A force formed in the caves.. How the Chinese Communist Party led the people's resistance war against Japanese aggression.

In the photo taken on June 27, 2023, the Yan'an Revolutionary Memorial Hall in Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province, Northwestern China. (Xinhua)

Xinhua News Agency

    Although Yan'an, located on the Loess Plateau in Northwestern China, is a relatively small city, it serves as a vast museum of the living legacy of World War II, hosting sites that were once military camps, command centers, military colleges, and schools for educating Japanese prisoners of war during the war.

    After the Long March (1934-1936), Yan'an became the leadership base of the Chinese Communist Party for nearly ten years from 1937 to 1947. Its landscapes, characterized by cave dwellings carved into the barren earth, became the headquarters from which the Chinese Communist Party led the resistance against Japanese aggression.

    In 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow came to Yan'an and left with a wealth of interviews and photographs, which later formed the basis for his book "Red Star Over China," introducing the world to this "mysterious" stronghold. Snow wrote about the unwavering determination to fight the Japanese and the "solidarity" among the local people led by the Chinese Communist Party.

In the archival photo taken in 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow (first from the right) on a trip to conduct interviews in the northern regions of Shaanxi Province, Northwestern China. (Xinhua)

    Liu Fangchao, a researcher at the Yan'an Cadre Academy in Shaanxi Province, stated that as the war continued, Yan'an gradually became the command center, and the forces and militias led by the Chinese Communist Party managed to defeat more than 60 percent of the Japanese forces that invaded China.

    She added that as the resistance war progressed, the bases led by the Chinese Communist Party expanded to cover an area of nearly one million square kilometers, providing refuge for one hundred million people, about a quarter of the country's population at that time.

-- A War Fought by the People

    Despite its exaggerated simplicity, Mao Zedong's cave at the revolutionary site of Yangjialing in Yan'an is now a popular tourist destination. Here, in the midst of the barren Loess Plateau, Mao Zedong told American journalist Anna Louise Strong his famous saying, "All reactionaries are paper tigers."

    Liu Ting, an employee at the Yangjialing site, said this statement affirmed Mao Zedong's firm belief in the ultimate victory of the people's resistance over their adversaries.

    Following the September 18, 1931 incident, which marked the beginning of the 14-year Japanese invasion of China, the Chinese Communist Party issued a statement opposing the Japanese invasion. In 1935, the Party called for the formation of a united front to resist Japanese aggression.

    Cao Rong, a researcher in the history of the Chinese Communist Party at the Yan'an Cadre Academy in Shaanxi Province, noted that the Chinese Communist Party actively worked to promote and support the united front, rallying the entire nation's forces.

    With Yan'an as a guiding center, and under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and other armed forces conducted guerrilla warfare in the vast rural areas.

Exhibits at the Taihang Memorial Museum of the Eighth Route Army in Wuxiang County, Shanxi Province, Northern China. (Xinhua)

    In 1941, 14-year-old Zhang Xin joined the Eighth Route Army, recalling, "The Japanese occupied many cities, so we went to the countryside to establish bases there, as the countryside was vast."

    Veteran Liu Yizhou, now 100 years old, still bears scars from the war on his