Aug 1 is Army Day in the People's Republic of China. The People's Liberation Army was founded on this day in 1927 through a bloody uprising in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi province. The PLA has undergone a long evolutionary process since then. And the history of China's revolution is the history of the Communist Party of China and the People's Liberation of Army, the vanguards of the revolution. Modern China, the CPC and the PLA are synonymous.

The PLA has its genesis in the Red Army. It took different names at different times and in different theatres of operation, such as the New Fourth Route Army and the Eighth Route Army, all of which combined to form the PLA. The PLA encompasses all the organs and elements of China's armed forces - the army, navy, air force and the Second Artillery.

The Red Army, in course of its guerilla warfare, undertook the historic Long March to withdraw from the battlefront to thwart the Kuomintang's design of annihilating the communists. The epic Long March (changzheng) covered more than 10,000 kilometers, fighting the enemy all the way from the mountains of Jinggangshan in Jiangxi to the plains of Yan'an in Shaanxi province. It crossed dense forests, marshes, grasslands, narrow valleys, steep gorges and snowcapped mountains on its path, fighting guerilla battles all the way.