2 LONG MARCH I: CHIANG LETS THE REDS GO
12 长征之一：蒋介石放走共产党
(1934 AGE 40)
1934 年 40 岁
SOME 80,000 PEOPLE set off on the Long March in October 1934. The procession moved out over a ten-day period in three columns, with the two oldest and core units, under Lin Biao and Peng De-huai respectively, on each side of the HQ. The 5,000-strong HQ consisted of the handful of leaders and their staff, servants and guards. Mao was with the HQ.
一九三四年十月，八万中央红军开始长征。行军分成三翼，林彪的一军团在左翼，彭德怀的三军团在右翼，中间是五千人的中央机关，包括毛和十来个中共领导，以及参谋行政人员、勤杂人员和庞大的警卫部队。
They moved slowly due west, burdened by heavy loads. Arsenal machinery, printing machines and Mao's treasure were carried on shoulder-poles by thousands of porters, most of them recently press-ganged conscripts, watched over by security men. The chief of the administrators revealed that the heaviest burdens were carried by people “who had just been released from the hard labour teams, and they were very weak physically … some just collapsed and died while walking.” Numerous marchers fell sick. One remembered:
大军缓慢地向正西行進。兵工厂、印刷机、银元财宝，都被成千挑夫挑在肩上。大部分挑夫是刚强征来的，由国家保卫局看管。行政负责人李维汉透露说：挑最重的担子的成员“多数是从劳改队放出来的，体力差”，“有的挑到半路就不行了”。
The autumn rain went on and on, making our paths nothing but mud … and there was nowhere to escape the rain, and no good sleep to be had … some sick and weak fell asleep and never woke up. Many suffered infected feet, which had to be wrapped in rotten cloth and produced unbearable pain when stepping on the ground … As we left the base area further and further behind, some labourers deserted. The more obedient ones begged in tears to be let go …
张闻天夫人刘英回忆道：“秋雨绵绵，地上都是烂泥巴，肩挑背扛，都是重家伙。一个人挑着担子走已经不容易，几个人抬着辎重，要想合上脚步更是困难。”“有些体弱的病号，睡着了就再也醒不过来。更多的人是脚沤烂了，用破布包起来，一踏着地就疼得难忍，不能走路。离开根据地又越来越远，有的挑夫开小差溜了，老实的也流着泪请求让他们回去。”当兵的也不断逃跑，当官的疲惫，顾不上了。
The bolder ones simply dropped their loads and fled when their minders were distracted. Soldiers, too, deserted in droves, as the vigilance of their increasingly exhausted bosses wavered.
The marchers faced the daunting prospect of four lines of blockhouses—the same blockhouses that had doomed their Red base. Yet these turned out to be no obstacle at all—seemingly inexplicably.
长征队伍得穿过四道碉堡重重的封锁线。然而，奇怪的是，它们竟完全不构成障碍。
The first line was manned by Cantonese troops, whose warlord chief had been doing profitable business with the Reds and had promised to let them through. Which he did. This combat-free breakout, however, was not due just to the anti-Chiang Cantonese. The Generalissimo was well aware that the Reds intended to pull out by way of the Cantonese front, and moreover he knew that they were going to be let through. On 3 October, shortly before the breakout began, he had told his prime minister that the Cantonese were going to “open up one side of the net” to the Reds. And yet Chiang explicitly rejected the idea of sending forces loyal to himself to the breakout sector. A close aide argued with him that to get Canton “to carry out orders, we have to have our men on the spot.” Chiang told him not to worry.
第一道封锁线由粤军防守。粤军陈济棠是蒋介石的仇敌，曾跟红军作买卖钨的生意，也跟红军谈判好了要给红军让路，所以红军一帆风顺地通过了。蒋介石早知红军跟粤军的交易。十月三日，长征前十多天，蒋对行政院长汪精卫讲到粤军会“网开一面”。蒋的侍从室主任晏道刚建议派忠实于蒋的人去督促粤军，蒋拒绝了，叫他：“你不管。”
The marchers reached the second line of blockhouses at the beginning of November. Although the columns offered an easy target, extending over tens of kilometers, they were not attacked. The Cantonese again made no trouble. And neither did the other force defending part of this second line, which was under General Ho Chien, the fiercely anti-Communist Hunanese who had executed Mao's ex-wife Kai-hui.
十一月初，长征队伍来到第二道封锁线。虽然他们延绵几十公里，行动缓慢，很容易挨打，却没有受到像样的攻击。一翼红军面对粤军，自然相安无事。但另一翼要对付的是湖南军队，指挥官是坚决反共的将军何键，四年前就是他枪杀了毛的前夫人杨开慧。居然，何键也让红军安然通过。
It was the same story at the third fortified line; yet Chiang not only did not reprimand Ho Chien for his apparent dereliction, on 12 November he promoted him to commander-in-chief of operations against the marchers. So it was this fierce anti-Communist who manned the fourth fortification line, situated at an ideal place to wipe out the Reds, on the west bank of the Xiang, the largest river in Hunan (which had inspired Mao's poetry in his youth). There were no bridges, and the Reds, who had no anti-aircraft guns, had to wade across the wide river, easy targets from land and air. But again they went completely unmolested while they took four days to trudge across, spread along a stretch of river 30 km long. The commanding points on the banks were unmanned, and the troops under Ho Chien just looked on. Chiang's planes circled overhead, but only to reconnoiter, and there was no aerial bombing or even strafing. Mao and the HQ forded the river undisturbed on 30 November, and by the next day, 1 December, the 40,000-strong main Red force was over.
第三道封锁线照样了无战事。蒋介石非但没有责罚何键，反而于十一月十二日任命他为“追剿总司令”， 把守第四道封锁线。封锁线设在湖南最大河流湘江的西岸，江上没有桥，红军只能涉水渡河，又没有高射机枪，只能任由国民党飞机轰炸。要消灭红军，这里再合适不过了。然而，红军于二十七日在长达三十公里的江段上开始过江，过了四天，四天都没有受到骚扰。河对岸的碉堡群形同虚设，何键的军队在附近城里袖手旁观，蒋介石的飞机在头上盘旋，只是侦察不扔炸弹。毛泽东和中共中央在三十日渡河，蒋介石没有阻挠。到十二月一日，四万红军主力都顺利渡过湘江。
Only now did Chiang, who had been monitoring the crossing “with total concentration,” his aides observed, seal off the river and order heavy bombing. Part of the Red rear guard was cut off on the east bank. The marchers who got across were down to half their original number,* but included the main combat troops and the HQ. Chiang knew this. His commander Ho Chien wrote the following day: “The main force of the bandits have all [crossed the river], and are fleeing to the west.”
只是在这时，一直在“函电交驰”的行营“聚精会神”、“随时查询部队到达位置，计算红军实力”(侍从室主任晏道刚语)的蒋介石，才派飞机狂轰滥炸渡江红军，封锁了湘江。被切断在湘江东岸的红军部队中，三千多人死亡。虽然过江的队伍只是出发时的一半，但这一半是主力红军和中央机关。* 何键十二月二日发电报说：“匪主力已全部通过全州、兴安中间地区[过了江]西窜。”
* 未过江的四万人，除了在湘江边被打死打伤打散的以外，其余在到达湘江前六个星期的行程中掉队、病逝、累死，逃亡或死伤于沿途不时有的小型遭遇战。
There can be no doubt that Chiang let the CCP leadership and the main force of the Red Army escape.
毫无疑问，蒋介石有意放走了红军主力、中共中央与毛泽东。
WHY SHOULD CHIANG have done this? Part of the reason soon emerged when, after the crossing of the Xiang, Chiang's army drove the marchers farther westward towards the province of Guizhou, and then Sichuan. Chiang's plan was to use the Red force for his own purposes. These two provinces, together with neighboring Yunnan, formed a vast southwestern region covering well over 1 million sq km, with a population of about 100 million; they were virtually independent of the central government, as they kept their own armies and paid little tax to Nanjing. Sichuan was particularly important, being the largest, richest and most populous, with some 50 million people. It was shielded on all sides by almost inaccessible mountains, which made access “more difficult than ascending to the blue sky,” in the words of the poet Li Po. Chiang envisaged it as “the base for national revival,” i.e., a safe rear for an eventual war against Japan.
这是为什么？且看红军过了湘江之后蒋介石的动作。他把红军继续往西赶，赶進贵州，然后赶向四川。这两个省和相邻的云南省一道组成了中国的大西南，占地一百万平方公里，人口有一亿。四川最大，最富饶，人口多达五千万。险峻的山岭护卫着它，使它自古就有“蜀道难，难于上青天”的名声。蒋介石此时的战略计划是把四川建成将来对日本作战的大后方，即他所说的“复兴民族之根据地”。
Chiang could effect control only if he had his own army actually in the provinces, but they had rejected his army, and if he were to try to force his way in, there would be war. Chiang did not want to have to declare war openly on the warlords. His nation-building design was more Machiavellian—and cost-effective. He wanted to drive the Red Army into these hold-out provinces, so that their warlords would be so frightened of the Reds settling in their territory that they would allow Chiang's army in to drive the Reds out. This way, Chiang figured, his army could march in and he could impose central government control. He wanted to preserve the main body of the Red Army so that it would still pose enough of a threat to the warlords.
但这几个省表面服从中央政府，实际上是独立王国，拥有各自的军队，不向中央政府纳税。四川省更分成不同的“防区”，由大大小小的军阀分别统治着。蒋介石要统一大西南，就必须派中央政府的军队進去。但这些省拒绝接受中央军。中央军强行進入，战争便不可避免。蒋不希望打仗。他的作法是把红军赶進这些省去，使这些省的军阀由于害怕红军落脚，不得不让中央军進来帮助他们。蒋之所以保存红军主力，是因为不如此西南三省的军阀便不会感到足够的威胁。
Chiang spelled out his plan to his closest secretary: “Now when the Communist army go into Guizhou, we can follow in. It is better than us starting a war to conquer Guizhou. Sichuan and Yunnan will have to welcome us, to save themselves … From now on, if we play our cards right … we can create a unified country.” On 27 November, the very day the Reds started crossing the Xiang River and headed for Guizhou, Chiang issued his blueprint for nation-building, a “Declaration on the division of powers between the central government and the provinces.”
蒋对秘书陈布雷说：“川、黔、滇三省各自为政，共军入黔我们就可以跟進去，比我们专为图黔而用兵还好，川、滇为自救也不能不欢迎我们去，更无从藉口阻止我们去，此乃政治上最好的机会。今后只要我们军事、政治、人事、经济调配适宜，必可造成统一局面。” 就在红军开始过湘江向贵州行進的当天，一九三四年十一月二十七日，蒋介石发布了他统一中国的蓝图：《中央与地方权责宣言》。
This agenda remained secret throughout Chiang's life, and is still concealed by both Nationalist and Communist official histories. Both attribute the Communists' escape to regional warlords, with Chiang blaming the warlords, and the Communists praising them. Both share the same concern: not to reveal that it was the Generalissimo himself who let the Reds go. For the Nationalists, Chiang's methods for establishing his sway over the wayward provinces were too devious, and his miscalculation about using the Reds—which ultimately led to their triumph—too humiliating. For the Communists, it is embarrassing to acknowledge that the famed Long March was to a large extent steered by Chiang Kai-shek.
蒋介石的算盘他一生都秘而不宣。
LETTING THE REDS go was also a goodwill gesture on Chiang's part towards Russia. He needed a harmonious relationship with the Kremlin because he was under threat from Japan. And the CCP was Moscow's baby.
蒋介石放走红军也是对苏联作的姿态。蒋希望跟这个强大的邻居改善关系，以对付咄咄逼人的日本。改善关系最重要的莫过于宽容中共了。
But there was another, more secret and totally private reason. Chiang's son Ching-kuo had been a hostage in Russia for nine years. Ching-kuo was Chiang Kai-shek's sole blood descendant, not by the famous Mme Chiang, but by his first wife. After Ching-kuo was born, Chiang seems to have become sterile through contracting venereal disease several times, and he adopted another son, Weigo. But Ching-kuo, as the only blood heir, remained the closest to his heart. Chiang was steeped in Chinese tradition, in which the central concern was to have an heir. To fail to carry on the family line was regarded as the disgrace, the greatest hurt one could inflict on one's parents and ancestors, whose dead souls could then never rest in peace. One of the worst curses in China was: “May you have no heir!” And respect for one's parents and ancestors, filial piety, was the primary moral injunction dictated by tradition.
但蒋介石放走红军还有一个更秘密的纯私人动机：他要斯大林释放在苏联做人质九年的儿子经国。经国是蒋的长子，也是唯一的亲生儿子。经国出生后，蒋似乎由于感染性病而丧失生育能力。他过继了二儿子纬国。但经国仍然是他的爱子加继承人。蒋是一个非常传统的人物。传宗接代是头等要紧的事，“无后”是对祖先的罪过，对父母的不孝，所谓“不孝有三，无后为大”。中国话里有一句诅咒人的话：“让你断子绝孙！”对祖先、父母负责任的孝道是中华文化最重要的品德，蒋视此为人格的中心。
In 1925, Chiang had sent Ching-kuo, then fifteen years old, to a school in Peking. This was a time when Chiang's star was ascending in a Nationalist Party that was sponsored by Moscow. In no time, the Russians were on to Ching-kuo, and invited him to study in Russia. The young man was very keen. A few months after he arrived in Peking, Ching-kuo was taken to Moscow by a little-known but pivotal figure called Shao Li-tzu, who was a key Red mole inside the Nationalist Party.
一九二五年，经国十五岁，蒋送他去北京上学。那时蒋在国民党里是一颗正在高升的新星，支持国民党的苏联人便打上了他儿子的主意。经国一到北京他们就找到他，邀请他去苏联。年轻人很高兴，到北京才几个月就起了程。带经国去苏联的是邵力子，莫斯科埋在国民党内的红色代理人。
Planting moles was one of the most priceless gifts that Moscow bequeathed to the CCP. Mostly these moles joined the Nationalists in the first half of the 1920s, when Sun Yat-sen, who was courting the Russians, opened his party to the Communists. Infiltration worked on several levels. As well as overt Communists working inside the Nationalist movement, as Mao did, there were also secret Communists, and then a third group, those who had staged fake defections from the CCP. When Chiang split from the Communists in 1927, a large number of these secret agents stayed as “sleepers,” to be activated at the appropriate time. For the next twenty years and more, they were not only able to give the Reds crucial intelligence, they were often in a position to have a substantial influence on policy, as many had meanwhile risen very high in the Nationalist system. Ultimately, the agents played a gigantic role in helping deliver China to Mao—probably a greater role in high-level politics than in any other country in the world. Many remain unexposed even today.
红色代理人是莫斯科传给中共的无价之宝，大多是二十年代上半叶埋進国民党的。那时孙中山为了要苏俄资助，敞开了国民党的大门。中共于是在几个层次上渗入国民党。一层是像毛泽东那样的共产党员，在国民党里公开活动；一层是在国民党内的秘密共产党员；第三层是共产党员假装脱党進入国民党。国共分裂后，一大批秘密共产党员蛰伏了下来，在国民党内官至高位，为毛泽东上台立下了汗马功劳，使世界上任何别的间谍、代理人都相形见绌。有些红色代理人的真实面貌到现在仍不为人知。
Shao Li-tzu was one of them. He was actually a founding member of the CCP, but on Moscow's orders he stayed away from Party activities, and his identity was kept secret even from most Party leaders. When Chiang turned against the Communists in Shanghai in April 1927, Shao wrote the Russians a telegram that was instantly forwarded to Stalin, asking for instructions: “Shanghai disturbs me very much. I cannot be the weapon of counter-revolution. I ask for advice how to fight.”
邵力子就是这样一个人。他其实是中共创始人之一，但按莫斯科的指令一开始就不公开参加中共的活动，连中共领导人也不都知道他是谁。一九二七年四月蒋介石在上海“清党”时，邵于二十三日给他的苏联上司发了封电报，电报马上呈交斯大林本人，说：“上海使我激愤难平，我不能做反革命的工具，我请求指示应该怎样斗争。”
For the next twenty-two years, Shao stayed with the Nationalists, occupying many key posts—until the Communist victory in 1949, when he went over to Mao. He died in Peking in 1967. Even under Communist rule, his true face was never revealed, and he is still presented today as an honest sympathizer, not a long-term sleeper.
他得到的指示是继续留在国民党内，直到一九四九年才公开投向中共。他一九六七年死于北京，今天仍只被称为共产党的同情者。
It was undoubtedly on Moscow's instructions that Shao had brought Chiang's son to Russia in November 1925. When Ching-kuo completed his studies there, in 1927, he was not allowed to leave, and was forced to denounce his father publicly. Stalin was keeping him hostage while telling the world that he had volunteered to stay. Stalin liked to hold hostages. Peggy Dennis, the wife of the US Communist leader Eugene Dennis, described a visit from the Comintern éminence grise Dmitri Manuilsky as she and her husband were about to leave Russia to return to America in 1935: “The bombshell was dropped quietly … Almost casually, Manuilsky informed us that we could not take Tim [their son] back, ‘… We will send him at some other time, under other circumstances.' ” The Russians never did.
一九二五年十一月，邵力子把蒋经国带去苏联。一九二七年，经国学习完后要求回国，莫斯科不但不准，而且强迫他公开谴责父亲。斯大林把他扣做人质，对外却宣布是经国自己不愿意回国。斯大林喜欢扣人质。美国共产党领袖尤金·丹尼斯(Eugene Dennis)的妻子佩吉(Peggy)曾描述他们的儿子蒂姆(Tim)是怎样被扣作人质的。他们夫妇一九三五年离开苏联回美国前夕，共产国际负责人曼努伊尔斯基(Dmitri Manuilsky来访，“炸弹是轻轻地掷下的，几乎不经意般地掷下的。曼努伊尔斯基告诉我们，不能带蒂姆走，他说：将来会送他回去的。”但苏联人并没有把蒂姆送回。
The fact that Ching-kuo was a hostage was spelled out to his father in late 1931—by none other than his own sister-in-law, Mme Sun Yat-sen (née Soong Ching-ling), who was another Soviet agent.* Speaking for Moscow, she proposed swapping Ching-kuo for two top Russian agents who had recently been arrested in Shanghai. Chiang turned the swap down. The arrest of the two agents was a public affair, and they had been openly tried and imprisoned. But Moscow's offer unleashed a torrent of anguish in Chiang, who thought his son might now be “cruelly put to death by Soviet Russians.” On 3 December 1931 the Generalissimo wrote in his diary: “In the past few days, I have been yearning for my son even more. How can I face my parents when I die [if Ching-kuo is killed]?” On the 14th: “I have committed a great crime by being unfilial [by risking the death of his heir] …”
蒋经国的人质身分在一九三一年底由孙中山夫人宋庆龄向蒋介石挑明。宋庆龄是共产国际在中国的红色代理人。这可以从一九三七年一月二十六日她给中共驻莫斯科代表团团长王明(也是她在莫斯科的联系人)的绝密信中一览无余。信是这样开头的：“亲爱的同志：我不得不向您陈述以下事实，因为它们可能危及我将来在中国的活动……我希望您仔细考虑，然后告诉我应该怎样行动。”她报告的内容之一，是对在上海为共产国际工作的史沫特莱女士的不满，说史“不顾你们反覆的指示，继续与不可靠的人保持关系，给他们钱，然后又要党把钱还给她，”“她把外国同情者带回家来，把这个为重要目的专设的联络点糟蹋了。”“我已经把你们孤立她的指示，通知了中共中央。我不明白我们的同志为什么还在西安给她工作……也许他们认为这些指示只是我的个人意见吧。”
Chiang continued to be consumed by anxiety about what might happen to his son, and his anguish and bitterness almost certainly explain an event that happened thousands of kilometers away.
孙夫人代表莫斯科向蒋介石提议，用经国交换两名在押的重要苏联间谍牛兰（Noulens)夫妇。十二月十六日的日记中，蒋写道：“孙夫人欲强余释放[牛兰夫妇]而以经国遣归相诱。”蒋介石拒绝了。审判和监禁这两名间谍都在报上公开报导，用他们交换儿子是不可能的事。可是莫斯科的提议在蒋心中掀起巨大波澜。随着，他写出自己的担心，即经国可能被“苏俄残杀”，他就会绝后了。
蒋还在十一月二十八日写道：“迩来甚念经儿。中正不孝之罪，于此增重，心甚不安。”十二月三日：“近日思母棊切，念儿亦甚。中正死后，实无颜以见双亲也。” 十二月十四日：“晚间，以心甚悲伤，明日又是阴历十一月初七先妣诞辰，夜梦昏沉，对母痛哭二次。醒后更念，不孝罪大。”
蒋介石拚命想说服自己，十二月二十七日的日记说：“尝思传世在德行与勋业，而不在子孙。前代史传中圣贤豪杰、忠臣烈士每多无后，而其精神事迹，卓绝千秋，余为先人而独念及此，其志鄙甚。经国如未为俄寇所害，在余虽不能生见其面，迨余死后，终必有归乡之一日。如此，则余愿早死，以安先人之魂魄。”
但是，他说服不了自己。十二月三十一日的日记写道：“心绪纷乱，自付对国不能尽忠，对亲不能尽孝，对子不能尽慈，枉在人世间，忝余所生，能不心伤乎！”
At exactly this time, December 1931, Shao Li-tzu's son was found shot dead in Rome. This son had been taken by Shao to Russia in 1925 as Ching-kuo's traveling companion. But, unlike Ching-kuo, Shao junior was later allowed to return to China. The Italian press covered this death as a lovers' tragedy, one paper running the story under the headline “The tragic end of a Chinese who had wounded his lover”—a woman reported as Czech. But Shao and his family were convinced that the murder of his son, which has been covered up by both Nationalist and Communist parties, was carried out by Nationalist agents, and this could only have been done with Chiang's authorization, as personal vengeance: a son for a son.
就在那个月，邵力子的儿子志刚在罗马遭暗杀。志刚是当年由他父亲作为经国的旅伴带往苏联的。后来经国留做人质，他回国了，以后去了欧洲。意大利的报纸称这桩凶杀案为情杀：“一个伤害了情妇的中国人的悲剧结局”，“情妇”据说是个捷克女郎。今天的中共政协称志刚是被国民党“蓝衣社”特务所杀。
By the time the Long March began, Chiang had devised a carefully crafted swap: the survival of the CCP for Ching-kuo. It was not an offer that could be spelled out. He executed his plan in subtle ways. His scheme was to keep the Reds temporarily confined, and then use the Japanese to break them. Chiang regarded war with Japan as inevitable, and was well aware that Russia wanted this war. Stalin's most dreaded scenario was that Japan would conquer China, and then, with China's resources and a porous 7,000-kilometer border, would attack the Soviet Union. Chiang reckoned that once the Sino-Japanese war started, Moscow would be bound to order its Chinese clients to get active against Japan. Until that day, Chiang would allow the Reds to survive, which he hoped would be a big enough quid pro quo to get his son back.
在随后几年中，蒋介石的一个想法逐渐成熟：同莫斯科作笔交易，以中共的生存换回经国。对以反共为旗帜的蒋介石来说，这桩交易不能点破，只能用微妙的方式去处理。他要削弱红军又不消灭它们，让他们暂时苟活，生存在一个不能发展的狭小空间。蒋知道抗日之战迟早要爆发，而且苏联人希望他打日本。俄国是日本的宿敌，斯大林最怕的是日本占领中国后，用中国的资源和中苏间七千公里长的边境進攻苏联。用中国打日本、让日本陷進中国，是斯大林远东政策的核心。一旦中日开战，蒋介石相信莫斯科一定会命令中共打日本，那么红军就大有可能被日本人翦除。
Chiang did not want the Reds to cling on in the rich heartland of China. His aim was to drive them into a more barren and sparsely populated corner, where he could box them in. The prison he had in mind was the Yellow Earth Plateau in northwest China, mainly the northern part of Shaanxi province. To make absolutely sure that the Reds would walk into his fold, Chiang allowed a Communist base to flourish there, while vigorously stamping out the others elsewhere in China.
蒋不要红军待在中国的腹心地带。他看中一处可以把他们“关”起来的牢笼，在黄土高原上的陕北一带。那里地广人稀，中共可以生存，但不会有什么兵源。虽然此地比起中国南方来离苏联更近，但供蒋选择的“牢笼”不多，蒋也自认有把握能把红军圈在那里。
The main person Chiang used to implement this scheme was none other than Shao Li-tzu, the man who had taken Chiang's son to Russia.
一九三三年四月，蒋任命邵力子做陕西省主席。不用说蒋知道邵的真实身分，他就是要利用邵来为中共创造落脚点。邵的前任是同情中共、曾申请加入中共的杨虎城将军。但即使是杨当政，陕北的红色武装和根据地也极其弱小。邵的到来，才使这里的小小游击区日益壮大。
Shao was appointed governor of Shaanxi in April 1933. Though Chiang certainly knew Shao's true colors, he never exposed him, and continued to use him as if he were a bona fide Nationalist. Chiang's relationship with Shao, as with many other key moles, was an almost unbelievably complex web of intrigue, deceit, bluff and double-bluff that eventually was to spin out of his control and contribute to his downfall.
杨虎城继续任陕西国民党军事长官，与邵融洽协作。长征开始后不久，陕北红区已发展成为一块三万平方公里、九十万人口的大根据地。就这样，蒋在拔除全国所有红色根据地的同时，让陕北一枝独秀，发展得欣欣向荣，成为全国红军的家。蒋后来对美国总统罗斯福（Franklin Roosevelt)的使者居里(Lauchlin Currie)说：“我把共产党人从江西赶去陕北，在那里他们的数量降低到几千人，但没人去动他们。”
Chiang's calculation was that only a mole could foster a Red pocket, as any authentic Nationalist would destroy it. And, indeed, it was only after Shao was appointed to the area that what had hitherto been a tiny Red guerrilla operation began to grow in Shaanxi (and the edge of Gansu immediately to the west).* At the exact moment the Long March began, in mid-October 1934, Chiang came to Shaanxi province for a visit. While publicly calling for the Red “bandits” to be “wiped out,” he allowed the Red base to expand in an unprecedented manner; inside a few months, it had grown to cover 30,000 sq km, with a population of 900,000.
What Chiang had created was a corral into which he would herd all the different detachments of the Red Army as he drove them out of their various pockets in the heartland of China. His plan was to weaken them significantly along the way, but not kill them off entirely. Chiang later told an American emissary: “I drove the Communists from Jiangxi to … northern Shaanxi, where their number was reduced to a few thousands and they were left unpursued.”
The way he steered them was by communicating his own deployments by radio, which he knew would be intercepted. The Reds found that “enemy telegrams were constantly intercepted and decoded by us, and our army knew the intentions and movements of the enemy like the back of our hand.” But Chiang declined to change his codes. And the Reds went where there were no enemy troops, or very few.
赶的办法之一是任凭中共截听他的部队的电台通讯，因为红军总是朝蒋置兵薄弱的地方行進。红军发现在长征途中，“敌军电报不断被我侦译，我军对敌军动向一清二楚。”蒋明明知道，口头上也说要变更密码，但只是说说而已。
In order to make sure that the Reds followed the route he had mapped out, and to rule out any change in their instructions, Chiang decided the eve of the Reds' departure was the moment to cash in a huge intelligence coup. In June the Nationalists had covertly raided the CCP's Shanghai radio station, which had been the link between Ruijin and Moscow. For several months, the Nationalists kept the station operating under their control, and then in October they shut it down altogether. The CCP tried to re-establish a link by sending a top radio operator to Shanghai, but he defected as soon as he arrived. Assassins were sent after him. They missed the first time, but managed to kill him in his bed in a German hospital at the second attempt. From now on, Shanghai became largely irrelevant to the CCP, although it remained an important base for Moscow's secret services.
长征中的中共中央与各部红军大多保持着电台联系，但它与莫斯科之间的联系断了。当时的联系要靠上海电台中转，蒋介石在长征前夕破获了上海电台。中共重建通讯的努力未能成功：它派往上海的电台人员一去就投向了国民党。中共派杀手把他杀死在一家德国医院的病床上。
THE LONG MARCH was used by Chiang to initiate his Reds-for-son swap. Just before the breakout from the Ruijin base, he sent a request through diplomatic channels asking for his son to be returned. On 2 September 1934 he recorded in his diary that “a formal representation has been made about getting Ching-kuo home.” During the crucial period of the breakout in October–November, Chiang found a way of emphatically telling the Russians he was closing his eyes and letting the Reds go, by not merely absenting himself from the front line, but heading off a thousand kilometers in the opposite direction for a very long forty-day public tour of North China.
蒋介石用中共换儿子的交易是这样开始的：长征前夕，他第一次通过外交途径正式向苏联提出要求释放经国。这在他一九三四年九月二日的日记里有明确记载：“经国回家事，亦正式交涉。”接着他用行动表示他会为莫斯科做些什么。首先是让中共轻易地突围。在突围开始的十月下旬，蒋远离前线，跑到一千公里外的北方去了，一去就是四十天。
Moscow understood the message. During the precise period between Chiang requesting his son's release and the day Mao and Co. crossed the Xiang River and were free of Chiang's blockhouses, Moscow dramatically increased surveillance of its hostage. Ching-kuo, who had previously worked in a village and a Siberian gold mine, was now working in a machinery plant in the Urals. Then, as he later recounted, “from August to November 1934, I was suddenly … placed under the close surveillance of the Russian NKVD [KGB]. Every day I was shadowed by two men.”
莫斯科对蒋发出的信号心领神会。从蒋要求释放儿子到中共过湘江，脱离蒋的碉堡封锁线，莫斯科显着加强了对经国的控制。那时，曾在农村和西伯利亚金矿做过苦工的经国，正在乌拉山重机器厂工作。他后来自述道：“一九三四年八月到十一月间，苏联内政部突然对我严密监视。每天总有两个人跟踪我，我几乎连一刻的自由都没有。我觉得我像个囚犯一样。”
At the beginning of December, just after the Chinese Reds walked past the last blockhouses, Chiang asked for his son again (as the KGB informed Ching-kuo). But the Russians told Chiang that his son did not wish to return. “There is no end to the Russian enemy's revolting deceit,” Chiang wrote in his diary, although he said he could “cope with it calmly.”
十二月初，中共穿过了最后一道封锁线，蒋介石马上又向莫斯科提出释放经国的要求。克格勃的人告诉经国：“中国政府要我把你送回去。”苏联政府对蒋介石说他儿子不愿回国。蒋介石一面感叹“俄寇之诈伪未已”，一面又感觉“泰然自若”。
“I feel I have indeed made progress since I can even shrug off this family calamity.” Chiang knew his son would be safe—if he did more for the Reds.
他在日记中写道：“当此家难，能以一笑置之，自以为有進步也。”蒋介石明白他的儿子是安全的，只是他还得再为中共做更多的事。
*Of the other half (amounting to some 40,000), who did not make it past the river, “over 3,000” were killed at the Xiang. The rest were either scattered at the Xiang, or had perished during the preceding six weeks' trek from illness or exhaustion, or had been casualties of small skirmishes, or had deserted.
*She was the sister of Mme Chiang Kai-shek. The fact that she was a Russian agent remained a secret throughout her long life, and remains little-known to this day. But a secret letter she wrote on 26 January 1937 to Wang Ming, the head of the CCP delegation in Moscow, and her controller, shows her role beyond any doubt. The letter opens: “To Comrade Wang Ming. Dear Comrade: It is necessary for me to inform you the following facts since they may endanger my activities … in China in the near future. I place them before your consideration in the hope that you will advise me as to what course to pursue …” One of the points in her letter was complaints about the American Comintern agent Agnes Smedley, who, Mme Sun said, brought “foreign sympathizers home, with the result that this special house which has been used for important purposes now has been ruined … I forwarded your instructions to isolate her” to the CCP.
*The Nationalist army commander in Shaanxi was a fellow traveler called General Yang Hu-cheng, who had earlier asked to join the Communist Party, and whose relationship to the Reds was known to Chiang. He collaborated well with Shao.