PLA must improve its combat ability

Ninety years ago, on August 1, just after bloody battles during the Northern Expedition (1926-28), the Communist Party of China initiated the Nanchang Uprising in 1927 to counter the anti-communist purges by the Kuomintang. That was the beginning of the CPC's efforts to build an army aimed at serving the people, and establish a government of the people and for the people.

The CPC then established a revolutionary base in the border region of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. After that, led by the Party, the army initiated the land revolution and embarked on the Long March (1934-35), whose longest route was about 12,000 kilometers from Jiangxi to Shaanxi.

The Japanese invasion of China, which began in 1931, eventually led to the establishment of the Second United Front between the Kuomintang and the CPC in 1937, with the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army emerging victorious in many battles in northern and southern China. The CPC-led armies were not only supplementary forces on the battle frontlines in the early phase of the war against the Japanese invaders, they also played the bigger role in guarding the nation against the invaders in the later stage of the war.