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"Red Tourism" is growing in popularity in China. Swarms of travelers are visible along the path trodden by the Chinese Red Army as it made its epic Long March in the mid 1930s through Southwest China.
The Red Army made the 25,000 Li (12,500 km) march from 1934 to 1936 in order to transfer its major forces from areas along the Yangtze River to a revolutionary base in Northwest China's Shaanxi province.
Now, in the golden Autumn days, tour guides can be heard hailing their clients in a crowded courtyard in the city of Zunyi,southwestern Guizhou province, where an historic Chinese CommunistParty meeting was held during the course of the Long March.
Li Zhaoyang, who works in the Zunyi office of Changhong Group in Sichuan province, takes all his visitors to the site of Zunyi Meeting.
"I knew the place when I was a middle school kid," he said.
The displaying tables and chairs there are still the same as 60years ago. However, outside of the yard, a hustling business street has grown up where people can buy all kinds of goods from all over the world.
Most of the tourists come in groups.
"The young people know little about history and that's why we take them to patriotic sites," said Lin Rongsheng, who is leading a group through a street in Luohu District in South China city of Shenzhen, China's earliest special zone, which borders Hong Kong.
Lin's group of over 20, has just left Xifeng county, another revolutionary site in Guizhou province.
The American writer Harrison Evans Salisbury wrote in his book,"Long March: Untold Stories," that the Chinese Red Army has three sworn enemies, one of which is the nature. But that is no longer true for tourists today.
They drive here or come by plane. Express highways are available everywhere in the area where in the 1930s the Red Army could only pass in two's on the meandering footpath. A route leading to the sea in the southwest has also been completed.
"Red Tourism" witnessed a rising tide last year. Tour routes are being built in every place where the Red Army left behind their footprints.
Not only about sightseeing, a Long March of economic development is going on in the local area.
In 1935, Guizhou meant poverty and neediness and the mortality rate of babies in the locality reached as high as 50 percent. Today's Guizhou province boasts numerous high-rises in its major cities. How to develop the province in line with international practices has become the major issue for the home province of Long Yongtu, who contributed much to China's ability to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO).
People here now talk about infrastructure construction, foreigninvestment and transport of hydro-electricity to east China.
A hydro-power station is being built on the turbulent Wujiang River, the largest river in the province, where the Red Armymen escaped the enemy's chase in the mid 1930s. Huge bridges tower above the water, where once the Red Army had to build pontoon bridges to cross the river.
Maotai Liquor Distillery, which provides top-quality liquor to state banquets, is situated by the Chishui River in Guizhou province. The prestigious distillery plans to profit from the global market opportunities offered by China's entry into the WTO.
"We are in an age different from the time of China's Civil War more than 67 ago and we are encoding new meanings into the Long March," said Yuan Yiqiao, director of the Publicity Department of Chishui city.
Chishui is also the name of a scenic attraction in the area. limpid and beautiful Waterfalls, virgin forests and seas of lush-green bamboo groves make Chishui a State Beauty Resort. Quite a number of investors even hope to buy the rights to develop tourismin the area.
On an island in the Chishui River, once shrouded in gunpowder, more than 1,000 egrets hover and dwell. "The place which had been stained with the blood of the Red Armymen is even more enchanting and valuable now," said Yuan.
People never forget these Red Army martyrs. Fresh wreaths to memorialize the martyrs are often seen in front of the monuments and in the cemetery.
Ye Xiaolin, a young deputy director of the Publicity Departmentof Xishui, an outlying poor county in Guizhou, knows a lot of details about the heroic Long March. Ye can even tell such detailsas the exact time of a certain event and name some soldiers participating in the famous battle.
On the other side of the Chishui River, a monument to the Red Army is facing the Maotai Liquor Distillery, which survived the gunfire owing to the efforts of the Red Army. The army put on a notice to warn soldiers not to destroy the distillery.
"The Red Army left with us a legacy of diversity," said Yuan Renguo, general manager of the distillery.
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