Fields and gardens near Yudu, Jiangxi Province

A rise in the terrain looks like an island in a green lake made up of fields of rice and sugarcane. On that island, vegetables are grown in long beds. In 1934 the Red Army started its Long March from the province of Jiangxi, and to mark the 50th anniversary of that epic withdrawal, which became the founding myth of the People’s Republic, the Chinese government opened airspace to a foreign aerial photographer for the first time. In 1985 it approved free balloon flights along the route of that march. This photograph was taken from the basket of a hot air balloon during an ascent in Yudu.