Red Expedition

Author: Li Jing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: "Back to the river is a battle, no way is a way of life." Mao Zedong was entrusted with danger, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army survived the brink. Ten thousand pairs of Chinese feet wrote a miracle in the history of human warfare, millions of boats drifted with enduring topics. Mao Zedong's rise, the life-and-death choice of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, secrets scattered among the mountains and rivers, ten thousand pairs of Chinese feet walked a miracle of the human world—Long March—still an unprecedented story! With rigorous research and exquisite narration, the book unfolds the palm of history for you, shows the veins of time, lets you experience the truth, the solemnity, the tragedy and magnificence; and also the shock, the emotion—Long March, still an unprecedented story!
Mao Zedong left Ruijin in a critical period in 1934. September. Mao Zedong, stripped of military power, walked on the scorching land of southern Jiangxi. That year, he was forty-one. A pair of faded old military uniforms, slightly oversized on his gaunt body, seemed to accentuate his thinness. His steps were slow yet steady, and the lack of sleep over the years left a trace of fatigue on his lean face. However, when he occasionally lifted his head to look somewhere, the light in his habitually slightly squinted eyes still held a moving spirit. Those were eyes that were always lost in thought. Deep, wise, resolute, and now tinged with a faint melancholy and sorrow.
Mao Zedong walked silently on the mountain path leading to Yudu. He did not ride a horse; his horse was led by a groom behind him, tapping out a series of crisp "tack-tack" sounds in the desolate afternoon. Ahead was a long, steep slope. "Chairman, why don't you ride a horse?" Guard Wu Jiqing whispered from behind. Mao Zedong did not stop; clearly, he was lost in his own thoughts. "Chairman, your clothes are soaked with sweat. Please ride a horse," Guard Hu Changbao said again.
Mao Zedong stopped and slowly turned around, looking at the accompanying staff—secretaries, guards, medical personnel, cooks, groom, and the only horse in their "highly efficient" team, which had been assigned to him as his mount before departure. The groom brought the horse forward and handed the reins to Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong took the reins, stroked the mane, and then handed them back to the groom.
"Whose feet hurt, who rides," Mao Zedong said to the soldiers. "We won't ride, we won't ride!" "If the Chairman can walk, we can too!" "The Chairman rides, the Chairman rides!" The soldiers clamored.
Mao Zedong said nothing, as if searching for something, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the soldiers one by one. Finally, it landed on Guard Wu Jiqing.
"Jiqing, you came to me in April of the third year, didn't you?" Mao Zedong looked at Wu Jiqing. "The Red Army had just arrived in Huichang then. I remember I was staying at Yunmenling."
Mao Zedong said to Wu Jiqing. "The Chairman is so busy, yet you remember these things so clearly," Wu Jiqing was moved.
"Was it Comrade Gubai who brought you?" Mao Zedong asked again.
"Yes, Chairman."
Mao Zedong still stared intently at his guard. After a long while, he murmured, "More than four years have passed. Walking, fighting, counter-encirclement—generations of soldiers have matured, but our Soviet area..." He shifted his gaze from Wu Jiqing's face and looked toward the distant horizon in the east. The red capital of the Chinese Soviet Republic, Ruijin, lay in the vast, misty sea of clouds.
"Chairman, when can we return to Ruijin?" the groom asked.
Mao Zedong did not answer immediately. The groom's question had been lingering in his mind as well. Excluded from the highest leadership core of the Party and the army, he only knew that he had left Ruijin in a critical period. His task was to conduct research and investigation in Yudu. However, in recent months, some signs within the Red Army had indicated that this army he had personally built would undertake major strategic moves. Two months ago, in July, the Red Army had sent two corps to transfer to the outer line. At the beginning of the month, the Red Seventh Corps was ordered to form the Red Army Northern Expeditionary Force to move toward the Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi Soviet area; later that month, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Central Military Committee ordered Ren Bitong, Xiao Ke, and Wang Zhen of the Hunan-Jiangxi Soviet area to lead more than 9,000 soldiers to break through and westward to Hunan.
In Mao Zedong's eyes, both moves were extraordinary—they were the Red Army extending its two tentacles in preparation for a full-scale strategic transfer, or the two wings prepared to support the main force in breaking through the encirclement. The situation was extremely severe. The Red Army had reached a point where it could only survive by transferring. The time for the main force of the Central Red Army to make major moves would not be far off.
Mao Zedong steered clear of the groom's question and looked at the soldiers before him one by one, asking, "How many pairs of straw sandals do you each have?"
"Two pairs!" "Three pairs!" The soldiers replied.
"When we reach Yudu, make more straw sandals when you have free time," Mao Zedong said.
With that, he strode forward toward the steep slope ahead.
Mao Zedong's steps were heavy. He glanced to the north and then to the south. To the north was Guangchang, which had already fallen in April, and to the south was Huichang, surrounded by heavy troops of the Guangdong army. His brows furrowed slightly, and an imposing foreigner with a prominent nose and deep-set eyes stubbornly appeared before him. He was Li De, the military advisor sent by the Comintern to the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.