Inside the exhibition hall at the Northern Guangdong Memorial Hall of the Red Army's Long March, a rusted copper grenade, bearing the five-pointed star and a faintly discernible hammer-and-sickle emblem, is on display.

The grenade hails from the battlefield of the Tonggu Ridge during the Red Army's Long March over 90 years ago, carrying memories of a fierce blocking battle as the Central Red Army passed through the mountainous area of northern Guangdong province.

The grenade was donated to the memorial hall in 2017 by Wang Jiujun, a resident of Dashuiba village, situated at the foot of the ridge. Wang found the grenade while working on his farm in the spring of 1984. It was later identified as being very similar to Soviet-style grenades.

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Following the five-pointed star grenade, more revolutionary artifacts have successively joined the existing collections in the memorial hall, which is located in Renhua county of Shaoguan, Guangdong.

In early September, 13 revolutionary artifacts from cultural and museum units in neighboring Nanxiong, a county-level city, and Lechang, also a county-level city, both in northern Guangdong, were registered, exhibited and incorporated into the memorial hall.

"The consolidation of these precious artifacts supplements the historical records of the Central Red Army's passage through northern Guangdong during the Long March, providing more complete and vivid material evidence of the province's revolutionary history," said Liu Gongpu, head of the memorial hall.

As the only museum in Guangdong dedicated to the Red Army's Long March, the memorial hall has become an important base for patriotic education and a classroom for Party education efforts across the province.

Since its opening in October 2019, the memorial hall has welcomed over 740,000 visitors, including more than 150,000 young people engaged in red-themed study sessions.

"The shared ideal and belief of young soldiers during the Long March, whose average age was only 17 or 18, was to seek happiness for all people and liberation for the suffering masses," Liu said. "It is also the spiritual code embodied by these revolutionary artifacts like the copper hand grenade."

Innovation in expression is the key to preservation of the historical materials, he said.

In the past few years, the memorial hall has conducted oral history collection, private artifact gathering and historical site verification, trying to explore moving stories of the Central Red Army's passage through northern Guangdong during the early period of the Long March.

Over a 21-day period in late 1934, the Central Red Army passed through northern Guangdong, traversing areas such as Nanxiong, Renhua, Lechang and Lianzhou.

"We have made great efforts to rediscover and retell more vivid stories during this period, which was marked by intense battles and strategic maneuvers as the Red Army made its way through challenging terrain and hostile defenses," he said.

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Modern exhibition technologies such as sound, light, multimedia and scene restoration are widely used in the museum, aiming to recreate historical scenes like the Red Army breaking through blockades and the deep connection between the army and civilians.

It has also launched innovative projects such as a digital cloud exhibition hall and recreation of the Long March scenes integrated into the video game Minecraft.

Tan Huixian, head of the social education and promotion department at the memorial hall, has been engaged in interpretation and educational work at the memorial hall for six years, having completed over 1,500 guided sessions.

"It is more like a spiritual relay when I explain stories of the Red Army's Long March to young visitors," Tan said.

Contact the writers at qiuquanlin@chinadaily.com.cn