A trek into history

Author retraces strategic wartime march of students and professors, Yang Yang reports.

On Feb 19, 1938, a group of about 300 university students and 11 professors started off from Changsha, Central China's Hunan province, marching toward Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan province, 1,600 kilometers away.

During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), the Lugou Bridge Incident (also known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident) occurred on July 7, 1937, and as a result, Beiping (as Beijing was known at the time) and Tianjin fell to the Japanese invaders. In defiance of the occupying forces, Peking, Tsinghua and Nankai universities, located in the two cities, chose to move to China's interior to continue providing higher education despite the war. By November 1937, more than 1,400 students and 148 teachers had arrived in Changsha, where the three universities merged into Changsha Temporary University.

However, as the Japanese army began to approach Changsha, authorities again decided to move the university, this time further inland. Kunming was the destination chosen. Here, Changsha Temporary University transformed into the National Southwest Associated University, or Xinan Lianda, an institution like no other and which continued until 1946.

In Changsha, some students decided to join the army to fight against the Japanese. The others, heading for Kunming, were divided into a few groups. Female students, male students in poor health and most of the teachers traveled by rail and sea.

Another group, about 300 male students and 11 professors, formed the "Hunan-Guizhou-Yunnan Marching Brigade" and spent 68 days traveling across a long distance through three provinces, mainly on foot.

Eighty years later, in early April 2018, Yang Xiao, 36, carrying a 42-liter backpack, started his 41-day trek from Changsha, tracing the brigade's footprints. Three years later, his book To the Finest School I Know, documenting his journey, has finally arrived at bookstores across the country.