Story of the halved quilt carries Long March spirit

During the recent National Day holiday, visitors lined up outside an exhibition hall in Shazhou, a village in Rucheng county, Hunan province. Inside, docent Zhu Shuhua stood before the hall's most treasured item: a quilt sent in 1991 by Red Army veterans to a local woman named Xu Jiexiu.

Xu's great-granddaughter, 38-year-old Zhu, retells the story of the quilt to visitors every day, and more importantly, about another half a quilt dating back more than 90 years.

In November 1934, as the Central Red Army embarked on the Long March, they passed through Rucheng, with the army's medical department stationed in Shazhou village. During the cold and rainy weather, three female Red Army soldiers stayed at Xu's home overnight.

Xu, then 34, let them crowd with her and her baby on one bed, covered by her old quilted coat, a straw rain cape, and tattered cotton wadding — everything she had to keep them warm. The soldiers offered their thin quilt and helped Xu mend clothes, fetch water, cook, and care for the baby. Upon departure, the soldiers cut their only quilt in half and gave one half to Xu. "Take it, sister," one of them said. "When the revolution succeeds, we will come back and bring you a new, warm quilt."

According to her family, it was then that Xu came to a profound realization: that a force whose soldiers would sacrifice their only quilt for civilians was a force genuinely fighting for the people. For the next 50 years, she often stood at the entrance of her village, hoping to see the three women again, but they never returned.