For two months now, hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been fighting to stave off China's worst floods in five decades, in what is being described as the largest peacetime mobilisation of troops in Communist China's history.

And thanks to the efforts of well-trained propaganda machine, PLA soldiers are the Chinese people's most likable heroes today.

One of the most enduring images of the floods drama this year is Xu Hongping, whom media has repeatedly shown squeezing her breast milk onto the bare back of a soldier flood-fighter to soothe his wasp stings.

The goal of such coverage is to display and play up the admiration of many Chinese people here have for the soldiers. So while the deadly torrents have devastated lives, homes and crops, they have also offered the army a remarkable chance to score points with the public which has reviled itever since military troops crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989, killing hundreds.

Mindful of public resentment, the Communist Party's propaganda machine switched gears to present the army, tarnished by the 1989 massacre and under attack for rampant smuggling, in the most heroic light -- rescuing stranded farmers and patching up breached dikes. Since early July when flash floods swept China's Yangtze river valley, the army's fight with the natural disaster has been filling the entire time of the evening television newscast. Other events in the country and the outside world are squeezed into a few minutes added on hurriedly.

Footage after footage shows soldiers standing arm-in-arm in water up to their shoulders, singing as they splash through the muddy swathes of water or frantically bailing out water from behind leaking dikes with washing tubs.

Adding flavour to the media orchestration, all top leaders have been shown going to the front line of the floods battle, loudspeaker in hand, exhortingthe soldiers ``to fight to the death'' and calling them ``China's great wall of steel''. Watching the blanket media coverage of the army's efforts, many Chinese are proud of their soldiers and moved by their determination. ``They are just great, like war-time heroes,'' said Sun Limei, gripped by the evening newscast shown, over dinner, on a small television in the dumplings restaurant, Golden Cat.

Many of the restaurant's guests seemed to share her feelings, confessing to each other how much money they had donated to the flood victims and to help flood relief efforts.

``If I were sure the money will reach the people in need, I would have given more than the minimum 30 yuan (1.2 US dollars) my work unit has asked for,'' said one man, showing distrust for the charity drive put in motion by the government.

Last week an editorial in the People's Daily, the party's flagship, pictured the floods battle like this: ``Our cadres at all levels have devoted their loyalty, wisdom, and flesh and blood tofight against the floods.'' ``From them, the people see the strong leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and government, they see the Communist Party is good, the People's Liberation Army is good, and the great family of the motherland is good.''