Grassland with biting past now filled with flora, fauna

The temperature could be as high as 30 C during the day. But by night, the temperature would drop to around 0 C. Soldiers had to place some grass on the wet land before sleeping, sitting with their backs resting against each other. At daybreak, many were found to have perished.

A squad of soldiers had slept in a rainstorm in the open air. When it was time for breakfast, the company commander shouted but none of them responded. When the commander approached, he found that they were not breathing, reads a passage from the book on the Long March.

In present time, both Jiajin and the grasslands appeal to visitors with pandas and stunningly beautiful natural scenery.

The West learned about the giant panda in 1869 from Jean Pierre Armand David, a French missionary working for the Dengchigou Catholic Church in Jiajin.

When he had tea at a local hunter's home, he saw the skin of a giant panda for the first time. Suspecting it to be a new animal species, he had the hunter capture a live panda, made its skin into a specimen and mailed it to the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle's Henri Milne Edwards in Paris.

Just 3 km from Dengchigou Catholic Church is the Baoxing County Giant Panda Cultural Publicity and Education Center which covers more than 20,000 square meters and houses two residents-28-year-old male panda Meng Xi and 29-year-old female panda Chuan Xing.

The grasslands are vibrant in April as migratory birds have returned, including flocks of black-necked cranes that have started to travel back in early March to breed and raise young birds.

More than 3,000 meters above sea level, the Flower Lake in the grasslands is frequented by visitors. It got its name because of the variety of blossoming flowers in and by the lake in late June and early July.

Visiting the Flower Lake is like going from the mortal to the immortal world, says Yi Feng, a 57-year-old local Tibetan. The crystal-clear water in the lake is filled with all kinds of water plants which emit fresh fragrance into the air.

Covering 213,333 hectares, the Flower Lake, which is a wetland, is home to the yellow duck, black-necked crane, gull, marmot, hare and plateau fish.