Standing in the Kangxiwa Martyrs' Cemetery, watching the new recruits of the "Xiang Rong Squad," Sun Tao—a First Sergeant in a border defense regiment of the Xinjiang Military District—recalled the first time he stood before the martyrs' monument. It was also a summer, the Karakoram still cold, icy winds carrying pellets of snow across the rows of tombstones and rustling against the wreaths. Before the monument, Sun Tao stood among the new recruits, head tilted back, gazing up at the 13 characters carved into the stone: "Martyrs Who Defended the Motherland's Borders Are Immortal."
At 4,280 meters above sea level, that is the vertical height of this martyrs' cemetery above the sea. But few new recruits arriving on the plateau for the first time can immediately grasp its "spiritual altitude" (精神高度).
Here, the diurnal temperature range exceeds 30°C, ultraviolet intensity is several times that of the plains, and oxygen content in the air is less than half that at lower elevations. Food sits right in front of you, yet your throat feels blocked—two bites and the nausea rises. Without physical endurance, you cannot withstand the wind and snow, cannot hold your post steady, cannot guard the nation's gateway.
The old company commander continued the time-honored method passed down among the border defense company's officers and soldiers: holding an "eating competition." One bowl of rice counted as passing, two bowls as good, three bowls as excellent, with one steamed bun counting as one bowl of rice.
Eating—an utterly ordinary act on the plains—became a contest of willpower in the Karakoram. That day, when Sun Tao finally set his empty bowl on the table, the old company commander patted him on the shoulder: "Sun Tao, you've cleared the first hurdle on the plateau!"
Later, the company organized its officers and soldiers to visit the Kangxiwa Martyrs' Cemetery to pay tribute to the fallen heroes. The road was rough, and Sun Tao was still slightly dizzy when he stepped off the vehicle.
Row upon row of neatly arranged tombstones spread along the contours of the mountain, standing in silence. Sun Tao stood on the hillside, raised his hand in salute at the command, and felt a heaviness settle quickly in his chest. In that moment, he turned over in his mind what the political instructor had said—"What stands higher than the altitude?"—that spiritual altitude (精神海拔) forged by generation after generation of border guards with their lives and loyalty, a monument of faith standing forever at the nation's foremost frontier.
Sun Tao walked that winding road from the garrison to the cemetery for more than ten years. For every new intake of recruits, the first lesson was always held here. Then, among one such intake, came a new recruit named Chen Xiangrong.
Already a squad leader, Sun Tao quickly noticed Chen Xiangrong—a young man whose eyes held both longing and uncertainty. This 18-year-old from Pingnan, Fujian, had turned down a posting with better conditions and insisted on going to the frontline in the border region. But when he actually arrived in the Karakoram, the extreme and harsh plateau environment showed him no mercy. Severe altitude sickness kept him awake all night; on patrol, he would be bent double gasping for breath after only a few hundred meters. Gazing out at the vast expanse of snow-capped mountains and Gobi, he once quietly asked Sun Tao: what is the point of standing guard here every single day?
Sun Tao did not lecture him at length. He understood clearly that empty moralizing would not untangle Chen Xiangrong's doubts—but the stories carved into this land had the power to reach straight into a person's heart.
That year's "searching for roots" (寻根) education class was again held at the Kangxiwa Martyrs' Cemetery. Standing before the monument, Sun Tao, just as the old company commander had done in his time, recounted the stories of the 83 border-defense heroes buried here since the 1960s, through to the honorary title of "Karakoram Iron Sentinel Post" (喀喇昆仑钢铁哨卡) conferred by higher authorities on the regiment's Xianshenwang Border Defense Company. Sun Tao recalls that Chen Xiangrong stood at almost the same spot where he himself had once stood, head tilted back in the same way, listening with rapt attention.
On June 15, 2020, the wind in the Galwan Valley cut like a blade. Chen Xiangrong, serving as a shield-bearer, charged at the very front of the formation, did not retreat a single half-step, until he finally fell.
From that moment on, the battle cry Chen Xiangrong had written—"Pure love, only for China" (清澈的爱，只为中国)—spread across the length and breadth of the country, knocking on the hearts of countless young people.
Private First Class Tan Zhenliang was one of the young men whose blood was ignited by that story. The first time he heard of Chen Xiangrong's deeds, he was serving in a People's Armed Police unit, and a question formed in his mind: "As someone who enlisted the same year, why was he able to speak words so full of deep feeling?"
In 2024, Tan Zhenliang decided to enlist a second time. The leadership at the local people's armed forces department told him there was one slot on the southern Xinjiang plateau—the conditions were extremely harsh. He barely hesitated: "I'll go." He had a premonition that he would follow in Chen Xiangrong's footsteps and set foot on that heroic land.
Sure enough, he was assigned to the company where Chen Xiangrong had served. What came with it was severe oxygen deprivation, bone-chilling cold, and avalanches that arrived without warning. Staring at the desolation stretching to the horizon without a trace of green, this young man full of ardor began to have second thoughts, and felt more than anything a gnawing self-reproach: why couldn't he be as resolute and strong as his fellow soldiers?
Sun Tao saw his inner conflict at a glance—it was the spitting image of Xiangrong that year, and the spitting image of himself back then. He took Tan Zhenliang to two places.
—First stop: the Kangxiwa Martyrs' Cemetery. Sun Tao walked him past more than 100 tombstones, stopping finally before Chen Xiangrong's. Sun Tao said that Chen Xiangrong, in order to reduce his load and adapt to the oxygen-deficient environment, had forced his body weight down from 75 kilograms at enlistment to 55 kilograms.
—Second stop: Sun Tao took Tan Zhenliang out onto the patrol route. When they finally reached the deepest point of the river valley, before them rose towering, unbroken snow-capped mountains, and beneath their feet lay territory that must not be violated. Heaven and earth were silent, with only the sharp crack of the wind. They stopped, raised their right hands before a great boulder: "These magnificent mountains and rivers—not one inch shall be yielded!" Tan Zhenliang's voice echoed through the mountains.
That night, he wrote in his diary: "Pure love, forever young, forever undefiled." The following year, higher authorities organized a marksmanship competition; Tan Zhenliang won first place outright and was awarded an individual third-class merit citation.