Photographer documents final days of centenarian war heroes

Zheng Huizhuang, born in April 1916, is from Lukou township of Changsha, Hunan province. A graduate of the Huangpu Military Academy, she joined the 36th Army of the National Revolutionary Army (Kuomintang). During the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), she served as a nurse in the Hengyang battlefield hospital. When the KMT forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949, she refused to go and later established a free primary school in her hometown after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Zheng passed away in October 2019. The photo was taken at Zheng's home on Jan 29, 2016.