Zunyi still rocks as red tourism turning hot

He added that working as an actor also brought him about 3,000 yuan ($461.7) monthly in extra income.

Xishui county is another historical site popular among tourists. The county was the main battlefield where the four Chishui River crossings took place. Back in 1935, the Red Army crossed the Chishui River four times and escaped the encirclement of Kuomintang troops.

The county re-built the four Chishui River crossings memorial site in 2006 in Tucheng ancient town resort, which was the major tourism spot in the county. Tucheng also developed a cluster of museums covering an area of 15,000 square meters that integrate red culture with folk art, the Qinggangpo battle memorial site, a tourist center, and another series of facilities to showcase historical and cultural heritage.

Since 2015, Tucheng ancient town resort has received an accumulated investment of about 5 billion yuan for over 40 Red Army-related culture and tourism projects.

Lintan, a village in Xishui county, was where the second and fourth Chishui River crossings took place. The village is now home to many offspring of Red Army soldiers. Song Guangping is one of them.

The 72-year-old Song has a daily habit: taking care of the grapefruit groves that his father, Song Jiatong, planted near the family's old house.

Song Jiatong joined the Red Army in 1932 in Jiangxi, and also took part in the Long March. In 1935, Song Jiatong was injured during the four Chishui River crossings, and was saved and cared for by a villager. Song Jiatong soon married, had a family, and set up a Party branch in Lintan.

In the 1980s, Song Jiatong brought grapefruit samples from his hometown in Jiangxi to Lintan, and taught farmers in Lintan how to plant and harvest, hoping to boost their incomes. Today, most of the families in Lintan have planted grapefruit with per mu (0.07 hectare) output reaching over 10,000 yuan.

Brown sugar, another product that played an important role in helping Red Army soldiers in Lintan in the era of scarcity, also saw rapid development. About 400 families planted 1,000 mu of sugarcane in the village, which supports a brown sugar factory and six family-run brown sugar production facilities. Today, annual output of brown sugar exceeds 450 metric tons, attracting consumers from across the country who double up as tourists.