The song "August Osmanthus Blooms Everywhere" didn't appear out of nowhere. It was created in 1929, when the revolutionary base area in Hubei, Henan, and Anhui was established. At the time, the Northeast Hubei Special Committee of the Chinese Communist Party passed the Resolution on the Soviet Question, and Ziyun District in Huang'an County became the first to establish a Soviet government. As grassroots governments sprang up across the area, Luo Yinqing wrote lyrics to the tune of the Dabie Mountains folk song "Eight-Section Brocade" to celebrate this historic victory. Wang Jichu adapted it while watching the Red Army's triumphant reunion from the steps in Zhuyuan. Lin Chunlan taught women to sing it as they sewed cloth shoes for the soldiers. Wang Xiaohong risked her life using it as a secret signal. Countless people protected it with their lives, allowing it to reach us today.
This book will tell you that the peaceful lives we enjoy today were made possible by people who planted "hope" in the darkness and watered it with their blood until it bloomed. The "names hidden in the song" were never just words on a page in a history book. They were ordinary people, just like us, who wanted their families to have better lives.
This book is dedicated to every hero of the revolutionary base area in Hubei, Henan, and Anhui, and to all Chinese people who "kindle the light of faith with ordinary lives."
