Wang Ronghua is approaching 90 and still takes care of some daily routines. She insists upon having fresh green vegetables grown in her home courtyard in downtown Beijing, although a supermarket and farmers' grocery store are within walking distance of her residence. One of the first things she asks people around her to do is to water the vegetable patch, when she is not feeling well and unable to do it herself.

"So we have a steady supply of green vegetables," said Liu Meng, Wang's fifth child and an army officer now working in Guangzhou.

Wang likes to watch television drama series, especially those featuring families and romances, and often discusses with her children the rights or wrongs of the protagonists.

And she follows the news of China and the world closely. When Liang Guanglie, general chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army, visited her during Spring Festival in early February, she discussed with Liang how Iraq lost its only port town to the Gulf during the Gulf War.

"We children were still surprised at our mother's sharp mind," Liu said.

Liu said it shouldn't be a surprise as she learned to analyse complicated situations such as wars when young.

"People often retrace their footsteps in their youths when entering the old age," she said in her memoir. "The things in the past still linger in the mind, even though more than 70 years have passed."

When she sits down in an armchair during the day for a rest, she replays the scenes in her mind when she trekked her way through the marshes in the grassland three times along with other Red Army soldiers in the famous Long March (1934-36).

Those were the days of extreme hardships, but it was during the trials and tribulations on the Long March that Wang met her future partner, Liu Bocheng (1892-1986), then the chief of staff of the Red Army and later Marshal of the People's Liberation Army.

Wang was born and grew up in a peasant's family in western part of today's Anhui Province, in east China. Poverty and constant hunger haunted her family year in and out. "That is why she has retained her childhood taste buds for 'salted fish'," a local specialty in mountainous Anhui Province, Liu Meng said.

"We younger people could not even stand the smell."

Joining the Red Army

So even in her early teens, she easily embraced the ideas for change especially the liberation of women from feudal rituals from her uncle-in-law, a member of the Communist Party of China. Driven by the aspiration to help realize all these ideas, she joined the Red Army, which was led by the Communist Party of China, in 1931. She was only 14.

During the next four years, she and her colleagues worked in the mountainous areas in today's Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces, mobilizing local poor peasants and spreading the ideas that only revolution would enable everyone to shake off a life of deprivation and have enough food and clothing.

She also worked at the Shaanxi-Sichuan Communist-led Soviet Government as director of the postal service bureau. "This was the largest postal service of all Communist-led areas," Liu Meng said.

In late April 1935, the Red Army's Fourth Front Army withdrew from the revolutionary base on the border between Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces to go westward and Wang went along.

Wang, then 19, became one of more than 2,000 Chinese women, who trudged and fought alongside tens of thousands of their male colleagues on their way to build new revolutionary bases for a united resistance against Japanese invasion.

In June the same year, the Central Red Army, which had fought all the way from east China's Jiangxi and Fujian provinces through Central China's Hunan and Southwest China's Yunnan, Guizhou and then Sichuan provinces, became united with the Fourth Front Army in Maogong, in today's Xiaojin County, in Aba Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, northwestern part of Sichuan.

"At that time, people (from our Fourth Front Army) all talked about the Central Red Army, and I also heard about an army strategist named Liu Bocheng," Wang recalled with a smile.

In modern Chinese military history, Liu was a legend. He was called "Chinese Mars" by his German doctor, who operated on Liu after a bullet shot through his right temple and came out his right eye in a battle against warlord in 1916. He was considered the modern Sun Tzu by his colleagues in the Red Army and then the People's Liberation Army.

During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), he was the commander of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, leading a series of victorious battles to weaken the Japanese forces.

Even Chiang Kai-shek had to admit that Liu's wisdom was far beyond his peers.

Dragon from Sichuan

Stories of Liu abound. For Wang at the summer time in 1935, the most intriguing was how in April, Liu led the advanced detachment to get hold of boats from a local Kuomintang county magistrate, occupied the Jinsha River pier and enabled the 20,000-strong Central Red Army to sail across the river into Sichuan.

In fact, late Chairman Mao Zedong had predicted that Liu, as the "Dragon from Sichuan," would "carry" the Red Army across the river. By crossing the Jinsha River, the Red Army successfully shook off some 100,000 Kuomintang troops which had been pursuing and trying to drive the Central Red Army into the turbulent Jinsha River in Yunnan. Instead, the Kuomintang army could only watch the ships burn and picked up some straw shoes left by the Red Army.

In May, the Red Army were blocked on their way in the Liangshan mountains through the villages of the Yi people, who were embroiled in their own tribal fights. It was Liu who cleared the way by winning over Xiao Yedan, a Yi chieftain.

In a traditional Yi ceremony, Liu and Xiao Yedan drank from a bowl of water with fresh blood from a rooster, thus forging an alliance between the Red Army and the Yi people.

In June the two main forces of the Red Army shook hands. A few days later, a delegation of the Central Red Army came to meet the commanders of the Fourth Front Army.

Standing in the rank and file welcoming the entourage, Wang asked a colleague of hers who was the officer wearing a pair of glasses. She was told that officer was the famous chief of staff of the Red Army, Liu Bocheng.

"I was surprised that Liu appeared so common," Wang later recalled, "but underneath his commonness was the power of an army man and steadfastness and resourcefulness of a military strategist."

While reflecting her initial finding about Liu in person, Wang, at that time, did not realize that she herself stood out as a pretty, witty and honest young woman, who was tall and strong.

Ren Bishi, a senior leader of the CPC, and his wife, tried match-making Liu and Wang. In August, Wang was transferred to work in the headquarters of the chief of staff, but she was hesitant after hearing about Ren's proposal. "I told him I was young and simple, and I didn't think I could bring him joy and happiness," Wang recalled.

Ren didn't push it, allowing the two the time to get to know each other.

The days dragged on as the soldiers were haunted by hunger, illnesses, capricious weather, erroneous commands within the Fourth Front Army and above all, constant skirmishes as the Kuomintang army and local warlords were out to wipe out the Red Army.

They had to tramp across the marshes of the grassland the second time in late autumn, when most of them had only late summer clothing. "I saw with my own eyes a horse sinking fast into a mire," she said. In a few days, they had eaten all barley flour and a handful of salt that they'd brought with them. They dug out grasses and also found some cattle skins. "A lot of us succumbed to hunger," she said.

Letters of love

During those days of hardships, Wang took the solace that she was going with the team under Liu's command. "When I dropped behind, Liu came and encouraged me to catch up," she said. "He also found time to teach me to read and write and tell me history stories."

One sunny day in spring, 1936, Wang received a letter from Liu. In the letter, Liu formally asked her if she would marry him.

Huang Xingzheng, Liu's bodyguard who delivered Liu's letter into Wang's hands, felt excited about his special assignment. That night, he shared the secret with Chen Mingyi, a staff officer under Liu's command, and told Chen that Wang flushed when she finished reading the first page.

The letter ignited the sparks of love between them, and Chen remembered seeing Liu and Wang taking walks together at the army's camping site.

Wang later recalled that during their heart-to-heart talks, Liu told her how his grandfather's career as a trumpeter deprived him and his father the chance to continue the imperial examinations for the officialdom in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), despite their excellent academic performance in earlier rounds.

"We left home to join the revolution because of poverty," Wang recalled Liu as saying. "Our union is out of our freedom in love Marriage is not built upon experiences or learning, but upon our mutual attachment, understanding and respect

"We tie the knots because we share the same ideals and the same life's goal" Wang quoted Liu as saying.

Around the traditional Moon (Mid-Autumn) Festival, when the three main forces of the Red Army celebrated their union and successful finish of the Long March, Liu and Wang tied the knot.

At the wedding, there were neither flowers nor banquet but heart-felt wishes from our comrades-in-arms, Wang recalled. The only belongings they had were simple luggage that they brought along on the Long March.

"However, we were happy and we felt our wedding meaningful because we'd gong through the thick and thin together," she said.

In the 50 years of their marriage, Liu made history in modern Chinese military affairs and education, by directing more battles that led to the founding of New China in 1949 and by establishing the Chinese Military Academy.

Throughout the years, Wang supported Liu's work and career with her passion, consideration and tenacity, Liu Meng said.

Meanwhile, they gave the utmost care they could to their six children, who studied either engineering or medicine and now serve in the army.

They also have five grandchildren.

(China Daily October 10, 2006)