How Should Young Officers and Soldiers of the New Era Walk "Our Long March Road"?
"After the detachment organized a straw-sandal 'march' experience activity, Tao Liang started repeating 'from quantitative change to qualitative change — don't fear slowness, only fear stopping' during every 5-kilometer armed cross-country training run!" When the National Defense and Military Channel's "Military Chronicle" (军事纪实) production team revisited the Yudu Detachment of the People's Armed Police Jiangxi General Corps Ganzhou Branch, and learned of new recruit Tao Liang's recent progress, the days spent creating "Youth Long March Road" (青春长征路) came flooding back.
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Long March. The "Military Chronicle" program recently released a three-episode documentary, "Youth Long March Road," turning its lens on young officers and soldiers born after 1995 and 2000 to explore the generational inheritance of the Long March spirit.
Each generation has its own Long March. Ninety years on, as we read this heroic epic that shook the mountains and rivers, and look up at this immortal monument that will shine through the ages, how should young officers and soldiers of the new era walk "our Long March road"?
From the very start of production, this question never left the minds of our core creative team. The answer gradually came into focus after we went deep into the grassroots and confronted the growth, transformation, and inner questioning of officers and soldiers — to use their real stories as the vehicle for a dialogue that transcends time and space.
"Youth" (青春) is the theme of this dialogue. Leafing through historical records, one set of figures gave us pause: 20 was the average age of Red Army soldiers who participated in the Long March; 25 was the average age of many Red Army commanders at the time. That great expedition was a breakout by a group of young people.
Today, the officers and soldiers stationed on the red soil along the Long March route are equally in the prime of their youth. Two generations of young people, separated by nearly a century, are "marching" along the same spiritual journey.
Yet when we attempted to use "the resonance of youth across two generations" as our narrative thread, new questions arose during our embedded reporting: young officers and soldiers are not unaware of Long March history and the Long March spirit, but they sometimes cannot find an emotional connection to the Red Army soldiers. A sense of distance — "our forebears were too great; we cannot compare" — made them feel as though there was "a wall" between themselves and that great expedition.
How to break down this wall? We came to realize that conveying the inheritance of spirit cannot be a simple splicing together of "historical replay + modern examples" with forced connections. More than 90 years ago, Red Army soldiers fought bloody battles, cutting a path through encirclement and pursuit; today, officers and soldiers of the new era charge toward battle, actively striving toward the centenary goal of building a strong military. We decided to break the Long March spirit down into three dimensions that young officers and soldiers could perceive — drawing out the contemporary resonance of the Long March spirit from their breakthroughs in training, their choices in the course of missions, and their breakouts from adversity.
Tao Liang felt that the distance between himself and his forebears was "closed" by a pair of straw sandals. When we were filming at the Yudu Detachment, the detachment was preparing to take new recruits to the local Red Army Long March trail for an experiential activity — this was an important road along which the main force of the Central Red Army crossed the Yudu River and broke through the first blockade line. To heighten the sense of immersion, the new recruits specifically changed into straw sandals and set out on a 3-kilometer "march."
In front of the camera, the new recruits who had put on straw sandals were full of novelty. After walking barely a hundred meters of mountain path, their ease and confidence had completely vanished: the mountain road was rugged and slippery, coarse hard rope bit into their ankles, straw stalks jabbed the soles of their feet, and pebbles worked through the gaps in the sandals to grind painfully into their palms… The camera faithfully recorded their transformation from light-footed strides to furrowed brows, and then to figures leaning on one another for support.
Tao Liang was among that group. Earlier, we had followed him with the camera as he participated in long-distance running training in full combat gear. Although he ran with great difficulty, he did not retreat: "The closer you get to the end, the stronger the suffocating feeling — but if you want to improve, don't stop."
This hiking experience made Tao Liang feel ever more deeply the Red Army's gritted-teeth perseverance that could not stop: "We knew from textbooks that the Long March was very bitter. It was only when we actually put on straw sandals that we discovered how concrete that bitterness is — even walking is 'bitter.' Yet the Red Army soldiers, for the faith in their hearts, pressed on without hesitation."
As more and more footage captured scenes of new recruits breaking through their own limits and challenging their extremes in training, what appeared before the audience was a shared spiritual core — struggle knows no era; only with indomitable perseverance and the courage to face difficulties head-on can one continue to walk the road ahead.
Luo Ji, a new recruit of a brigade under Army Group 72 of the Army, is a volunteer guide at the Ruijin Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Hall. His experience as a guide was originally the focus of our narrative, but it changed because of one on-site shoot.
During the filming of a mountain combined demolition exercise, Luo Ji and his comrades split up and advanced separately, preparing to destroy an "enemy" machine-gun bunker. After simultaneously igniting their explosive packs, Luo Ji suddenly discovered that the fuse on his comrade's explosive pack had failed to ignite. In that critical moment, Luo Ji did not hesitate for an instant — he threw himself toward his comrade's explosive pack and, with calm composure, completed the detonation, ensuring the mission was successfully accomplished.
During the interview, we learned that Luo Ji carries a card with him at all times, on which are written the names of 17 Red Army martyrs from Huawu Village in Ruijin City. As a guide, he is very familiar with the stories of the 17 martyrs: before setting out on the Long March, 17 young men from Huawu Village each planted a pine tree; they all later died heroically, leaving only the green pines to silently watch over their hometown.
"Walking our Long March road means being able to step up when the moment calls for it." Luo Ji said plainly that the forebears were willing to give their lives for victory, and that for revolutionary soldiers of the new era, the mission always comes before personal safety. Luo Ji's words made us realize: red history has never been archival material displayed in a memorial hall — it is the spiritual yardstick engraved in the hearts of young officers and soldiers.
The Long March is a precious historical legacy; savoring it carefully, one can find the key to solving real-world problems. The story of the Miao soldier "Yun-Gui-Chuan" (云贵川) brought inspiration to Liu Shaojie, a newly appointed squad leader in a brigade under Army Group 82 of the Army.
Liu Shaojie is the top physical fitness performer in the entire brigade and has repeatedly won honors in higher-level competitions. However, less than six months after transferring from driver to squad leader, his squad ranked last in the entire battalion in assessments. Convinced that "sweat earns results," Liu Shaojie led the whole squad in extra physical fitness training — but the squad's assessment ranking remained at the bottom, plunging him into a period of self-doubt.
In the company's honor room, the account of "Yun-Gui-Chuan's" deeds in the Battle of Lazikou (腊子口战役) opened his eyes: facing the natural barrier of Lazikou and the enemy's heavy garrison, this young soldier used only a bamboo pole fitted with an iron hook to scale a sheer cliff, then used a long rope to help his comrades climb up, outflanking the enemy's rear and capturing the formidable stronghold in one stroke.
"The 'surprise attack on Lazikou' was not won by brute force — it was won by precisely leveraging the strengths of officers and soldiers and achieving clever coordinated cooperation." With his mind suddenly clear, Liu Shaojie adjusted his training approach: he taught each soldier according to their individual strengths and weaknesses, while also clarifying the division of labor and reinforcing coordination in subjects such as fortification construction and battlefield medical care, and refining tactical details. He later led the entire squad in a successful reversal, winning second place in the entire company.
Facing our camera, Liu Shaojie said with deep feeling: "As a troop leader of the new era, only by breaking through the 'Lazikou' of habitual thinking can one achieve real, tangible growth and progress."
On a journey of ten thousand li, straw sandals and combat boots "meet" across 90 years. The flames of war have long since faded, but the torch of spirit lit by that generation of young people has crossed time and space and never been extinguished — it will guide every generation to continue walking the Long March road.