The Mandarin language lessons taught included such messages as cultivating self-confidence and valuing time. I was one of the trainees, and in less t… - Peng Dehuai

The experience I gained taught me that one must be good at making use of contradictions of all kinds to legalize the illegal such as the rules of the soldiers’ committees which, through our work, were adopted as the objectives of the division school.

I was born into a lower-middle peasant family on the 10th day of the 9th moon on the lunar calendar in 1898. All my family had at that time were a few thatched huts on eight or nine mu (hectre) of fallow and hilly land. We planted sweet potatoes and cotton on the fallow land and palms, tea, China fir and bamboo on the hill. Working hard and living frugally, the eight of us — my granduncle, grandmother, my parents and four boys barely managed to make ends meet.

It’s like a tiger after a flock of sheep;
Under a blanket of smoke and fire
Our army surges forward;
The cries of battle reach the sky,
The earth and mountains shake,
My malaria disappears;
The enemy runs helter-skelter,
Kicking up dust to the sky;
Our brother army has not come,
And so you live another day.