Why Gansu's Place in the Long March Often Shrinks to a Map Line

Chinese universities’ ideological and political courses are framed as a key channel for preparing the next generation to support the country’s socialist cause. On the 90th anniversary of the Long March, a new education commentary argues that one of the most instructive stretches of that history — the Red Army’s passage through Gansu — is being used only lightly in university classrooms. It points to the Ejie meeting’s crisis decision, the breakout at the Lazikou pass, the decision at Hadapu to turn toward northern Shaanxi, and the joining of the three main forces at Huining as moments that give the Long March in Gansu particular weight.

Yet in many national textbooks, the commentary says, those turning points are compressed into a broad route map. Gansu becomes a transit corridor rather than a place where the army’s survival and strategic direction were repeatedly decided. As a result, students may know that the Red Army passed through Gansu without grasping why that passage mattered. The teaching model often starts from a conclusion — sacrifice, loyalty, strategic foresight — and then supplies examples, leaving the individual people in the story vague.

To close that gap, the commentary proposes pairing big-picture history with local micro-narrative. It gives examples of soldiers burying copper coins after taking villagers’ radishes, a veteran tearfully accepting bread at Huining, and a soldier called Yun-Guichuan climbing bare-handed at Lazikou. These stories, the author argues, carry the human texture that abstract slogans lack, and should be presented through question-led classroom dialogue rather than one-way instruction.

The Classroom Gap: Students Know the Words but Not the People Behind Them

Why the usual macro-first approach falls short

The commentary’s diagnosis is that current courses efficiently transmit a standardized vocabulary — “great strategic shift,” “fearless sacrifice” and similar phrases — but often fail to attach that vocabulary to lived experience. Students can repeat the words without feeling the conditions behind them. The critique does not reject the national, macro-level version of the Long March; rather, it says that version alone leaves Gansu as a minor stop and leaves the individuals at those turning points faceless.

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Gansu’s micro-stories as the missing texture

The argument draws on psychologist Jerome Bruner’s distinction between paradigmatic and narrative thinking. Scientific concepts may require logical proof, but values are more effectively transmitted through story, context and intention. The scenes from Gansu — an exhausted Mao reading old newspapers at Hadapu to find a route north, a soldier scaling the Lazikou cliffs with his bare hands — make the strategy concrete. The commentary also cites dual coding theory to argue that these scene-based memories are retained more strongly than abstract definitions.

From lecture to dialogue

The proposed method is not simply to add stories. It asks instructors to organize those stories into question chains that move from fact to judgment. For example, after teaching the background of the Ejie meeting, teachers might ask why the leadership held to the northward strategy when many supported moving south. Later questions can ask whether measures taken among ethnic-minority communities were strategy or belief, why they won support, and how they differed from the Kuomintang approach. The author draws on educator Paulo Freire’s view that real learning is dialogue, not transmission, and argues that students should reach conclusions through guided reasoning rather than receiving them ready-made.

How Instructors Can Move Gansu's History From Lecture to Dialogue

The suggestions are aimed at university instructors and course designers rather than general readers:

  • Start questions from history, not slogans. After presenting the Ejie meeting’s context, ask why the northward strategy was maintained when many favoured the south, rather than asking students to define ideals and beliefs in the abstract.
  • Use named, observable scenes. Include the copper-coin payment for villagers’ radishes, the veteran’s tearful memory at Huining, and the bare-handed climb at Lazikou so that values are attached to people.
  • Build a question chain around one event. Move from what the Red Army did in difficult circumstances to whether those actions were tactical or believed, why they won popular support, and how that contrasted with the Kuomintang.
  • Link the history to current pressures. Ask what resources students facing academic stress, job competition and uncertain futures can draw from the army’s choices under extreme uncertainty.
  • Use digital media selectively. Present Ejie’s small wooden building, the Lazikou cliffs or Hadapu sources through photographs and digital images, but avoid letting media volume replace the teaching point.