A trek into history

About 700 pages, Yang narrates the brigade's journey in detail, based on books, diaries, newspapers, periodicals and historical records he collected, as well as interviews he conducted with brigade members, their descendants and people who were familiar with Xinan Lianda.

Interwoven with this historical line is the record of his own trek-the current look of the mountains, rivers, roads, villages and towns that the brigade passed by, the sounds and smells of the land, people that he encountered, and his feelings and thoughts along the route.

A former journalist specializing in in-depth feature stories, Yang quit his job in the media in early 2016.After a year spent producing videos, he found he still preferred writing compared with other new media formats, but features did not satisfy him anymore. He aspired to write a book. He had two topics in mind, but in early 2018, following his research on the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, he found a more interesting topic, Xinan Lianda.

Graduating from Nankai University, Yang knew a little of Xinan Lianda. There were already many books and studies about it. To those who wanted to know about the university, Yang recommended Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution by US historian John Israel, a tome he read thoroughly before starting the trek.

His journalistic habits urged him to interview people connected with the legendary school and, in Kunming, he met Zhang Manling, author of Xinan Lianda Xingsilu ("the spirits of Xinan Lianda").Zhang suggested that he should write a book about the trek, that is, "how they got there", an area of the remarkable story which few books had covered.

After some in-depth research, Yang immediately embarked on the journey to "outflank himself and create himself", especially in the internet age, when procrastination prevails and overthinking often stymies people's actions-not to mention that making such a journey on foot these days, more often than not, is the preserve of certain extreme sports types and self-proclaimed adventurers.