11 HOW MAO GOT ONTO THE LONG MARCH
11 长征前夕：毛泽东差点被扔掉
(1933–34 AGE 39–40)
1933～1934 年 39～40 岁
IN SEPTEMBER 1933, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized half a million troops for yet another “annihilation expedition”—his fifth—against the Ruijin base. In May he had agreed to a truce with the Japanese, acquiescing to their seizure of parts of north China, in addition to Manchuria, and this freed him to concentrate in strength against the Reds.
一九三三年九月，蒋介石调动五十万大军，对中央苏区進行第五次围剿。那年五月，蒋与日本签订了《塘沽停战协定》，默认日本人占领华北大片土地，他得以腾出手来对付红军。
Over the previous months Chiang had been building solid roads that enabled his troops to mass in the area and bring up supplies. With this logistic preparation, Chiang was now able to close in on the Red area. The armies then pushed into the Red base slowly, pausing every couple of kilometers to construct small forts that stood so close together they could virtually be connected by machine-gun fire. The Reds were tightly encircled by these blockhouses. As their commander, Peng De-huai, described it, Chiang was forcing the Red area “to shrink gradually: the tactics of drying the pond and then getting the fish.”
这时蒋已在苏区外围修了公路，集结大军，调运粮草。他的军队围住苏区，逐步推進，一次推進几公里，然后停下来修筑碉堡，筑成后再推進。碉堡与碉堡之间机关枪构成封锁火力网。如彭德怀所说：蒋“使我中央苏区逐步缩小，即所谓竭泽而渔”。
The Red Army had only one-tenth of Chiang's strength, and was far less well armed. Chiang's army, moreover, was now much better trained, thanks to the work of a large group of German military advisers. In particular, the Generalissimo had obtained the services of the man who had played the key role in reconstituting the German army in secret after the First World War, General Hans von Seeckt. So Moscow built up a “German” network of its own to help the Chinese Reds to counter Chiang's advisers. It dispatched a German-speaking military expert, Manfred Stern (later famous as General Kléber in the Spanish Civil War), to be the chief military adviser, based in Shanghai. And the German Otto Braun was sent to Ruijin in September, as de facto army commander on the spot.
红军人数大大少于蒋，武器装备也处于劣势。蒋介石聘请了德国顾问团训练军队，特别采纳了第一次世界大战后重整德军的冯·赛克特将军(Hans von Seeckt)的建议。面对蒋介石的進攻，中共和莫斯科都决心保卫瑞金。既然蒋有德国人帮助，莫斯科加强了对中共的德国顾问力量。派驻上海的是军事专家斯坦恩(Manfred Stern)， 此人后来在西班牙内战时以克虏伯将军(General Kleber)的名字着称世界。李德这时被派往瑞金，作中共的现场指挥。
In Ruijin, Braun settled in the barricaded area reserved for Party leaders, in a thatched house in the middle of rice paddies. He was asked to “stay inside my house as much as possible for my safety as a ‘foreign devil,' and in view of the constant [Nationalist] clamour about ‘Russian agents.' ” He was given a Chinese name, Li De—“Li the German”—and provided with a “wife,” whose one vital qualification was that “she had to be big,” and “of very strong physique,” the assumption being that foreigners needed strong women to cope with their sexual demands.
中共在一大块稻田中给李德修了一所独立的房子，要他没事别出房门。他是个“洋鬼子”，招人注意，当时国民党正在宣传中共受苏联的指挥。中共领导人给李德提供了一位太太。女方条件是“身体健壮”，似乎不如此不足以应付外国人的性欲。
According to Mrs. Zhu De (successor to the one executed by the Nationalists), whose information reflected the gossip of the day, “no women comrades wanted to marry a foreigner who could not speak Chinese. So for a while they [the Party] could not find a suitable partner.” Eventually they lit on a good-looking country girl who had been a child bride and had escaped to join the revolution. However, in spite of high-level pressure, she refused. “A few days later, she received an order: ‘Li De is a leading comrade sent to help the Chinese revolution. To be his wife is the need of the revolution. The Organization has decided that you marry him.' She obeyed, with great reluctance … they did not get on.”
朱德夫人康克清说：“当时女同志都不愿意嫁给一个不会说中国话的外国人，所以一直找不到合适的对象。”后来找到个“大个子，长得不错”的前童养媳。“当组织上动员她给李德做老婆时，她起先表示坚决不干。过了几天，通知她说：“李德是共产国际派来帮助中国革命的领导干部，给他做老婆，是革命工作的需要，组织已决定你同他结婚。”她勉强服从了这个“组织决定”。婚后，两人关系一直不好。
In this, her second arranged marriage, this woman bore Braun a son. The boy had dark skin—closer in color to that of a Chinese than a white person's, which prompted Mao to crack a joke: “Well, this defeats the theory of the superiority of the Germanic race.”
在这第二次包办婚姻中，前童养媳生了个男孩。孩子的肤色黑黑的，更接近中国人而不像白种人。毛泽东开玩笑说：“这可无法证实日耳曼民族优越的理论了。”
The man closest to Braun was Po Ku, the Party No. 1, who had worked with him in Shanghai, and could talk to him in Russian. They played cards with the interpreters and went horse-riding together. Chou En-lai, as the No. 2 and the senior military man, also saw Braun a lot. But Braun had little to do with Mao, whom he met only at official functions. On such occasions, Braun wrote, Mao “maintained a solemn reserve.” Mao spoke no Russian, and kept his guard up with Braun, regarding him as a threat.
跟李德最要好的是中共第一号人物博古。他们曾在上海一块儿工作，现在一块儿讲俄文，放松时跟翻译打牌、骑马。管军事的第二号人物周恩来也跟他来往频繁。毛不会说俄文，很少见李德，见面时，李德注意到，他总是“保持着庄严的矜持”。莫斯科使者跟博古、周恩来要好，对毛显然不利。
BY SPRING 1934, Chiang's expedition had been pressing in on the base for about six months. Neither Moscow's advisers nor any of the CCP leaders had a solution for countering Chiang's blockhouse war and overwhelming military superiority. Red leaders in Ruijin knew the base's days were numbered, and began to plan a pull-out. On 25 March, Moscow sent Ruijin a cable which was intercepted by British intelligence, saying that the prospects for the base were dire—even more dire, it said, than the CCP itself seemed to appreciate. As soon as Po Ku received this message, he started trying to get Mao out of the way. On 27 March, Shanghai wired Moscow to say that Ruijin “communicates that Mao has been ill for a long time and [it] requests that he be sent to Moscow.” But Mao was not ill at all. Po Ku and his colleagues did not want him around, in case he made trouble again.
到一九三四年春天，蒋介石对中央苏区的進逼已经六个月。无论莫斯科的顾问还是中共领导都没有办法对付蒋的碉堡政策和占绝对优势的兵力。大家心里都明白，根据地的日子已屈指可数。三月二十五日，莫斯科来电说瑞金的前景很不妙，要中共准备撤离。一接到这个电报，博古首先想到的是“扔掉”毛泽东。二十七日，上海电告莫斯科：“瑞金来电说毛长期生病，要求将他送往莫斯科。”毛并没有生病，只是博古等人怕毛在危难之时捣乱，眼下最需要的是团结。
Ruijin's request to evacuate Mao was rejected. On 9 April Moscow cabled that it was “against visit of Mao” because the journey, which would involve passing through White areas, would be too risky. “He absolutely must be treated in the soviet region [i.e. Red area in China], even if that necessitates large costs. Only in the case of total impossibility of treating him on the spot and of danger of fatal outcome of illness can we agree to him coming to Moscow.”
莫斯科四月九日回电“反对毛来”， 理由是旅途须经过白区，不安全，“他一定得在苏区治病，不管花多大代价都行。只是在当地实在没办法治而有死亡危险的情况下，我们才同意他来莫斯科。”
Mao had no wish to be evicted. “My health is good. I'm not going anywhere,” he rejoined to Po Ku, who controlled communications with Moscow. But Po soon came up with another solution—to leave Mao behind to hold the fort. Keeping the head of state in situ would be a perfect way of proclaiming that the Red state lived on.
毛也无意被打发掉，“我的身体很好，哪儿也不去，”他说。但博古又想出个万无一失的法子：把毛留下来扛中央苏区这面大旗。毛身为政府主席，留在苏区等于向外界宣布红色政权依然存在，这是莫斯科无法反对的。
No one wanted to be left behind. Many who stayed lost their lives, either in battle, or captured and executed. Mao's youngest brother Tse-tan was one of them. Another was the friend Mao had brought to the CCP's 1st Congress, Ho Shu-heng. Yet another was the former Party No. 1, Chu Chiu-pai. And resentment was strong among those who survived. The No. 2 stay-behind, Chen Yi, had a serious shrapnel wound in the hip. He had himself carried on a stretcher to Zhu De, and pleaded, in vain, to be taken along. Two decades later he recalled with anger how the decision was broken to him (incidentally giving a rare insight into how CCP leaders viewed their colleagues' sophistry): “I was given hot air: ‘You are a senior official, so we ought to carry you along on a stretcher. But because you have been working in Jiangxi for well over ten years [sic], you have influence and prestige … Now that the Centre is going, we can't face the masses if we don't leave you behind.' ”
中共高层谁也不愿意留下。留下很可能是死路一条，不是战死就是被国民党抓去枪毙。毛的么弟泽覃、毛带去参加中共“一大”的何叔衡以及中共前头号人物瞿秋白，都这样死去。留下而又活下来的人不少充满怨气，陈毅就是其中之一。他是留下守摊子的第二号人物，原因是大腿上受了伤没法走。他曾躺在担架上去见朱德，请求被带上，但没有用。二十多年后他还愤愤不平地说，当时“大家都认为靠着军队不危险，不愿留下”，“而对我则说得漂亮，说：“你是高级干部，本来应该把你抬走，因为你在江西搞了十几年，有影响，有名望，又懂军事。中央走了，不留下你无法向群众交代。””
The man spouting this hot air was Chou En-lai.
说漂亮话的是周恩来，陈毅显然对这套冠冕堂皇的话嗤之以鼻。
Mao knew that if he were left behind he would be far removed from the Party's center and from the army—even if he happened to survive. He did not intend to be got rid of so easily. At this point, having been deprived of military command, Mao was not with any army. But as government chairman he was his own master and could choose what he wanted to do and where he wanted to be. Over the next half a year, he devoted himself to making sure that Po Ku and Co. could not leave him marooned when they left.
毛泽东知道，留下来即使不丢性命，政治上也等于宣判死刑，因为他将远离中央与红军。随后半年时间里，毛全力以赴不让博古等人把他丢下。
So he staked out a position on the escape route. The first place he camped out was the southern front, which at the time was the envisaged exit point. Here the Communists faced the Cantonese warlord who had been doing a lucrative trade with them in tungsten, and who hated Chiang. Unlike other fronts, where the Nationalists were pressing in deeper and deeper, here there was not much fighting. In late April, the Cantonese warlord began talking to the Reds about providing a corridor through which they could move out, and then on. As soon as Mao learned this, he descended on the HQ of the southern front in Huichang, right on the main road out of the Red area.
毛的主要办法是守候在撤离的出口。当时首先考虑的突破口是苏区南线。毛立刻来到南线司令部会昌。南线领导人都看出突然光临的毛在他们那里没什么公干，他满清闲的，早上去爬山，还写了首词：“东方欲晓，莫道君行早。踏遍青山人未老，风景这边独好。” 他爱拐到当地部队办公室兼住房去，躺在床上跟人聊天，甚至亲自给下面部队修改文件，“有时修改一个花上一、二个小时的时间”。
It was clear to local leaders that Mao had no official business to explain his presence, and moreover that he had time on his hands. He went hill-climbing for leisure, and would drop in on commanders, settling himself comfortably on their beds and chatting on and on. He even did things like correcting training programs for local units, sometimes taking hours to correct one document.
In July, he left as abruptly as he had descended. He had learned that the exit point had been shifted to the west. That month, a unit 8,000-plus strong was dispatched to scout the route. Mao returned to Ruijin. A month later, as soon as the new exit point was confirmed—Yudu, a town 60 km west of Ruijin—Mao turned up at local Party HQ with an entourage of some two dozen, including a secretary, a medic, a cook, a groom, and a squadron of guards. The HQ lay a stone's throw across the street from a river crossing which was just beyond a Sung-dynasty archway in the city wall, and this was the chosen breakout point. Mao squatted here to make sure he was taken along with the main force when the leadership left.
到了七月，来也突然的毛去也突然，回到瑞金。突破点改变了，不再是南线，而是西边。一支八千人的队伍由那个方向离开红区去探路。毛带上二十多个随从(秘书、医护、厨师、马弁，一班警卫)去了瑞金西边的鄂都。毛的落脚点是当地指挥部，距撤离起点鄂都河渡口一箭之遥，只需过街穿越一个宋代的城洞。毛在这个渡河口住了下去，一直住到跟大队人马走。
Before he left Ruijin, Mao decided to hand over to the Party his treasure hoard, the gold, silver and jewelry he had kept hidden in a cave for the past two years. He told his bank-manager brother Tse-min to give it to Po Ku. By concealing his haul until the eleventh hour, Mao had displayed a major lack of commitment to the Party, and to Moscow, and this level of disloyalty might be held against him by the Kremlin. Mao had broken many rules, including all three of the cardinal principles he himself had codified: always obey orders, do not take a needle or thread from the masses (i.e., no unauthorized looting), and, particularly, hand in all captured goods. But “privatizing” loot was uniquely unacceptable, as it showed that he had contemplated splitting from Moscow.
离开瑞金来邮都前，毛要大弟泽民把他的宝藏，那批两年前从漳州运回来藏在山洞里的金银财宝，全部交给博古。私藏缴获品，直到最后一分钟，是不小的过失。这不仅完全违背他自己制定的“三大纪律”之一的，一切缴获要归公”还表现出毛头脑里曾经转过跟党跟莫斯科分手的念头。但毛别无选择。国民党军队打来了，金银财宝埋在山洞里没用了，还不如拿出来“买”张“离境票”。此时的中共非常缺钱，一再向莫斯科求援。毛送上一大批财富，可算是雪中送炭。毛又向博古许诺说，带上他走他一定不会捣乱。博古终于同意了。当然博古不同意也不行，毛就“赖在离境口。”
As the Nationalists were coming, it made no sense to leave the haul buried in a cave. Now was the time to cash it in—for a ticket on the evacuation. The Party was desperate for funds for the journey, and had been begging Moscow to send more money.* Mao delivered his cache and also promised Po Ku that he would behave. Po agreed to take him along. He may not have had much choice, as Mao had physically planted himself astride the departure point.
At the last minute Xiang Ying, the relatively moderate “vice-president” of the Red state, was designated to head the stay-behinds. Xiang was the only person in the leadership from a working-class background, and he accepted the job without demur, demonstrating a spirit of self-sacrifice rare among his peers. He did, however, express grave concern about Mao going with the leadership. Xiang had had ample experience of Mao's character in the Red base, where he had arrived in 1931 at the height of Mao's slaughter of the Jiangxi Communists, and was convinced that Mao would stop at nothing in his pursuit of personal power. Xiang had tried, unsuccessfully, to protect the Jiangxi Reds. Mao loathed him, and had forced torture victims to denounce him. Chou En-lai told the Comintern that “people arrested testified that [Xiang Ying] … belonged to AB.” Aleksandr Panyushkin, later the Russian ambassador to China, said straight out that Mao had tried to get rid of Xiang Ying by labeling him “AB”: “Only the intervention of the Politburo prevented Mao from doing away with Xiang Ying.” At Ningdu in 1932, Xiang had been one of those most insistent on having Mao sacked from his army command. Mao's intense hatred was to lead to Xiang's death ten years later.
被认为“政治上动摇，在党内老是犯错误”的中央苏区副主席项英被指定留守。项是中共领导中唯一出身工人阶级的人，他毫无怨言地接受了这个谁也不愿干的事。但他对中央带着毛走非常担忧。项英了解毛。他一九三一年到苏区时正碰上毛大杀AB团，当时就说毛这样做是为了私人权力，他尽力刀下救人。毛因此痛恨项英，曾指使受刑人咬项英是AB团。据周恩来后来对共产国际说：“被捕的人口供说项英属于AB。”苏联当时的驻华大使潘友新(Aleksandr Panyushkin)记载道：毛“想搞掉项英，因此指他是AB。只是由于政治局的干预毛才没能干掉项英”。一九三二年宁都会议时，项英是最坚决要把毛赶出红军指挥部的人之一。毛对项英的仇恨最终导致项英十年后的死亡。
Xiang argued strongly against taking Mao along. Otto Braun recalled that Xiang “made distinct allusions to the terrorist line of Mao Tse-tung and his persecution of loyal Party cadres in about 1930. He warned against underestimating the seriousness of Mao's partisan struggle against the Party leadership. His [Mao's] temporary restraint was due only to tactical considerations. He … would avail himself of the first opportunity to seize exclusive control of Army and Party.” But Po Ku, according to Braun, seemed optimistic: “He said … [he] had talked this over with Mao and was positive that he would not consider provoking a crisis of leadership …”
项英向博古强烈建议不要带毛走。李德写道：项“明显地提及毛泽东在一九三0年左右推行的迫害忠诚的共产党人的恐怖政策。他警告说毛跟党中央对着干的严重性不可小觑。毛一时的节制只是出于策略的考虑，一有机会他就会跳出来把红军和党一把抓在手里。”李德说，但博古不知为何特别乐观，“他说他跟毛好好地谈了一次，相信毛不会挑起争夺领导权的危机。”
Mao had indeed begun to behave. Until July, when he was camping at the southern front, he had carped at the leadership's instructions at every turn, telling officers to disobey orders and issuing his own, countermanding the Party's. When one of Mao's acolytes told him that he had been appointed land minister in one place, Mao told him to go to a quite different place and do a different job: “You are not going to be the land minister there. Go to Huichang County to be government chairman there.”
毛这时也确实开始好好表现。七月以前，在南线时，他不断批评中央，叫那里的部队不要听中央的，按他本人的指示办。当一个干部对毛说他被任命为土地部长时，毛说：“你不要当土地部长，你去当会昌县苏维埃政府主席。”
But, come September, everything changed. When Lin Biao, who had been used to Mao running down the leadership, paid him a visit, Lin's companion noticed that far from “being engaged in factional activities on the sly,” Mao was “very disciplined.”
一到九月，毛的行为大变。爱跟他一道贬低中共其他领导的林彪来看他，跟林同行的聂荣臻注意到毛完全没有“在暗中搞什么宗派活动”，反而是小心“注意纪律”。
WHEN THE NEWS reached him in Yudu that he was definitely going to be taken along, Mao sent for his wife. No children could go, so their two-year-old son, Little Mao, had to be left behind. Mao never saw him again.
毛在鄂都时，中央正式通知他跟大军走，他便派人接来了妻子贺子珍。孩子不允许带，两岁的儿子小毛就这样留下了。毛再也没有见到这个儿子。
Little Mao had been born in November 1932, and was Mao's second child with Gui-yuan. Their first child, a daughter, had been lost. She had been born in June 1929, in the city of Longyan in Fujian, in a particularly lovely house. When the baby was shown to him, Mao had produced one of his characteristic cracks: “Hey, this girl knows how to pick a good date: she wouldn't come out till she found a nice place!” Less than a month after she was born, Gui-yuan had to leave the town with Mao, and the baby was left with a local wet nurse. Mao's path then took the couple away from the city for nearly three years. When Gui-yuan finally returned, she was told the girl had died, but she could not bring herself to believe this, and after the Communists took power two decades later she began to look for her. The quest went on obsessively for decades until near the end of her life in 1984.
小毛生于一九三二年九月，是他们的第二个孩子。第一个孩子是女儿，一九二九年六月出生在福建龙岩一幢漂亮的房子里。毛看到女儿时开了个玩笑：“她倒会挑日子，找了一个好地方才出生呢！”一句话把子珍逗乐了。还没满月，子珍得跟毛离开龙岩，把女儿寄养在奶妈家。一走三年，再回来时，听说孩子已经死了。子珍心里始终半信半疑，共产党掌权后一直寻找这个女儿，一九八四年去世前不久，才断了这个念头。
As Gui-yuan could not bring Little Mao along on the evacuation, she entrusted the boy to her sister, who was married to Mao's brother Tse-tan. The couple, as well as her brother and parents, were left behind. Gui-yuan wept bitterly at being parted from her son. (Her third child, a son, had died a few months earlier within days of being born.)
子珍的第三个孩子早产，生下来三天就死了。小毛是她的命根子，离别时子珍恸哭不已，把孩子托付给留下的妹妹贺怡和妹夫泽覃。
Little Mao stayed with his wet nurse for a while. After the Nationalists took the Red territory, Tse-tan moved him secretly. But Tse-tan was killed in battle in April 1935 before he could tell his wife where.
小毛最初住在奶妈家。国民党军队占领后，泽覃秘密把他转移走了。泽覃还没来得及告诉妻子就阵亡了。那是一九三五年四月，小毛从此下落不明。
Once Mao came to power, Gui-yuan, who had by then long ceased to be Mao's wife, tried desperately to find Little Mao, with tragic results. Her sister, who felt guilty about Little Mao being lost while in her care, was killed in a car accident in November 1949 as she set off one night to chase a lead, within days of the Reds taking the area. In 1952 a young man was found who might possibly have been Little Mao. Gui-yuan's brother recalled that Gui-yuan “rushed to identify him. She mainly checked two things, whether the boy had oily ears, and whether he had armpit odour [uncommon for Chinese]. She was convinced her children all inherited these characteristics of Mao Tse-tung's. After inspecting him, she was convinced it was her Little Mao.”
共产党胜利后，早已不是毛泽东夫人的贺子珍，一心要找到小毛。寻找小毛带给她的是新的悲剧。贺怡觉得很对不起姊姊，孩子是托付给她的，她急切想找到。一九四九年十一月，在追寻的过程中，她出车祸死去。后来找到一个男孩，说是小毛。子珍的哥哥叙述这件事说：子珍“跑到南京去看是不是小毛。她主要看两点，一是看这个孩子是否油耳朵，二是看他有没有腋臭，她认为她生的孩子都遗传了毛泽东的这两个生理特点。她看过后，认为这就是她的小毛。”
But many other Communist women who had had to abandon their children had embarked on the same kind of quest, and one Red Army widow had already identified the boy as her son. The Party adjudicated that the boy belonged to this other woman. Gui-yuan's brother went to see Mao, who had not been involved up to now, and showed him a photograph of the teenage boy, hinting that Gui-yuan would like Mao to intervene. But Mao declined, saying: “It's awkward for me to interfere.” Mao told him to do what the Party decreed. Gui-yuan did not give up, and fought a painful—and tragic—battle for years. She and her brother kept in touch with the young man until his death from liver cancer in the 1970s, even taking care of his wedding arrangements.*
当时别的女共产党员也在找寻失散的子女，一位红军遗孀已认了这个孩子是她的儿子，中央作结论，把孩子判给了她。子珍的哥哥去见毛，把孩子的照片给毛看，希望毛出面说话。毛婉拒了，说“这事我不好管”，要他按中央说的办。子珍没有同意，继续与孩子来往，后来还张罗他的婚礼。红军遗孀说子珍“抢她的小孩”。为小毛，子珍一生心里都未能平复。*
* 这样的悲剧并不罕见。当时共产党人不仅要准备丢掉孩子，有时党需要资金时还得卖孩子。子珍的朋友曾志一九三一年在厦门做地下工作时，厦门党机关经费困难，就把她刚生的儿子卖了一百块钱，钱花了才告诉她。半个多世纪后，在讲这个故事时，伤痛显然仍在她的心上：“当然心里面很难受。送到那个人家里去以前，我们两个人[曾志和她的丈夫]把这个孩子抱到中山公园玩儿。那个孩子很好玩儿，四十多天，很能笑，我们给他取个名字叫“铁牛”，是个男孩，很健壮，黑实黑实的，从来不随便哭，拉屎拉尿也不爱拉在身上……后来就把他送去了。送去以后心里很难受，但我还足克服了。可是我那个孩子送去二十六天就死了。我们那个时候的书记也不敢告诉我。其实我早就知道了，我没说，他也没吭声、我晚上有时很难受，暗暗地流泪，也不好意思公开，有一次看到我好像是在流眼泪，他就想我可能知道了，他向我道歉。”
MAO SHOWED NO particular sadness about leaving Little Mao behind, and did not even say goodbye to his son. His sorrow was reserved for himself. Gong Chu, the commander of the Red Army at Yudu, left a telling account of the last weeks before Mao departed, when Mao was staked out in his HQ. In early September Gong was studying a map when
毛没有跟孩子道别，也没有显露过悲伤。他有悲伤，是为他自己。当时鄂都的红军指挥官龚楚在回忆录里生动地记下了毛在鄂都的情景。九月上旬的一天，龚楚正在研究地图--
suddenly my bodyguard came in and announced: “Chairman Mao is here!” I … ran to the front gate, and saw Mao Tse-tung with two bodyguards dismounting … He looked yellow and drained. I asked him: “Is the Chairman not well?” He answered: “You are right. I have recently been suffering from ill health, but more of a pain is that I feel extremely down …”
忽然特务员跑来报告： “毛主席来了！”我连忙放下地图，跑到大门前，毛泽东带着两个特务员刚在门外下马，我便请他到我的办公室休息。他那时脸色发黄，形容憔悴。我问他：“主席不舒服吗？”他回答道：“是的，近来身体固然不好，精神更坏……”
After he washed his face, he lit a cigarette and said: “… I'll be here for quite a while.”
洗过脸，抽着烟，他接着说道：“我现在来鄂都督导苏维埃政府工作。在此将有相当的时间住。”……
Mao said to Gong that as they were old friends from the outlaw land, “‘I hope you can come and have a chat whenever you have the time in the evenings.' … Mao Tse-tung liked talking.” Gong took Mao up on his invitation, and after Gui-yuan joined Mao, she would “prepare delicious suppers. And the three of us would chat and drink and smoke, often … till midnight …
毛泽东握着我的手，诚恳微笑地说：“我们是井冈山的老同志了，希望你晚上有空时便来谈谈……”因此，我在晚间有空的时候，便到他家中去。
龚楚又写道：
From my observation, Mao's place was not visited by other people except me … It really felt as if he was isolated and miserable.”
从旁观察，毛泽东居处，除了我常到外，没有什么人来往。中共的高级干部更没有一个人来过。真是门前冷落车马稀，他的抑郁和凄怆之感，是可想而知的。
One day Gong bought a hen and some pigs' trotters for dinner. Mao was “cheerful, and drank a lot.” He complained about the leadership, but more as a heart-to-heart between old friends than as sabotage. When Gong mentioned he had been given a reprimand for something, Mao “said he had not been in agreement with the reprimand. It was all because Chou En-lai was too harsh … Also, he said, [his Party foes] wanted all power in their hands … He seemed deeply resentful of them.”
九月间，我收到了十块银元的特别营养费，买了一只大母鸡，两斤猪蹄，先派人送到毛泽东处，作为晚上消夜时的食品。我到晚上九时才去，贺子珍将炖好的母鸡和猪蹄端上，毛泽东很高兴，他的酒量很好，我们痛快地吃了一顿后，便滔滔不绝地长谈起来。
Mao became doleful from drink, and recounted the various punishments visited on him. At one point, lamenting that he was no longer the big boss, “tears ran down his cheeks. He was coughing from time to time, and his face looked drawn and dried and sallow. Under the flicker of a tiny oil lamp, he was quite a picture of dejection.”
……当谈到我过去被处分的事，他说当时并不赞同给予我以处分，但周恩来过于刻薄，才闹成那件不愉快的事。
龚楚还说，毛对其他领导人也“表露着深深不满”。酒后伤感，他喟然长叹道：““现在，可不是我们井冈山老同志的天下了！”说时竟凄然泪下。这时他有点轻微咳嗽，脸部更加瘦削而枯黄，伴着一盏荧荧的豆油灯，神情显得非常颓丧。”
Neither the collapse of the Communist state nor the separation from his son could wound Mao like his loss of personal power.
红色政权的崩溃、跟儿子的生离死别，都不足以使毛落泪，只有失掉个人权力才有这样的力量。
Then, just when everything seemed set, Mao's plans nearly fell apart. Days before the planned departure, his temperature shot up to 105.8°F and he grew delirious with malaria. It was the malaria season, and the mosquitoes in Yudu were so thick in the air that they flew right into people's nostrils. Even quinine failed to do the trick. It was vital for him to recover—and recover fast, so that he could leave with the others. The best doctor in the Red area, Nelson Fu, who had looked after Mao in the missionary hospital in winter 1932–33, raced over from Ruijin and got him into good enough shape to travel. Patient and doctor both knew Fu had saved Mao's life—and his political fortunes.
准备走了，横祸飞来。当时正是发疟疾的季节，鄂部蚊子成群，直直钻進人的鼻孔里。毛患疟疾病危，发四十一度的高烧，说胡话。他急需复原，马上康复，否则即使不死他也没法随军离开。苏区最好的医生傅连暲马不停蹄地从瑞金奔来，衣不解带地照看毛，使毛迅速康复。傅救了毛的命--也救了毛的政治生命。
Dr Fu became the overseer of Mao's physicians for decades. In 1966, in Mao's Great Purge, he wrote to Mao and brought up this episode in Yudu. “I saved your life,” he said, “I hope you can save mine now.” The then 72-year-old had been savagely beaten, his ribs broken and his skull fractured. Mao did lift a finger, but not very forcefully, by minuting on Fu's letter: “This man … has not committed big crimes, perhaps he should be spared.” But then he heard that Fu had allegedly talked to other Party leaders about his (Mao's) health, which was a big taboo for Mao. Mao let Fu be thrown into prison. The septuagenarian doctor did not last two weeks, and died on the floor of his cell.
傅在以后几十年中负责中共领导人的医护。一九六六年文化大革命时，七十二岁的傅被打断肋骨打破了头，他给毛写信说：“你在鄢部病危时，我挽救了你生命……希望你现在也能救我一命。”毛是这样在傅连暲信上批示的：“此人非当权派，又无大罪，似应予以保护。”但后来毛听说傅曾对其他领导人谈论过他的健康情况，这是毛的大忌，他也就任由傅被投入监狱。入狱十五天，傅死在囚室的水泥地上。
MEANWHILE THE RED ARMY kept up a fighting retreat as Chiang's army advanced, while preparations for the evacuation went on in secret. The move was forced, but it enabled the Reds to carry out a strategic shift towards the northwest, with the ultimate goal of reaching Russian-controlled borders, in order to receive arms—an operation later known as “to link up with the Soviet Union.” It had been planned for years. Back in 1929 GRU chief Berzin had briefed Sorge that his mission was to try to get the Chinese Red Army to the Soviet border.
一九三四年傅抢救毛时，红军正在蒋介石军队的紧逼下边打边退，撤离的准备工作也在极端保密状态下進行。这是一场战败后的撤离，但也是战略转移，设法接近苏联控制的地区，接受武器和其他援助。这就是“打通苏联”。这一战略已设想多年。早在一九二九年，苏军情报局的首脑伯金就对派驻中国的名牌间谍左尔格说，他的使命是想办法把中国红军弄到苏联边境去。
In July, one unit of 6,000 men was sent out in the opposite direction as a decoy. It carried 1.6 million leaflets, which filled 300 shoulder-pole loads, and adopted the grandiose name of “Red Army Vanguard Northbound to Fight the Japanese.”* Its movements were given maximum publicity, and the unit came to realize that it was a decoy, something that even its leaders had not been told. The men felt bitter, and doubly so because the task assigned was pointless: a small unit like theirs could not possibly fool the enemy or draw them away from Ruijin. Instead, they found themselves being relentlessly pursued by other Nationalist forces. Within a few months, virtually the entire decoy force was wiped out.
这个目标极端机密，至今也鲜有人知。七月，一支六千人的队伍被派往相反的福建、浙江方向，作调开敌人的幌子，美其名曰“红军北上抗日先遗队”。中共领导人后来不否认这个名称只是为了宣传，用李德的话说：“没人梦想要去北上抗日。”这支队伍里有三百多担子，挑着一百六十多万份宣传品，一路行踪被中共自己大加张扬，引来追剿不断。官兵们逐渐意识到他们是不自觉的送给敌人的诱饵，连指挥官也蒙在鼓里，更想不通的是他们的使命毫无意义：这样小规模的队伍是不可能调开敌人的。几个月他们就全军覆没。
Part of the preparation for the evacuation was screening all proposed evacuees, a process run by Chou En-lai. Those rated unreliable were executed. They totaled thousands. Among those killed were most of the teachers in army schools, who were often captured former Nationalist officers. The executions took place in a sealed-off mountain valley, where a huge pit was dug. The victims were hacked to death with knives, and their bodies kicked down into the pit. When this pit was full, the rest were made to dig their own holes in the ground, and were then hacked to death, or buried alive.
出发前的另一项工作是全盘审查干部，把“不可靠”的、动摇的统统处决。主持这项工作的是周恩来，数千人在他手下命丧黄泉。死者中不少是国民党俘虏，在红军军事学校任教员。刑场设在封闭的山谷里，行刑人用大刀把头砍掉，然后一脚把尸体踢進事先挖好的大坑里。有的让将死者自己挖坑，然后活埋。
The massacre was carried out by the state security system—although many security men had themselves by now lost faith in the regime and were being killed in their turn. One of those who had lost faith was the head of the team guarding the Military Council. In the confusion of leaving, he slipped away and hid in the hills. But the authorities found his hiding-place by arresting his girlfriend, a local peasant. After a gun battle, this expert marksman shot himself.
执行者是国家政治保卫局的人员。他们中有的人自己也成了这个政权的牺牲品。军委的警卫负责人杨世坤是其中之一。在离境前的纷乱中，他溜走了，跑到山里藏起来。他有个女朋友是当地的农民，当局抓住她，问出了杨世坤的藏身之地。经过激烈交火，这个神枪手把最后一颗子弹留给了自己。
IN OCTOBER 1934, the rule of this brutal regime came to an end. At Yudu, pontoon bridges were set up across the river. At the prow and stem of each boat hung a barn lantern, and more lanterns and torches shone on both banks, glowing in the water's reflection. Families of the soldiers and organized peasants lined the banks to say goodbye. The badly wounded had been billeted on local families. As troops padded past on the cobblestone path underneath the city wall, down to the crossing point, in a corner house near the wall a twelve-year-old boy had his eyes glued to a crack in the door, holding his breath. His father, a small shopkeeper, had been killed four years before, at the height of Mao's AB slaughter, when people were being executed even for being “active shop-assistants.” Like many others, he was glad to see the back of the Reds, as he made abundantly clear when we met him sixty years later.
一九三四年十月，在蒋介石大军的逼迫下，中国的第一个红色政权被赶出了它占据的疆土。鄂都河上由一条条船架成浮桥，船上悬挂着马灯，与两岸灯笼火把互相辉映。河岸上挤着给红军送行的士兵家属和组织起来的乡民。重伤员交给了当地的老百姓。靠近城墙的一间街屋里，一个十二岁的男孩屏住呼吸，眼睛紧紧贴在门缝上，看外面的红军队伍从鹅卵石铺成的路上哗哗急步走向渡口。男孩的父亲曾在这里经营一爿小店，四年前在毛泽东打AB团的高潮中被砍了头。像无数老百姓一样，男孩盼望共产党一去不归。这种心情在六十年后我们见到他时，还看得出来。
At about 6:00 PM on 18 October, looking gaunt but composed, with his long hair combed back, Mao left the local Party HQ surrounded by bodyguards, crossed the street, passed the Sung-dynasty archway and stepped onto the pontoon bridge.
十月十八日傍晚六点，病后的毛泽东，瘦削但不失风度，长长的头发向后梳齐，在警卫的簇拥下离开了鄂都指挥部，穿过宋代的城洞，跨上浮桥。从这个起点，萌生了二十世纪最着名的一个神话--长征。
This rickety bridge did not just carry Mao across the water, it bore him into legend. His murderous past and that of the CCP regime were about to be left behind. And Mao himself was about to create the most enduring myth in modern Chinese history, and one of the biggest myths of the twentieth century—“the Long March.”
*Moscow's monthly subsidy to the CCP for 1934 was 7,418 “gold dollars.” The Russians tried to send in arms direct, but the Chinese Red Army was unable to fulfill Moscow's recommendation to establish a foothold at a port, where “contraband munitions and medicine could be transported.”
*This sort of tragedy was by no means uncommon. The revolution brought much heartache to its adherents. Before they took power, Communists were expected not just to make sacrifices vis-à-vis their children, but literally to sacrifice them, and selling one's children—or having them sold—to raise funds for the Party was not uncommon. The Party cell of Gui-yuan's friend Zeng Zhi in Amoy sold her baby son for 100 yuan; the buyer paid in advance and the Party spent the money before presenting her with a fait accompli. More than half a century later, she said: “Of course, it was extremely painful. Before my son was delivered to [the buyer's] house, my husband and I carried him to Sun Yat-sen Park to play. He was such a cute baby, over 40 days, he smiled all the time. We gave him the name Tie-niu (Iron Ox). He never cried without a good reason, and rarely passed stool or water on himself. So we carried him there to play. He was really really happy. Then he was gone. And it was just unbearable. I managed to overcome the hurt. But my baby died 26 days later … Our Party Secretary didn't dare to tell me, although I had heard. He kept quiet as I didn't say anything. Sometimes at night, it hurt so much I wept, but quietly, because it was embarrassing to let others know [that she was crying for her child]. Then one day, he saw I had been crying, and he guessed I knew, and he apologised to me.”
*Red leaders acknowledged later that the name was only for propaganda. “No one dreamed of a march north to fight the Japanese,” Braun observed.