On a bitter winter morning a PLA Navy company known as the "Daigu" Company drilled on steep slopes, repeating small‑unit maneuvers and probing new methods of tactical collaboration. Instructors interrupted training to invoke the company’s wartime lineage — a deliberate linking of contemporary professional demands to a storied past — urging troops to translate that legacy into modern combat effectiveness.
The unit traces its pedigree to the 8th Company of the 11th Regiment of the Eighth Route Army, which in November 1943 held the Daigu ridges of the Yimeng mountains for 17 days against numerically superior Japanese and puppet forces while protecting local civilians and insurgent formations. That episode became a touchstone for a “Daigu spirit” of stubborn resistance and informed the company’s honorific name and internal culture after the war.
In recent years the company has tried to convert symbolic capital into operational advantage through what it calls a “forge the soul, empower, practice” education program. The initiative mixes political education and personnel recognition with technical training: regular selection of so‑called "Daigu sharp shooters," routine battlefield simulations, and public commemoration of medals and unit honors on an honor wall to reinforce cohesion and morale.
In February 2025 the unit was assigned a task to innovate air assault tactics. Party‑member cadres and leading soldiers led months of iterative trial, combining hard work on the training ground with outreach to neighboring units and academic experts. The result was a set of new, practice‑oriented procedures the company says are closely aligned with real combat needs; those methods have since been promoted within the service and the unit has received awards for training excellence.
The story operates on two registers. Domestically it is a morale and political education narrative that binds contemporary soldiers to the Communist Party’s revolutionary past, using rituals and lineage to underpin discipline and willingness to fight. Operationally the account highlights a small but growing pattern in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA): encouraging unit‑level experimentation to refine tactics, particularly in joint air‑land and littoral scenarios where the navy increasingly operates.
For outside observers the significance is practical rather than theatrical. A navy unit that institutionalizes iterative doctrine development and leverages local expertise can accelerate readiness in specific mission sets, such as littoral air‑assaults, convoy protection, and cross‑domain small‑unit operations. The company’s recent record — cross‑region exercises, escort missions at sea, and awards for training innovation — suggests these internal innovations are translating into operational output that will be replicated across similar units.
The Daigu Company story is also an example of how the PLA integrates political work with technical modernization, using history and ceremonial recognition to motivate personnel while encouraging tactical creativity. That combination supports the service’s broader aim of achieving a force that is both ideologically reliable and tactically adaptive as China expands its ability to operate across seas and contested littoral spaces.