves together the stories of five anti-Japanese war hero collectives, including the "Hundred-Victories Third Battalion" and the "Ma Dingfu Model Company for Loving the People." Private Liu Zhiqiang plays a heroic predecessor from the "Hundred-Victories Third Battalion." When he roared and charged toward the enemy's blockade line, the atmosphere in the entire rehearsal hall froze in an instant. For a moment, I felt as though I had been transported into the smoke and fire of the Pingxingguan battlefield.

"Stop! The emotion is wrong — again!" The sudden command interrupted the performance. Zhang Fengbin, head of the Group Army's Cultural Work Station, walked up to Liu Zhiqiang. Rather than discussing acting technique, he pulled a stack of yellowed battle-history archives from his document folder. "The hand gripping the rifle must not only be powerful — it must carry a resolve to 'throw your life away,'" Zhang said, pointing to a mobilization order inside the archive.

This archival, research-based approach to directing is precisely what makes this reportage drama distinctive. Here, the script is not the final authority — history is. The dense red annotations covering the script reflect not only the creative team's relentless pursuit of historical detail, but also their determination to break the drama free from the mold of conventional didacticism (说教).

Watching the performers gradually find their footing through round after round of adjustments, I felt a spiritual resonance that transcended time and space.

"In the past, passing on tradition usually meant 'I talk, you listen,' and it was very hard for officers and soldiers to feel personally invested," a leader from the Group Army's Propaganda Section told me. To address this, they decided to follow the approach of "sharing resources, forging spirit together" (资源共享、精神共铸), making full use of the Group Army's rich historical resources and rolling out the "One Battle Flag, One Drama" (一面战旗一部剧) cultural project across the board — creating a corresponding battle-flag reportage drama for each and every honor flag.

"The Group Army has 266 honor flags in total — like scattered pearls, waiting for us to string them into a necklace," the leader said.

In the course of my visits, I learned that as the dramas were created and performed, the soldiers of the "Tank-Pulling Hero Company" used old photographs to reconstruct the "earth tanks" of that era, and the first lesson for new recruits joining the "White Tiger Company" was to polish the old battle flag.

Battalion Commander Li of a certain combined-arms battalion said that in the past, when facing difficult training subjects, he always had to rack his brain figuring out how to motivate soldiers to overcome their reluctance. "But after watching the touring performance of 'The First Company to Break Through the Wu River,' everyone's spirit and energy were noticeably different." He opened the training log to show me: over the past month, the number of times soldiers in the battalion proactively studied equipment tactics had increased by nearly 20% compared to before, and the pass rates for difficult and key subjects such as mountain driving and nighttime shooting had steadily improved.

"The silent battle flags have spoken, the sleeping battle histories have awakened, and the battle flags have become a spiritual totem you can touch." The words of the Group Army's leadership moved me deeply. From the sweat-soaked rehearsal hall to the parade ground brimming with fighting spirit, what I witnessed was not merely the birth of a reportage drama — it was a unit's tribute to history and its pledge to the future.

---

"The Silent Battle Flags Have Spoken"

■ Niu Hui, Hao Shuai, Li Xingchao

[Photo caption: Performance of "The First Company to Break Through the Wu River" by a certain brigade of the 78th Group Army. Photo by Wang Jinpeng.]

"Don't worry about me — pull! As long as the boat gets through, our troops have hope!" A roar pierced through the water curtain on stage like a heavy hammer, striking every member of the audience in the heart.

On stage, dozens of "Red Army soldiers" hauled on ropes as they struggled forward through simulated crashing waves. Soaked through, muscles taut, they were knocked down again and again by the surging current, yet they clung desperately to the rope that symbolized hope, charging toward the "beacon fire" on the opposite bank. This scene unfolded at a performance of the battle-flag reportage drama "The First Company to Break Through the Wu River," staged by a certain brigade of the 78th Group Army. When the hand-sewn battle flag was planted on the high ground across the river amid the "smoke of battle," thunderous applause instantly ignited the entire venue.

As the lights dimmed, Zhang Fengbin, head of the Group Army's Cultural Work Station, stood at the side of the stage, his gaze sweeping across the faces in the audience, each one moved by the drama. A warmth stirred in his chest. Since joining the core creative team of the Group Army's "One Battle Flag, One Drama" project, he has felt increasingly that these are not merely performances — they are dialogues that transcend time and space.

"When the battle flag rises through the smoke of war, the cries of our predecessors and the hot blood of people today converge on the stage. History is no longer cold text — it becomes something you can touch and feel," Zhang said.

It is understood that within this Group Army, "One Battle Flag, One Drama" has become a red cultural brand. As the stories of the battle flags are brought to the stage and the footsteps of predecessors become guiding lights, the spiritual codes (精神密码) of the Group Army's 266 honor flags are being woven into the bloodlines of young officers and soldiers of the new era.

**Abandoning rigid didacticism and giving full play to the vivid form of "soldiers performing soldiers" (兵演兵)**

Zhang Fengbin still remembers that afternoon.

It was the 75th anniversary of Dong Cunrui's death. To mark the occasion, the company to which the Group Army's "Dong Cunrui Squad" belongs had put together a reportage drama and was presenting it for review by brigade headquarters in the rehearsal hall. Although the participating soldiers had been carefully selected as the company's best, they were unusually stiff on stage.

"For a new China — charge!" Corporal Zhang Hongjia, playing Dong Cunrui, flushed red. His voice was loud but his movements were wooden. He held the prop satchel charge aloft, shouting the slogan he knew by heart, yet his eyes conveyed none of the required resolve and burning intensity.

When the performance ended, the brigade leadership furrowed their brows, their tone heavy: "This won't do. A performance like this cannot convey the spirit of a hero, let alone move our comrades."

With the anniversary fast approaching and the creative challenge enormous, this "hot potato" ultimately landed in Zhang Fengbin's hands.

The day he received the assignment, Zhang did not rush to restart rehearsals. Instead, he shut himself in his office. Late that night, staring at the hollow, ornate language of the first draft on his computer screen, he frowned and deleted, word by word, every empty flourish.

"Dong Cunrui is not a cold statue — he was a living, breathing person," Zhang recalled of his thinking at the time. "What we need to show is the real moment when a 19-year-old young man, facing life and death, transcended the limits of his body and made his choice. So we absolutely had to abandon rigid didacticism and give full play to the vivid form of 'soldiers performing soldiers.'"

He replaced every piece of elevated written language with the plain speech of soldiers, cut the lengthy narration, and kept only the details that truly moved people. A new rehearsal plan was quickly finalized, and the entire company immediately sprang into action:

Sergeant Li Zhihui, who often edited videos, tracked down precious archival footage that had been gathering dust for decades — footage recording interviews with Dong Cunrui's comrades-in-arms. "This is the battlefield environment of that time — this is the real Dong Cunrui Squad!"

Senior Specialist Zhang Qiang, who plays instruments, composed music overnight, blending the company's reveille and charge bugle calls into a new arrangement. "I wanted to use bugle calls as the backdrop — they are the horn of the charge, and the soul of our company."

Zhang Hongjia, playing Dong Cunrui, practiced his facial expression in front of a mirror. Wearing the old uniform used in the performance, he rehearsed the motion of blowing up the pillbox over and over, his shoulders rubbed raw by the prop. "I want my comrades to see that heroes are also flesh-and-blood ordinary people — they just, at the critical moment, carried a greater sense of responsibility than ordinary people."

On the day of the anniversary, the auditorium was packed. Every eye in the audience was fixed on the figure on stage.

Zhang Hongjia stood under the spotlight playing Dong Cunrui. The roar of artillery fire around him seemed to dissolve into silence. His gaze shifted gradually from hesitation to resolve. He raised the satchel charge and called out: "For a new China — charge!" This time, the words were no longer hollow lines — they sounded like a cry from the depths of the soul.

At this sight, many officers and soldiers could not hold back their tears. Dong Cunrui's nephew, Dong Jixian, who had been invited to attend, was equally moved to tears: "He's just like him — exactly like him. That's my uncle!"

"This is the kind of battle-flag reportage drama we need." When the performance concluded successfully, the Group Army's leadership expressed full approval of the result. "We must keep making battle-flag reportage dramas and let the red genes shine on the stage."

**Using "successors" (传人) to portray predecessors — letting heroic stories be passed down through soldiers performing and narrating them themselves**

On the whiteboard, a weighty number stood out: 266.

"The entire Group Army has 266 honor flags. Some have distant histories with missing records; others have complex battle histories that are difficult to reconstruct. Turning all these stories into reportage dramas is an enormous task!" At a Group Army headquarters meeting, faced with the sweeping scope of the "One Battle Flag, One Drama" plan, the air in the conference room grew heavy.

"This is a project to carry forward the red bloodline (赓续红色血脉), and we must persist in doing it." The Group Army's leadership settled the matter decisively. "We will use 'successors' to portray predecessors, break the enormous goal down into concrete tasks, and let heroic stories be passed down through soldiers performing and narrating them themselves."

The relevant headquarters departments moved quickly, soon producing a detailed "red genealogy." They designated the Group Army's cultural and propaganda backbone personnel to lead the core creative work, and required that performers for each drama be drawn first from the units to which the battle flag belongs.

The task was passed down like a relay baton. Many grassroots units began tracing the footsteps of their predecessors and excavating historical moments in preparation for creating their battle-flag reportage dramas. The "First Company to Break Through the Wu River" of a certain brigade under the Group Army was among the first pilot units to implement the battle-flag reportage drama initiative.

Before formal rehearsals began, Political Instructor Liu Qiang brought the soldiers participating in the drama into the honors room. Pointing to an old photograph in the display case that captured the battle scene of that time, he said solemnly: "Comrades, why is our company called 'The First Company to Break Through the Wu River'? Because in the bitter cold of winter 1935, our predecessors used their own bodies of flesh and blood to blaze a bloody path through a hail of bullets for the entire army."

"The Wu River was a formidable natural barrier, its current swift and violent. Our predecessors had no advanced equipment, no adequate supplies — only the courage to press forward without hesitation." The instructor's voice was low and forceful. Corporal Huang Yufei looked at the figures in the photograph wading through the current and pressing bravely forward, and felt a deep stirring in his heart.

The instructor's words were like a seed, taking root and sprouting inside him. When the script and rehearsal assignment for "The First Company to Break Through the Wu River" were officially issued, Huang Yufei volunteered, becoming one of the performers playing a "river-crossing soldier."

"One-two, pull! One-two, pull!"

The director called out the rhythm from the bank as Huang Yufei and his comrades simulated the river-crossing movements in a pool. Gripping the rough rope, watching his comrades beside him stroke powerfully through the water and push forward, he suddenly thought of the old photograph in the honors room — of those figures who were just as young as himself — and of the "hail of bullets" and "bodies of flesh and blood" the instructor had described.

In that moment, the pool water beneath his feet seemed to turn into the bone-chilling waters of the Wu River. He felt as though he had returned to that stormy, pitch-dark night — the whistle of bullets in his ears, comrades falling at his side, and before him the desperate reality that "if we can't cross, the whole company will be sacrificed." The rope in his hands seemed truly to be lashed to a rocking wooden boat — and to the lives of countless comrades behind him.

When rehearsal ended that day, Huang Yufei felt as though he had undergone a cleansing of the soul. He had never imagined he could so vividly experience the feelings of his predecessors. The stories of heroes were no longer cold historical records — they had become scorching hot blood, branded into the hearts of every soldier who took part.

On the day of the formal performance, the audience hall was packed. Huang Yufei and his comrades, in soaking-wet "uniforms," charged across the stage with total physical and emotional immersion, their eyes radiating unshakeable resolve.

"I want to engrave into the bloodstream of every viewer the belief that our predecessors held — that no matter what difficulties they faced, they were determined to win," he said.

**Carrying the red genes from the stage to the combat post — transforming the emotion of the theater into battlefield capability**

The touring performances of the battle-flag reportage dramas scattered sparks that ignited a blazing wave across the Group Army's units. From the "Dong Cunrui Squad" sacrificing themselves to blow up the pillbox, to the 37 warriors of the "White Tiger Company" fighting to the last, to the heroic charge of the "Iron Hammer Regiment" — since the "One Battle Flag, One Drama" project launched in 2023, they have completed five drama productions covering eight heroic model units spanning from the Red Army period to the new era.

It is understood that to date, these reportage dramas have toured more than 30 performances within the Group Army, with a cumulative audience exceeding 50,000. Each production innovates in its stage presentation, aiming to deliver an immersive experience for officers and soldiers:

"Our Troops March Toward the Sun" uses a cross-temporal dialogue format, bringing new-era officers and soldiers onto the same stage to interact with historical predecessors. "The First Company to Break Through the Wu River" employs 3D projection technology to recreate a battlefield environment thick with the smoke of war. Some productions incorporate the form of narrative storytelling (情景评书) and other formats that officers and soldiers enjoy, telling heroic stories in ways they find accessible and engaging.

The impact on stage has brought transformation in action.

On the night the "Dong Cunrui Squad" reportage drama tour concluded, the company immediately launched a nighttime tactical training exercise.

On the firing range in the dead of night, the wind was biting cold. Private First Class Qian Guoxiang lay on the gravel, his mind filled with the image of "Dong Cunrui" on stage, inching forward inch by inch through a wall of fire. He pressed his elbows hard into the ground, dragging his rifle, driving himself forward across the rough, stony surface with all his strength, the elbow pads on his arms worn hot from the friction.

"In the past, people trained mostly to meet the standard. Now, it's more like charging forward with everything you've got — to win," Squad Leader Hu Hailong reflected.

Private First Class Chen Mutao of a certain brigade's information support detachment still remembers a scene from "Our Troops March Toward the Sun" — the radio is destroyed, communications are forcibly cut off, and an "old squad leader" uses his own body to reconnect the circuit, roaring as he transmits the final intelligence report. In that moment, Chen Mutao was shaken to his core.

Since taking up the role of radio operator, Chen Mutao had at times doubted whether he could do the job well. Faced with dense circuit diagrams and the tap-tap-tap of Morse code, he was always flustered, and when interference noise struck he would be at a complete loss. But in that moment, watching the figure on stage clutching the radio set in the midst of battle smoke, Chen Mutao suddenly understood: the handset and telegraph key in his hands were connected to the lives of his comrades — and to the outcome of battle.

"A communications soldier is not a simple relay — he is the neuron connecting the battlefield." That reportage drama led Chen Mutao to begin seeing his combat post in a new light. After the performance, he sought out his squad leader on his own initiative: "Squad Leader, I want to practice copying Morse code. I'm not afraid of the tedium anymore."

In the days that followed, to master the skill of "blind copying" (盲抄), Chen Mutao covered his eyes and captured signal pulses in the dark. To build muscle memory, he strapped the telegraph key to his fingers and simulated tapping rhythms even while walking. In the end, he passed all professional subject assessments with top marks and took first place in the "copying under complex electromagnetic environment" subject at the Group Army skills competition.

"'One Battle Flag, One Drama' has not only fully mobilized previously untapped red education resources — it has also achieved unprecedented innovation in the form of education," the head of the Group Army's Propaganda Section told me during the interview. Today, walking into any unit of the Group Army, you can feel the vitality this innovation has brought.

"The reportage dramas are not just performances — they are sparks, helping us carry the red genes from the stage to the combat post and transform the emotion of the theater into battlefield capability," the leader said with conviction. "This is still only the beginning. We will keep creating, one drama at a time, activating the spiritual codes of all 266 flags one by one and passing them down for generations to come."

---

**This Edition's Editor in Dialogue with the Director of the Propaganda Section of the 78th Group Army:**

**Let Every Battle Flag Become a Torch**

Political work is the lifeline of our army and the fundamental guarantee for rallying the military's will and forging the military's soul. Innovating the forms of red education is an important method for activating this lifeline. The 266 flags in the honors room contain rich red historical resources. How can these battle flags be made to "speak," and how can the weighty historical stories they carry be transformed into spiritual nourishment that officers and soldiers of the new era can absorb and apply? Around this topic, this edition's editor held a discussion with the Director of the Political Work Department's Propaganda Section of the 78th Group Army.

**Editor: What measures has headquarters taken to drive implementation of the "One Battle Flag, One Drama" project?**

**Section Director:** We have adhered to combining top-level design with grassroots initiative, focusing on three key links. First, dedicated task-force advancement (专班推进): headquarters established a dedicated red culture work task force, drawing on backbone personnel from the propaganda section, cultural work station, and military history museum to conduct a comprehensive survey of all honor flags across the Group Army, establishing individual files for each, and ensuring that the resource baseline is clear and the historical facts are accurate. Second, precise diagnosis (精准把脉): we conducted in-depth research at the frontline, and based on the characteristics of the "internet-native generation" (网生代) of officers and soldiers, established an immersive education approach — turning "narrating history" into "performing history" and transforming battle flags from static displays into dynamic teaching materials. Third, using key points to drive the whole (以点带面): we selected eight representative units — including the "Hundred-Victories Third Battalion" and the "First Company to Break Through the Wu River" — as pilot units, organized professional personnel to work alongside the creative teams, and refined model productions such as "Our Troops March Toward the Sun" and "The First Company to Break Through the Wu River," developing a replicable and scalable production process to ensure this project was standardized from the very start.

**Editor: How does the transformation of power from "performing heroes in the drama" to "learning from heroes outside the drama" — from stage to combat post — actually occur?**

**Section Director:** The key to the transformation lies in the sense of identity that immersion (代入感) produces. In the past, when heroes were presented to soldiers, the soldiers were bystanders. Now, when soldiers perform heroes, the soldiers become characters in the story. Having experienced the hot blood and hardship of their predecessors on stage, soldiers more readily develop a kind of psychological suggestion: "As a successor of a heroic company, what does a little hardship like this amount to?" This kind of spiritual potential energy (精神势能) converts directly into combat effectiveness.

Across the Group Army's units, many soldiers have brought the drive of the heroic predecessors they portrayed in the dramas onto the training ground, proactively requesting additional training. These phenomena prove that when political work truly touches the souls of officers and soldiers, it can become a "force multiplier" (倍增器) for combat effectiveness.

**Editor: What plans does the Group Army have for continuing to advance the "One Battle Flag, One Drama" project?**

**Section Director:** Transforming the red resources of all 266 flags into drama productions is a major undertaking that requires sustained, long-term effort. We have incorporated "One Battle Flag, One Drama" into the Group Army's long-range political work plan, advancing steadily according to the approach of "pilot first, full rollout, deepen the transformation" (试点先行、全面推广、深化转化).

At present, we are concentrating our efforts on refining the first batch of benchmark productions, accumulating experience for subsequent drama creation by other honored companies. At the same time, we are exploring the establishment of a "battle flag successor" (战旗传承人) system, whereby the lead performer of each drama becomes the designated advocate for that unit's battle flag — using touring performances, mentoring, and other means to extend the reach of each production to more units. We are working to achieve the virtuous cycle of "one drama activates one flag, one flag drives a group of people," so that the 266 honor flags truly become torches illuminating the march toward a stronger military (强军征程).