“Highway” as the Central Image in Literature in KMT Controlled Rigions and the Genesis of “National Sense of Community”

The imagination and writing about the highway—centered transportation in literature in KMT controlled regions during the Anti-Japanese War, played an indispensable role in creating " national sense of community”. " Highway” functioned as a linkage not only to integrate the " modern China” as a spatial entity, but also to create the historic homogeneity of " modern China” by filling the temporal gap between antiquity and modernity. The " discovery of the people” was also accomplished as the ordinary people were transformed from anonymous peasants into the sublime modern " citizens” by way of participating in building and maintaining the highways, which constituted the anthropological significance of China’s Anti-Japanese War.