13 LONG MARCH II: THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
13 长征之二：躲避张国焘
(1934–35 AGE 40–41)
1934～1935 年 40～41 岁
BY MID-DECEMBER, Chiang had steered the Long March into Guizhou, the first province he wanted to bring under control. As he had foreseen, the arrival of a Red Army 40,000 strong threw the local warlord into a panic. Chiang “has long wanted to take over Guizhou,” the warlord recalled feeling at the time. “Now, the Central Government Army is coming hot on the heels of the Red Army, and I could not possibly turn him down … I was really in turmoil. Under the circumstances, I decided to place myself under Chiang's command.” On 19 December, eight divisions of the Central Government Army marched into the provincial capital and at once started building an airport and roads. Soon afterwards, they took over key positions and, as the warlord put it, “turned themselves from guests into masters.”
十二月中，蒋介石把长征的红军赶往贵州。正如蒋预见的，四万红军的降临吓坏了贵州军阀王家烈。他后来写道：蒋“早就想攫取贵州，以便控制西南各省。这次，他的“中央军”乘尾追红军的机会，要進贵州来了，我又不可能拒绝，前思后想，心绪异常烦乱。在当时形势下，我决定执行蒋介石的命令”。十二月十九日，中央军八个师進驻省会贵阳，立即开始修机场、筑公路，照王家烈的说法是“反客为主”了。
Chiang then funneled the Red Army northward to his next target, Sichuan, by blocking off other routes while leaving this passage wide open. Chiang's plan was to repeat his Guizhou takeover here, and then propel the Reds farther north into Shaanxi. But here things began to deviate from the planned scenario, as Mao started to behave in ways Chiang could not have predicted. Mao was determined not to move into Sichuan. His motive, however, had nothing to do with Chiang, but with his struggle for power within his own Party.
蒋接着把红军朝四川赶。他截断了红军的其他途径，只敞开这一条大道。蒋的计划是按贵州模式接管四川，然后再把红军北上赶到陕北去。可是在这个时候，一个意想不到的情况出现了：毛泽东死活不進四川。原因并不是他有意破坏蒋介石的计划，而是为了个人在中共党内的权力。
Mao had started taking active steps to seize the leadership of his Party once the marchers entered Guizhou. This required splitting his Party foes from within. In particular, he had been cultivating two key men with whom he had not previously been on the best of terms: Wang Jia-xiang, nicknamed the “Red Prof,” and Lo Fu, the man who had taken away his job as “prime minister.” Mao had crossed swords with them in the past, but now he buttered them up, as they both had grudges against Party No. 1 Po Ku.
毛一進贵州就积极行动要夺权。他早就在進行分化中央、争取同谋的活动，特别力争两个他从前并不喜欢的人。一个是绰号“红色教授”的王稼祥，一个是接任他“总理”职位的张闻天。毛跟这两个人早先都干过仗，现在他竭力拉拢他们，因为他俩都对第一把手博古心怀不满.
The two had been students in Moscow with Po, who was the younger man but had leapfrogged over both of them to become their boss, and had sometimes excluded them from decision-making. Po “sidelined me,” Lo Fu said years later, and this drove Lo into Mao's arms. “I felt I was put in a position completely without power, which I resented bitterly,” Lo recalled. “I remember one day before the departure, comrade Tse-tung had a chat with me, and I told him all my resentment without reserve. From then on, I became close to comrade Tse-tung. He asked me to stick together with him and comrade Wang Jia-xiang—so that way a trio was formed, headed by comrade Mao.”
这两人曾跟博古在莫斯科同学，不甘心比他们年轻的博古跨越他们成了党的领袖，把他们时时排斥在决策之外。张闻天后来说博古“排挤我”，“我当时感觉得我已经处于无权的地位，我心里很不满意。记得在出发前有一天，泽东同志同我闲谈，我把这些不满意完全向他坦白了。从此，我同泽东同志接近起来。他要我同他和王稼祥同志住在一起--这样就形成了以毛泽东同志为首的反对李德、博古领导的“中央队”三人集团。”
The trio traveled together, usually reclining on litters. Bamboo litters were authorized for a few leaders, each of whom was also entitled to a horse, and porters to carry their belongings. For much of the Long March, including the most grueling part of the trek, most of them were carried. Mao had even designed his own transportation. Mrs. Lo Fu recalled him making preparations with the Red Prof, and showing off his ingenuity. “He said: ‘Look, we have designed our own litters … we will be carried.' He and Jia-xiang looked rather pleased with themselves showing me their ‘works of art': their kind of litter had very long bamboo poles so it would be easier and lighter to carry climbing mountains. It had a tarpaulin awning … so [the passenger] would be shielded from the sun and the rain.”
这个“三人集团”一块儿行军，通常是躺在担架上。中央领导有权坐担架。在艰难的长征中，他们大都被人抬着走。毛甚至设计了自己的旅行工具。张闻天夫人刘英回忆毛夸耀他跟王稼祥的担架：““你看，我们设计了担架哩。我和稼祥，一个病号，一个彩号，抬着走。”他同稼祥颇为得意地向我介绍他们的“杰作”。这种担架，竹子抬杆，长长的，爬山方便，抬起来省力，上面用油布做成弧形的盖，好像南方江河里的船篷，不怕雨淋日晒。”
Mao himself told his staff decades later: “On the March, I was lying in a litter. So what did I do? I read. I read a lot.” It was not so easy for the carriers. Marchers remembered: “When climbing mountains, the litter-bearers sometimes could only move forward on their knees, and the skin and flesh on their knees were rubbed raw before they got to the top. Each mountain climbed left a trail of their sweat and blood.”
毛后来对他身边的工作人员说，他长征中“坐在担架上，做什么？ 我看书，看了不少书。”对抬担架的人来说日子可就没那么舒服了。长征过来人说：“爬山的时候担架员们只能用膝盖跪行，有时直到膝盖跪烂，才能爬到山顶。爬完一座山，洒下一路血与汗。”
Wafted on other men's shoulders, Mao plotted a coup with Po Ku's two jealous colleagues. When the road was wide enough, they talked side by side; and on narrow paths, when they had to go in single file, they arranged their litters so that their heads were together. One meeting was held in an orange grove, golden with ripe fruit hanging among bright green leaves. The litter-bearers were taking a break, and had laid down their burdens next to each other. The trio decided to work together to “throw out” Po, along with Braun, the German adviser, and give Mao control of the army. As Mao was still very unpopular, and was not even a member of the Secretariat, the core body, he did not shoot for the top Party slot at this stage. That position was earmarked for Lo Fu, the only member of the trio who was in the Secretariat. The Red Prof's reward would be full Politburo membership. The trio started to lobby for a meeting to discuss how the Reds had lost their state.
毛跟博古的两位嫉妒的同事在担架上谋划怎样夺权。路窄时一前一后，路宽时并排抬着，让他们的头凑在一起好说话。有一次碰头是在一处橘林里，绿树上挂满了金黄色的橘子。担架夫停下来歇气，把他们并排放在地上。“三人集团”决定他们的目标是撤掉博古和李德，把军权给毛。党权给张闻天，三人中唯一的书记处书记。王稼祥呢，他将从政治局候补委员晋升为正式委员。各人的位子都安排好了，他们就要求开政治局会议．讨论中央苏区为什么垮台。
Po Ku consented to a post-mortem. In fact, he had been feeling so bad about the Reds' failure that his colleagues thought he might commit suicide, after seeing him repeatedly pointing a pistol at himself.
博古爽快地同意了。他一直在为丧失中国的第一个红色政权而非常苦恼，曾屡屡举起手枪对着自己，好像在考虑自杀。
So a gathering of twenty men, the Politburo and selected military commanders, convened on 15–17 January 1935 in the city of Zunyi in north Guizhou. Much of the meeting was taken up with rehashing the question of responsibility for the collapse of the Red state. Mao's trio blamed everything on the key pre–Long March leaders, especially Po and Braun.
一九三五年一月十五到十七日，政治局委员跟军事领导人等二十来人，在贵州北部的遵义城开会。会上争来争去，毛等三人把责任都推在博古与李德身上。
It is commonly claimed that Mao became the leader of the Party and the army at the Zunyi meeting—and by majority mandate. In fact, Mao was not made chief of either the Party or the army at Zunyi. Po Ku remained Party No. 1, endorsed by the majority; the consensus was that losing Ruijin could not be blamed on him. Braun, as the only foreigner, provided a convenient scapegoat and was removed from military command. But although Mao's two co-conspirators proposed that Mao take over, no one else seems to have supported this, and Chou En-lai was reconfirmed as military boss, with “responsibility for final decision-making in military matters.”*
中共党史称这次遵义会议确立了毛泽东在党和军队里的领袖地位。其实会上毛既没有成为党的领袖，也没有被授予军队的指挥权。会议结果，博古仍然做党的第一把手。李德是唯一的外国人，被撤了军权。尽管毛的“三人集团”提议要毛接管，大多数人没有响应，要周恩来继续作“最高军事首长”，“军事上下最后决心的负责者”。*
* 遵义会议上大多数人并没有拥戴毛，还可从另一事实上看出：毛后来虽然屡提遵义会议，可除了他的两个同谋者外，点不出几个支持他的人名来。
However, Mao did achieve one critical breakthrough at Zunyi: he became a member of the Secretariat, the decision-making core. The previous make-up of this group had been established by Moscow in January 1934. It had seven members, of whom four were on the March: Po Ku, Chou En-lai, Lo Fu, and a man called Chen Yun. The other three were Xiang Ying, Wang Ming, the CCP's representative in Moscow, and Chang Kuo-tao, leader of what was then the second-largest Red base. At Zunyi, the Red Prof proposed that Mao be brought into the Secretariat. Actually, the Red Prof had no right to make this nomination, as he was not a full Politburo member. But Po Ku was too guilt-ridden and demoralized to oppose Mao's promotion, and it went through. Moscow was not consulted, as radio contact had been severed.
不过，毛在遵义会议上获得了一个成败攸关的突破：他终于進入了决策核心“书记处”。莫斯科一九三四年一月认可的书记处有七名成员，四名在长征途上：博古、周恩来、张闻天、陈云。另三名是留在苏区的项英，中共驻莫斯科代表团团长王明，以及红四方面军的首领张国焘。遵义会议上，王稼祥提议毛進书记处，尽管王稼祥只是政治局候补委员，无权提议谁做书记处书记。
Once inside the Secretariat, Mao was in a position to manipulate it. Of the four other members on the March, Lo Fu was already an ally, and Chen Yun took no interest in power, and was often physically absent, coping with logistics. That left Chou and Po. Mao's strategy towards Chou was to split him off from Po with a combination of carrots and sticks, of which the foremost was blackmail, by threatening to make him co-responsible for past failures. At Zunyi it was decided that a resolution should be produced about how the Red state had been lost, and Mao's co-conspirator Lo Fu contrived to get himself the job of drafting it, which would normally be done by the Party No. 1.
毛当上了书记处书记，这使他只需对付几个人就能决定大局。长征途上的四名书记中，张闻天是同谋，陈云是一个躲开权力斗争的人，又常常在基层处理行军中的具体问题。剩下的只有博古跟周恩来。毛的策略是拉周打博。遵义会议要写一个“决议”，一般这是第一把手的事，但这次张闻天获权起草。
This document would be the verdict. It would be conveyed to the Party, and reported to Moscow. Lo Fu first produced a draft with the subtitle “Review of military policy errors of Comrades Po Ku, Chou En-lai and Otto Braun” and naming Chou as a co-culprit in the loss of the Red state. After Chou agreed to cooperate, his name was dropped and the blame deleted.
这个决议将要传达给全党，还要送交莫斯科，对周恩来再重要不过。张闻天初拟的决议上，标题就点了周恩来的名，说丧失中央苏区他是祸首之一：“博古、周恩来、华夫(即李德)同志错误军事政策的总结”。周跟毛等人合作了，他的名字也就被划掉了，决议中对他的批判也大大降级。
As Braun drily put it, Chou “subtly distanced himself from Po Ku and me, thus providing Mao with the desired pretext to focus his attack on us while sparing him.” That left Po as the only problem, and Mao could always put him in the minority. Indeed, as soon as the Zunyi meeting was over and most of the participants had rejoined their units, Mao secured from this new core group the unheard-of and decidedly odd-sounding title of “helper to comrade En-lai in conducting military affairs.” Mao had shoved a foot back inside the door of the military leadership.
正如李德冷冷地写道：周“巧妙地跟博古和我保持距离，使毛集中火力攻击我们而放过了他”。这样一来，毛在书记处中占了多数。遵义会议一结束，参加者分别回他们的队伍，毛立刻左右书记处作出决定：“泽东同志为恩来同志的军事指挥上的帮助者”。“帮助者”这个头衔，军事辞典里大概难以找到。毛就这么把一只脚插進了军事领导中。
This new core then elevated the Red Prof to full Politburo membership, and before long awarded him a high military post, even though he knew nothing about military matters. Most importantly, three weeks after Zunyi, on 5 February, in a village where three provinces met called “A Cock Crows Over Three Provinces,” Lo Fu was catapulted into the No. 1 Party post in place of Po Ku. Mao and Lo Fu first got Chou to capitulate and then confronted Po Ku with a “majority” in the core. Po agreed to surrender his post “only as the result of numerous discussions and pressure,” as he described it.
新的书记处接着把王稼祥提升为政治局正式委员。最重要的是，遵义会议三星期后，二月五日，在位于三省交界的一个叫“鸡鸣三省”的村子里，张闻天取代博古，当上了中共第一号人物。
Lo Fu's rise to Party No. 1 was an underhand coup, and so it was kept secret from both Party members and the army for weeks. The change at the apex was only revealed when a military victory put the plotters in a stronger position. Po was now excluded from decision-making, and as Lo Fu was a rather feeble character, Mao called the shots.
夺权的经过是这样的：毛跟张闻天结伙先去找周恩来，谈好了再去把这个“多数人决定”通知博古。博古后来说，他们跟他“没完没了地谈，施加了无穷无尽的压力”，他不得已才让位。
由于张闻天当第一把手不是遵义会议的决定，而是几个人搞的“政变”，因此密谋者们等了几个星期，直到打了一场胜仗，有了定心丸，才宣布了这个更换。从此毛泽东当上了那个虽不乏雄心但欠狠心、欠手腕的张闻天的幕后操纵人。
THE ZUNYI MEETING decided to move into Sichuan. Sichuan lay just north of Zunyi, and was the obvious place to head for, being large, rich and populous—and long since recommended by the Russians to the force from Ruijin. It was much closer to Soviet-controlled Mongolia, and to Xinjiang (which had by now become a virtual Soviet colony, garrisoned by Russian forces), two places to which Moscow had been preparing to ship arms for the CCP. The former chief Soviet military adviser in China, Stern, had been investigating ways to link Sichuan with locations where the Russians could even supply “aeroplanes and artillery … and enough weapons to arm 50,000 people.”*
遵义会议决定的方针是：北渡长江，到四川去，同已在川北的张国焘领导的红四方面军协同作战，建立根据地。一九三五年一月十九日，中央红军离开遵义，朝四川行進。四川就在遵义北边，接近苏联控制的外蒙古、新疆，是红军北上打通苏联的必经之路。* 二十二日，中央打电报给张国焘，要张前来配合策应。
* 美国驻云南的副领事当时向华盛顿报告说：“中国的形势一天天地更严重了。如果没有奇迹发生，共产党人就要不管怎么样闯進四川了。到时候，那个人们知道的打通苏俄的计划就要实现了，那时再谈摧毁共产党就是一句空话了。”前苏联军事顾问斯兰恩制定了几套朝四川方向运军火的方案，包括提供“飞机大炮”，“和足以装备五千人的武器”。苏联武官雷邦也为运输途径提出秘密建议。莫斯科派中共前负责人李立三到靠近中国边界的秘密苏军情报点，着手恢复跟中共的电台联系。
But Mao did not want to go to Sichuan. To do so would mean joining up with Chang Kuo-tao, a veteran who headed a much stronger force numbering 80,000-plus. Once they linked up with this powerful army, there would be no hope of Lo Fu becoming Party leader—or of Mao becoming the power behind the throne.
但对毛来说，四川不能進--進了迟早要跟张国焘会师。这时，张闻天尚未当上第一把手，一旦会了师，张闻天任一把手将毫无希望，毛也就当不了幕后操纵人。
Chang Kuo-tao had chaired the Party's 1st Congress in 1921, when Mao was a marginal participant and Lo Fu not even a Party member (Lo joined in 1925). He was a bona fide member of the Secretariat—unlike Mao, who had just squeezed his way in against the rules. In addition, Kuo-tao was a full member of the Comintern Executive Committee, which gave him considerable prestige, and he had influence in Russia, where he had lived for years, and met Stalin. After he returned from Moscow to China in January 1931, he was sent by Shanghai to head a Red enclave called Eyuwan, on the borders of the provinces of Hubei, Henan and Anhui in east-central China. There he built up a base comparable to Ruijin, which by summer 1932 had an area of over 40,000 sq km and a population of 3.5 million, with an army of 45,000 men. After he was driven out that autumn by Chiang Kai-shek, he moved to northern Sichuan, where he built a new and bigger base within a year, and expanded his army to over 80,000.* Kuo-tao was undoubtedly the most successful of all the Communists. Once he joined the rest of the leadership, it seemed inevitable that he would be elected the new boss.
张国焘的资格很老，一九二一年中共召开“一大”他就是会议主席，那时毛泽东还不起眼，张闻天连党也没入(他一九二五年入党)。不像毛，张国焘是按共产党程序选出，莫斯科钦定的书记处书记。张国焘又是共产国际执行委员会委员，在苏联住了好些年，还见过斯大林。 他一九三一年一月从莫斯科回国后，被派去中央苏区以外的鄂豫皖，到一九三二年夏天，把鄂豫皖建成了个拥有四万平方公里土地、三百五十万人口、四万五千红军的大型根据地。蒋介石在那年秋天把他赶出鄂豫皖，他到了四川北部，一年内又建立起新的更大的根据地，拉起一支八万人的大军。*
* 张国焘如此成功，很大程度上是因为川北在一帮格外贪婪的军阀统治下。县城里也有“打精巴子”的老百姓；穷得赤身裸体，缩成一团在路上走。红四方面军一九三二年底从川北入川时，据徐向前说，蒋介石大中央军也想趁机跟着入川，但四川军阀“硬是不要他们進来帮忙”，给中央军“吃了闭门羹”。
凭实力，凭资历，凭地位，张国焘在会师后都几乎可以肯定会坐上中共第一把交椅。
Nor could Mao expect to turn him into a puppet. Kuo-tao had no compunction about killing for power. In his bases he had carried out bloody purges of the original local commanders, who had opposed him. Like Mao, he personally chaired interrogations involving torture. His victims were usually bayoneted or strangled to death; some were buried alive. As his military commander Xu put it, he would readily “get rid of people who stood in his way, to establish his personal rule.”
张国焘不会当毛的傀儡。像毛一样，他也会为了权杀人不眨眼。在他的根据地里，他也屠杀当地领导人，也亲自主持过刑讯。受害者有的被刺刀挑死，有的勒死，有的活埋。红四方面军指挥官徐向前说：张国焘“藉口肃反，翦除异己，建立个人统治”。
With this daunting figure to contend with, Mao's prospects of coming out on top would be dim. Moreover, if he waged a power struggle against Kuo-tao, he might well be risking his own life. So far, Mao had been dealing with Party leaders whose devotion to the Party meant they would kill on its behalf but not for personal power. He had been perfectly safe with Po Ku or Chou En-lai even if he made trouble for them. He could not count on that much forbearance from Kuo-tao, so his overriding goal was to delay any move into Sichuan until he had an unbreakable grip on the Party leadership.
有这么一个人物在场，毛泽东难以出头。要是他跟张国焘争权夺利，说不定自己会丧了命--他在江西大打AB团时的同伙刘士奇，就是张国焘杀的。迄今为止，毛对付的党的领导人都为党杀人而不为个人权力杀人。无论毛如何跟博古、周恩来捣乱，他们也不会碰他。但对张国焘他就不那么有把握了。毛一定得回避跟张国焘会师。
But Mao could not spell out this goal. He had to go along with the plan to head for Sichuan. On 19 January 1935 the force with him set off from Zunyi, and on the 22nd they cabled Chang Kuo-tao, who was in north Sichuan, announcing they were coming and telling him to move south to link up with them. But Mao had a trick up his sleeve. Four days later he insisted that the Red Army should ambush an enemy force that was tailing their group. This force was from Sichuan, and had a tough reputation. Mao's unspoken private calculation was that the Red Army might well suffer a defeat, in which case he could argue that the Sichuan enemy was too fierce, and then demand to stay in Guizhou.
但毛无法反对進四川，他只能跟着走。到了四川边境，他开始耍花招。他坚持要红军设埋伏打一支尾随的敌军。这支敌军是四川军队，有能征善战的名声。毛的用意是红军如果打败，那么他就可以以川军太厉害的藉口把红军留在贵州。
The idea of the ambush was absurd, as the enemy unit Mao picked to attack was not barring the way into Sichuan, but was behind the Reds, and was not even harassing them. In fact the original plan which had designated Sichuan as their destination had specifically ordered: “keep well away from” pursuers, and “not to tangle” with them. But Mao managed to win consent from Chou En-lai, who had the final say in military decisions, most probably by threatening Chou that if he failed to go along he would be named as co-responsible for losing the Red state in the “resolution” Lo Fu was writing. It seems Chou had a mortal fear of disgrace—a weakness that Mao was to exploit repeatedly in the decades to come.
这场埋伏战毫无道理。敌军并没有挡在红军前面，而且根本没有骚扰红军。遵义会议制定的向四川前進的计划中，曾特别说：“对尾追之敌”“应迅速脱离”，“勿为敌人所抑留”。但最高军事负责人周恩来顺从了毛。
ON 28 JANUARY, Mao ordered his ambush set up to the east of a place called Tucheng, with a devastating outcome for the Reds. The enemy lived up to its fearsome reputation, and quickly seized the advantage, shattering the force that Mao had stationed with their backs against the turbulent Red River where it rushed between steep cliffs. Mao stood on a peak in the distance watching his troops being decimated, and only at the end of a whole day's bloody battle did he permit a withdrawal. It was raining hard and the retreating troops panicked, jostling to get ahead on the slippery mountain paths. The women and wounded were pushed to the back. The enemy was so close behind that one pursuer grabbed Mrs. Zhu De's backpack with one hand, while pulling at her gun with the other. She let go her backpack and ran. It was the only battle on the March when people in the HQ had had such a close brush with the enemy.
一月二十八日，毛下令在一个叫土城的地方设伏。结果如毛所料，敌军名不虚传，反守为攻，把红军打得落花流水。根据毛的部署，红军还被摆在背水作战的地位上，背靠一条被窄窄的峡谷挤得水流湍急的赤水河。毛站在远处的山顶上，观看他的队伍的惨败，一天后才下令退兵。天下着雨，山路滑，退兵争先恐后往前赶，伤员和妇女被推到后面。敌人紧追过来，朱德的妻子康克清的背包被一把拽住，她甩手扔掉了背包，才得以跑脱。长征中这是唯一一次非战斗部队成员离敌人如此近。
Four thousand Red Army men were killed or wounded—10 percent of the total. Tucheng was the biggest defeat on the Long March, and was remembered as such in private, while being completely suppressed in public—because Mao was responsible, having picked both the ground and the moment. In one day he brought about far greater casualties than had been incurred in the previous biggest loss, at the Xiang River (just over 3,000). The myth is that Mao saved the Red Army after Zunyi. The truth is the exact reverse.
四千红军死亡或受重伤：整个中央红军的十分之一。土城之战是长征中最大的败仗，一天之中损失的人数比渡湘江时的伤亡还多。后来中共说，遵义会议后毛挽救了红军，事实恰恰相反
The Communists crossed the Red River to the west in disarray over hastily constructed pontoons, abandoning heavy artillery and equipment like the X-ray machine. Zhu De personally covered the retreat, Mauser in hand. Normally calm, this day he lost his temper and yelled at his officers in frustration. The exhausted men had to carry or pull their wounded comrades along winding paths above vertiginous cliffs. Heavy snowfalls blanketed the dense forests and the valleys. The bitter cold, hunger, exhaustion, and the cries of pain from the wounded haunted many survivors for decades to come.
赤水河上红军搭起浮桥向西退去，重武器和X光机等医疗器械都扔掉了。朱德手提驳壳枪，亲自掩护撤退。他平常安详从容，现在也忍不住恼火发脾气。疲惫不堪的官兵们背着拉着他们的同志，在崎岖的山路上艰难地爬行。下大雪了，雪埋住了密密的森林和深深的峡谷。严寒、饥饿、筋疲力尽、伤员的痛苦呻吟，使幸存者几十年后仍记忆犹新。
THIS TRAGIC SCENE was exactly what Mao wanted in order to argue that the Sichuan army was too grim to tangle with, and that therefore the Reds should not make for Sichuan as the original plan had laid down. But they were already inside the southeast corner of Sichuan, and many felt they had to push on northward.
这场败仗为毛不進四川提供了根据。就在这时，毛与张闻天夺了博古的权。两天后的二月七日，入川计划宣告作废。但这时红军已经在四川境内了，因为赤水河以西就是川南。军事指挥官都赞成继续北進，与张国焘会合。毛的老搭档林彪也和别人一样不满毛挑起土城之战。当毛到林彪的部队去争取林的支持时，林把一肚子的火都挂在睑上。但是，依然是毛说了算。
The main military commanders, even Mao's old crony Lin Biao, supported pressing deeper into Sichuan. Furthermore, they all felt very unhappy about having let Mao dictate the Tucheng ambush. When Mao turned up at Lin Biao's to justify himself (and lay the blame on others), Braun noticed that Lin looked “decidedly sour.” But Mao prevailed, with the backing of Lo Fu. Lo shared an interest with Mao in avoiding—or postponing—joining up with Chang Kuo-tao, as his own newly acquired position as Party No. 1 would be seriously endangered if they linked up with Kuo-tao this soon. On 7 February 1935 the new Lo Fu leadership announced that the original plan—to go into Sichuan—was scrapped, in favor of Mao's proposal to stay put in Guizhou.
The Communists turned around and crossed the Red River again. The thousands of wounded were dumped in the wintry wilderness, with little food and medicine. Within a few months most were dead.*
红军于是再渡赤水河返回贵州。成千伤员被留在河西边的深山老林里，无衣无食无药，几个月内大多数都难逃一死。*
* 长征中一般是把伤员留在老百姓家里，留给他们一点钱。他们的命运靠的是运气。张国焘的部队留下了一些受伤生病的女兵。在红色统治下受过罪的当地人有的在她们身上泄愤，用割乳房、把木棍打進阴道等种种酷刑折磨她们。为了生存，有的女兵嫁给了当地相对富有的人，但中共掌权以后，她们被划为“地主”，一生挨斗受歧视。一九八五年，党史学者找到她们时，看见这些六、七十岁的人在严寒的十一月连鞋都舍不得穿。
Mao's force reoccupied Zunyi on 27 February. Chiang wanted to harry the Reds into Sichuan, so he sent a feisty general with two divisions to retake the city, which he also bombed. The Reds managed to fend these troops off. Mao was hugely delighted, especially as these were crack troops, and this meant he might be able to stay—at least for time enough to enable him and his puppet Lo Fu to consolidate their power. He penned a poem to voice his satisfaction:
二十七日，红军重占遵义。蒋介石要的是红军去四川，不要红军在贵州立足。他派了两个师前来攻城，又派飞机轰炸。红军打退了進攻者，稳住了阵脚。毛大喜过望，因为这两师是强敌中央军，如果红军能抵御他们，就能在贵州站住脚。兴高采烈的毛赋词抒情：
Idle claim that the strong pass is a wall of iron,
“雄关漫道真如铁，
Today I crest the summit with one stride.
而今迈步从头越。
Crest the summit,
从头越，
The rolling mountains sea-blue,
苍山如海，
The dying sun blood-red.
残阳如血。
It was only now that Mao and Lo Fu informed the army, including Chang Kuo-tao, that Lo Fu was the new No. 1, and that Mao had joined the Secretariat. There was nothing Kuo-tao could do. Mao and Lo Fu had deliberately waited until they had a “victory” under their belts before disclosing the changes. Once these were announced, and there was no open protest, Lo Fu appointed Mao as “General Front Commander,” a new post created specially for him, and his first formal military position for two and a half years.
有了这场胜仗垫底，毛和张闻天才向中央红军，以及向张国焘的红四方面军发电报宣布：张闻天现在是头号人物，毛是书记处书记。张闻天紧接着任命毛为红军“前敌总指挥”，一个专门为毛设立的位子。自宁都会议以来，毛第一次有了军事职务。
The “win” was in fact a Pyrrhic victory. Peng De-huai recorded “great losses” in his corps. “Only one regiment can maintain … 50 to 60 men per company … Now all the regiment headquarters and the corps HQ were empty as if they had been cleaned out by floods.” Another “deeply worried” senior officer counseled: “We have not many troops left; we should avoid having tough battles … the Red Army can no longer stand such cost.”
但毛的“胜仗”代价惨重。彭德怀心情沉重地报告说，三军团“减员很多，现在只有一个团能维持原编制，每连也只有五、六十人，其余各团，每连仅编四、五个班”。还说：两位团长负伤，六位营长伤亡，“现在各团部及军团参谋处一空如洗”。另一位“深为红军的安危担心”的军官黄克诚央求说：“剩下的部队已经不多了。当前保存革命力量十分重要，应该尽量避免与敌人打硬仗，因为红军再也经受不起消耗了。”
Mao, however, was bent on taking on more of Chiang's forces. They now controlled Guizhou, and he needed to tackle them if he was to stand a chance of establishing a base in the province—essential for his plan to stay out of Sichuan. On 5 March he issued an order to “eliminate two Central Government divisions.” This touched off a barrage of protest from the field commanders who had been infuriated by the way Mao had been squandering their troops. Lin Biao cabled “most urgently” on the 10th against taking on these hard-bitten enemies.
可是毛为了在贵州待下去，仍要再打现已控制了贵州的中央军。三月五日，他下令“消灭”中央军的两个师。这一命令在野战指挥员中引起强烈抗议。林彪在十日打“万急”电报反对打这个强敌。
At dawn that day Lo Fu called some twenty people to a council of war, with the field commanders present. Mao found himself completely isolated on the issue of attacking Chiang's crack forces. Even his ally Lo Fu disagreed. When Mao misplayed his hand and threatened to resign as Front Commander, the majority jumped at the offer. Peng De-huai was appointed in his place, and the council voted to steer clear of Chiang's forces.
那天凌晨，张闻天召开了包括林彪、彭德怀等野战指挥员在内的二十来人的会议，讨论作战方案。毛泽东在会议上完全孤立，甚至张闻天也不支持他。毛争着争着脱口而出，威胁辞职：以“辞去前敌总指挥职务力争”。众人抓住这句话，马上说：“少数服从多数，不干就不干。”毛被撤了职，前敌总指挥大家选彭德怀替代。
This time it seemed that Mao was really out. But he lost no time in plotting to reverse the decisions. That night, kerosene lamp in hand, he walked over to see Chou En-lai, who theoretically still had the final say in military matters, and talked him into holding another meeting in the morning—crucially, without the field commanders, who had returned to their units.
毛自知失言，立刻行动要夺回军权。当天晚上，他手提马灯去找周恩来，周还是“最高军事首长”。毛要周第二天早上再开一次会，这一次的关键是，野战指挥员都无法参加，他们已回各自的部队去了。
Mao offered Chou an inducement. With the creation of the post of General Front Commander, Chou had become somewhat redundant. Mao now suggested scrapping the post of Front Commander and setting up a new body to be called the Triumvirate, consisting of Chou, himself and the Red Prof.
毛向周建议干脆取消的前敌总指挥，代之以一个新的“三人团”，由毛、周、王稼祥组成。周接受了。毛是一举数得：既不伤彭德怀的面子，又安抚了因未获实权而牢骚满腹的王稼祥，还使自己从此在军事指挥上与周恩来平起平坐。
With the field commanders absent, Mao was able to manipulate the second meeting. The decisions to appoint Peng in Mao's place and to avoid Chiang's forces were both annulled. A clear ruling by a quorum was thus overturned by a rump, with the crucial complicity of Chou. Moreover, as a result of these underhand changes, from 11 March 1935 on, the top army command did not contain a single genuine officer.
第二天开会，一切按毛的意思办。彭德怀的前敌总指挥一职被取消了，不打中央军的决定也被推翻，大多数人的决定就这样被几个人串通着一笔勾销。
The new Triumvirate immediately ordered an attack on Chiang's forces near Maotai, the home of the most famous Chinese liquor, where the enemy was well dug in. “Disengage fast,” Peng pleaded. “Enemy fortifications are solid, and geography is bad for us. There is no possibility of breaking [this Chiang unit].” But the Triumvirs insisted: “Throw in all our forces tomorrow … absolutely no wavering.”
“三人团”决定在名酒“茅台”的家乡附近的鲁班场進攻中央军。彭德怀请求道：“敌人阵地工事坚固，地形对我不利，无攻破[中央军]周浑元可能。似应迅速脱离当前之敌。”但“三人团”坚持说：“以全部力量，于明十五号绝不动摇地消灭鲁班场之敌”。
When the Reds launched a frontal offensive, Chiang's army was ready with heavy machine-guns, and routed the attackers, who suffered well over a thousand casualties. The routed Communists crossed the Red River once again and were forced into Sichuan.
当红军遵命向中央军的坚固阵地進攻时，国民党以机关枪迎候，红军大败，伤亡一千多。受到重创的队伍又拥挤渡过赤水河，被逼回川南。
Having got them where he wanted, Chiang blocked their way back into Guizhou. But Mao still spurned the obvious best option—to go on north—and ordered the Red Army to turn around and cross the river again and force its way back into Guizhou. This was so unreasonable and so unpopular that an unusual order was issued, for the eyes of the top commanders only, specially enjoining: “This crossing to the east must not be announced and must be kept secret.”
蒋介石调兵堵住了红军回贵州之路。害怕和张国焘会师的毛硬是命令红军调过身来再渡赤水，强回贵州。这个决定是如此不通情理，如此不得人心，一道不寻常的命令以“党中央总政治部” 的双重名义下达给了几个高级指挥员：“这次东渡，事前不得传达，以保秘密。”
For two months, the Red Army had been “circling in an ever-contracting area, so that it passed through some districts two or three times,” in “exhausting and fruitless wandering,” a perplexed Braun observed, taking the whole thing to be “erratic.” It had fought seemingly gratuitous battles, at horrendous cost. Moreover, Mao had not just brought disasters on the army under him, he was also placing Chang Kuo-tao's army in jeopardy, by obliging it to hang around and wait for him. Mao later shamelessly called this fiasco his “tour de force.” The fact that these huge losses were due to his jockeying for personal power remains unknown to this day.
两个月了，红军四渡赤水，绕来绕去。李德纳闷地记道：红军在“兜圈子，越兜越小，有的地方经过了两三次”，“疲惫不堪、毫无结果地乱绕”。眼看着红军给自己徒添惨重伤亡，他以为这一切是“古怪、不理智”。不仅中央红军无端受罪，张国焘率领的红四方面军已离开根据地前来策应，何去何从，悬而不定。为了个人权力而不顾红军死活的毛，后来把“四渡赤水”叫作他的“得意之笔”。
CHIANG KAI-SHEK, TOO, was baffled to see the enemy “wandering in circles in this utterly futile place.” Unaware of Mao's private agenda, Chiang had expected the Reds to go to Sichuan. Assuming that his own army would be following them in, on 2 March he had flown to Chongqing, the largest city in the province, to enforce central government rule. Chiang tried to terminate the quasi-independent fiefs, but the warlords put up dogged, though non-martial, resistance. He found himself powerless to subdue them, as his army was not on hand.
蒋介石跟李德一样，也完全不明白“红军徘徊于此绝地”是在搞什么名堂。他以为红军肯定会進四川，中央军可以就势跟進，已在三月二日飞往四川最大的城市重庆，实行统一四川的大业去了。他的首要任务是取消大小军阀割据的“防区制”。但军阀们暗暗抵制，蒋无法制住他们，中央军不在手边。
Chiang now redoubled his efforts to drive the Reds into Sichuan, subjecting them to heavy aerial bombardment, making it impossible for Mao to establish a foothold in Guizhou. At the same time Chiang very publicly transferred army units away from the Sichuan border as a way of signaling: There are no troops on that border. Go to Sichuan! But Mao determinedly led the exhausted Red Army in the opposite direction, southward.*
蒋努力要把毛赶進四川，他飞返贵阳，派飞机轰炸红军，使红军不能在贵州立足。同时，蒋公开地将把守在四川边境的部队调开，等于告诉毛：那里没设兵，赶紧去四川！但毛带着红军朝相反的方向--南方--跑去。蒋搞不懂红军在干什么，一度猜想他们是不是想打贵阳。但红军没在贵阳停留，急急地从贵阳旁边南下走了。
Under non-stop aerial attack, “forced marches of 40 to 50 km were the rule,” Braun wrote.
在连续不断的轰炸下，红军每天急行军四、五十公里，走得死去活来。过来人描述道：
The troops were showing increasing symptoms of fatigue … When planes buzzed over us, we simply threw ourselves down on the side of the road without looking for cover as we used to do. If bombs began falling in a village or farm where we slept, I no longer woke up. If one landed close to me, I just turned over …
“部队越来越筋疲力尽了。飞机在天上飞过的时候，我们简单地往路边一滚，也顾不上像从前那样看看有没有东西作掩体。在村子里睡觉时，要是炸弹落下来，我醒都不会醒，要是落在我身边，我翻个身就是。”“每天都有不少人死去。虽然年初有几千人参军，* 红军人数还是少多了。”
* 贵州的老百姓非常贫穷，红军得以招收数千士兵。
The number of deaths, more from disease and exhaustion than battle wounds, increased daily. Although several thousand volunteers had been enlisted since the beginning of the year,† the ranks had visibly dwindled.
在这段急行军中，红军不得不丢弃剩下的医疗器械，医院也解散了。伤员从此几乎得不到治疗。除子弹伤、炸弹伤外，大多数人的脚还因为穿草鞋天天疾走，擦伤感染，一着地就疼痛异常。
During this headlong rush, the Reds had to abandon more of their medical equipment and disband the medical corps. Henceforth the wounded got virtually no treatment. As well as bullet and shrapnel wounds, many suffered severe and agonizingly painful foot infections.
The folly of Mao's maneuvers is brought into focus by the experience of one unit, the 9th Corps, that got cut off at the River Wu, leaving its 2,000 men stranded north of the river. As a result, they were forced to move on into Sichuan. And, lo and behold, except for one or two skirmishes, they were totally unmolested. Unlike Mao's contingent, who had to go through weeks of depleting forced marches and bombing, these men strolled in broad daylight on main roads, and could even take days off to rest.
而红军要是進四川北上，完全不必经历这些灾难--红九军团就是证明。在贵州境内南下过乌江时，九军团的两千人因作后卫被截断在乌江北岸，他们无法继续南下，只好去四川。他们发现，除了一两场小小的遭遇战外，再没人找他们的麻烦。他们居然能在光天化日下、在阳关大道上大摇大摆地行走，一停下休息就是好几天。
ONE VICTIM OF Mao's scheming was his wife. She had been traveling with the privileged wounded and sick in a special unit called the Cadres' Convalescent Company, which included thirty women, mainly top leaders' wives. After the battle at Tucheng, the Red Army had marched all day, about 30 km, in a downpour. At a place called White Sand, Gui-yuan left the litter which had been allocated to her two months before when she was too heavily pregnant to get on a horse, and lay down in a thatched hut. Several hours later she gave birth to a baby girl, her fourth child with Mao, on 15 February 1935. She was shown the baby, wrapped in a jacket, by her sister-in-law, Tse-min's wife. The army spent only one day in White Sand. As she had done twice before, Gui-yuan had to leave her baby behind. She wept when the litter carried her away and Mrs. Tse-min took the baby, with a handful of silver dollars and some opium, which was used as currency, to find a family to take it in. Mrs. Tse-min had asked Gui-yuan to give the girl a name. Gui-yuan shook her head: she did not think she would ever see the girl again. Her instinct was right. The old lady to whom the baby was entrusted had no milk. Three months later, boils erupted all over the baby's body, and it died.
毛泽东的“得意之笔”也给他的妻子带来痛苦。贺子珍跟随“干部休养连”行军。土城恶战之后，红军在瓢泼大雨中走了三十公里，来到白沙。即将临盆的子珍下了担架，在一间草房里躺下。几小时后，她生了个女儿，她跟毛的第四个孩子，这天是一九三五年二月十五日。红军只在白沙停留一天，像以往两次那样，子珍得把孩子留下。当她就要被抬着上路时，泽民的妻子把女儿裹在一件外套里抱给她看，然后抱着孩子，拿着一把银元和做货币用的鸦片，去找人家收养。泽民的妻子让她给女儿取个名字，子珍不住地流泪，摇摇头，说她再不会见到这个孩子了。果然，收留孩子的老人没有奶，三个月后，孩子浑身长疮化脓，不久就夭折了。
In later life, when Gui-yuan spent a great deal of time looking for the babies she had been forced to abandon, she never seriously tried to look for this daughter. She would say to people close to her: “The girl born on the Long March, I didn't even get a good look at her. I wasn't even clear where exactly she was born, and who we gave her to …” But the child stayed on her mind. In 1984, the year of Gui-yuan's death, her former chief on the March visited her in hospital. He told us that while they were talking about something else, she suddenly asked him, out of the blue: “Where, but where was it that I had that baby, do you remember?”
共产党掌权后，子珍生活中的一个主要内容是寻找她遗留的孩子，但她从未认真找过这个女儿。她对身边的人伤心地说：“长征路上生的这个女孩子，我连看都没看清楚她长个什么样子，也说不清楚具体是在什么地方，送了什么人家。”但孩子萦绕在她的内心深处。一九八四年，她去世的那一年，当年的干部休养连连长去看她，闲谈中，她突然冒出一句：“我是在哪个，哪个地方生的小孩子，你还记不记得？”
Mao did not come to see Gui-yuan, although they were in the same town. It was not till later, when their paths happened to cross, that she told him she had left the baby behind. Mao said blandly: “You were right. We had to do this.”
生孩子时毛泽东没有来看子珍，尽管他在同一个镇里。后来行军路上遇上了，子珍告诉他孩子丢下了，毛只点点头说：“你做得对。”
Deep down, Gui-yuan was wounded by Mao's indifference. She would tell friends that the remark of his that pained her most was when he would say to other women with a grin: “Why are you women so afraid of giving birth? Look at [Gui-yuan], giving birth for her is as easy as a hen dropping an egg.”*
贺子珍对毛的冷漠是难过的。她对朋友说，毛有一句话使她“很受伤害”。毛对别的女人说：“你们为什么怕生孩子呢？你看看贺子珍，她生孩子就像母鸡下蛋那么容易，连窝都没有搭好就生下来了。”事实上，长征路上生孩子宛如酷刑。有个女人在行军中临产，还一步步走到宿营地。第二天，孩子留在了空屋里睡过的稻草堆上，身上蒙着稻草，哇哇地哭着，母亲又上路了。在涉过一条冰冷的河水时她晕了过去，她的战友们找来一张木桌，轮流抬着她走。安全部门头子邓发的妻子分娩时，痛得在地上打滚，嘴里骂邓发。邓发被找来，站在一边垂着头。博古夫人说：“行军中骡马比老公好！”
Two months after giving birth, while Mao led the Red Army on the hellish march southward away from Sichuan, Gui-yuan was hit by a bomb and nearly died. Early one evening in mid-April, three planes appeared between terraced rice paddies on mountain slopes, flying so low that people on the ground could make out the pilots' faces. Machine-guns rattled, and bombs dropped along the path where Gui-yuan and her comrades were catching their breath. Limbs flew into trees, and blood and brains puddled the ground in crimson.
子珍产后两个月，灾难再次降临到她头上：她被国民党的飞机炸伤，差一点丧命。那是四月中旬的一个傍晚，三架敌机在一片梯田尽头出现，飞得很低，连飞行员的脸都看得见。子珍跟战友正在一条小径上歇气，猛然机关枪扫射下来，炸弹跟着落下，一时胳膊腿横飞，鲜血和脑液把土地搅成一滩滩红色的泥浆。
More than a dozen shrapnel splinters sliced into Gui-yuan's skull and back, one ripping the right side of her back wide open. She was soaked in blood. A doctor picked out shrapnel splinters with tweezers and applied the wound-salve baiyao to stem the bleeding. Gui-yuan lay unconscious, with blood pouring out of her nose and mouth. The doctor who gave her an injection of cardiotonic thought that she might have two hours to live. Her company leaders decided to leave her behind with a local family. Mao, who was in the next village, was informed about her condition. He did not come to see her—he was “tired.” He just said he did not want her left behind, and sent over a doctor and two of his own litter-bearers. Mao did not come to see her until the third day. By then she had recovered consciousness, but was still unable to speak, or even cry. Continuing the journey was agony; Gui-yuan kept on fainting, only to be woken up by stabs of excruciating pain. She begged her comrades to shoot her.
十多块弹片切進子珍的头上、背上，其中一块从背上划开一道大口子，一直划到右胳膊。她浑身浸透了鲜血。医生把伤口表面的弹片夹出，嵌得太深的只好留在里面。虽然用了白药止血，但血还是从不省人事的子珍的伤口里、鼻子里、嘴里淌出来。医生给她打了强心针，说她也许只能活两小时。连队负责人商量把她留在老百姓家。他们立刻给毛打电话，毛就在隔壁的村子里，他没有来看子珍，据说他“很累”。他只在电话里说不能把她留下，并派来他的医生，和两个担架夫抬子珍。直到第三天毛才来看妻子，那时子珍已苏醒过来，但说不出话，也哭不出声。再往下的行军中，子珍实在忍受不住痛苦，哀求身边的同志给她一枪，让她死去。
AFTER TWO MONTHS of rushing farther and farther south with no end in view, everybody was asking: “Where are we going?” Among the top echelon who knew about the plan to link up with the Red Army branch in Sichuan, and the long-term strategy of getting closer to Russia, a deep resentment grew towards Mao. Lin Biao clamored: “This way, the troops will be dragged to ruination! We absolutely cannot have him in command like this!” Lin wrote to the Triumvirate in April, calling on Mao to hand over command to Peng De-huai, and for the whole force to go straight to Sichuan. Everyone was furious with Mao, even Lo Fu, who had at first acquiesced in his scheme. The sacrifices were just too horrendous. Braun recalled: “One day Lo Fu, with whom I normally had little contact … began talking of what he termed the catastrophic military predicament engendered by Mao's reckless strategy and tactics ever since Tsunyi [Zunyi].” Lo argued that if they were to avoid annihilation, the Triumvirate “had to be replaced by competent military leaders.”
两个月的向南，向南，没有一个目的地，红军队伍里人人都在问：我们上哪儿去？上层人物知道计划是進四川同张国焘会合，长远的战略方针是北上靠近苏联，但现在的行程却跟计划背道而驰。林彪大声抱怨：“这样会把部队拖垮的，像他[毛泽东]这样领导指挥还行？”四月，林彪给“三人团”写信，要求毛把指挥权交给彭德怀，立刻北進与张国焘会师。连曾为私利支持毛不進四川的张闻天，也对毛非常生气。李德记道：“有一天，洛甫[即张闻天]突然跟我攀谈起来。我们通常很少打交道，可这一次他对我提起红军的危机，说这是遵义以来毛不计后果的战略战术的结果。” 为了红军不致全军覆没，“三人团”应该“让位给有能力的军事指挥官”。
Mao was livid about the change in Lo Fu. Braun noticed that when Mao once struck up a conversation with him, “the name of Lo Fu brought a sharper tone to his voice. Lo Fu, he said, had panicked and was intriguing against him.” But Lo was no real threat, as he had laid himself open to blackmail by Mao from the moment he agreed to delay meeting up with Chang Kuo-tao to preserve his own position as Party No. 1. Mao also appealed to Lo's personal feelings: knowing that Lo was in love with a young woman, Mao arranged to have her transferred so that she could be with him.
毛对他的同谋者变卦大为恼怒。有一次，他跟李德同行，提到张闻天的名字时他声音变得尖利。他说张“吓破了胆，在搞阴谋反对他”。但张闻天对毛不构成威胁，他已上了毛的船，要下来就不那么容易了。毛同时尽量拉拢他，他知道张闻天喜欢年轻活泼的姑娘刘英，就提议把她调到张的身边，使他们得以朝夕相处。
In mid-April 1935, the Reds, still being pursued, entered Yunnan province, in the southwest corner of China. Mao ordered them to stay put and even to “expand southwards”—i.e., even farther away from the direction of Sichuan. But southward lay Vietnam, which was occupied by the French, who were extremely hostile to the Reds. Besides, this corner of China was mainly inhabited by an ethnic group called the Miao, who had given the Reds some very hard times at the beginning of the March, and were extremely warlike. Everyone could see that this was a dead end.
四月中旬，红军進入中国西南角的云南省。毛下令停下来。但停下来得对付此地的土着苗族人，他们骁勇善战，长征初期已经给红军制造了无数麻烦，根据地是没法建立的。下一步怎么办？毛说还要“向东及向南”。但向东无路，国民党大军正压过来；向南死路一条，那边是法国殖民地越南。
The field commanders were enraged by Mao's order. The night they received it, 25 April, Lin Biao cabled to demand that they “go immediately … into Sichuan … and be ready to join up” with Chang Kuo-tao. Peng concurred.
毛的指示激怒了野战指挥员们。四月二十五日，接到命令的当天，林彪打电报给中央说“应立即变更原定战略”，“渡过金沙江入川，向川西北前進，准备与四方面军会合”。彭德怀也表示了相同的意见。
Mao could not drag his feet any longer. On 28 April he finally consented to head for Sichuan. Once the Red Army started northward, their path was trouble-free. Even facilitated. That day they found a truck carrying twenty very detailed maps (scale 1:100,000), as well as a load of local goodies—tea, ham and the famed baiyao—parked by the roadside waiting to be captured. Chiang or the Yunnan authorities had clearly organized this bounty to hasten the Reds out of Yunnan into Sichuan. When the Reds got near the provincial border, the Golden Sand River (the name of the Yangtze in these upper reaches), three crossing towns opened their gates, offering zero resistance, even handing over money and food.
毛再也拖不下去了。四月二十八日，他终于下令转道向四川行進。一踏上往北的道路，红军前面便是坦途一片，甚至还不乏有人暗中相助。当天红军就发现路边停着一辆大卡车等待着被“缴获”，车上装着二十份十万分之一的精细地图，外加大量土特产：茶叶、火腿、白药。显然，要么是蒋介石，要么是云南当局，用这种办法催促红军离开云南，快去四川。红军到达四川边界金沙江时，三个渡口城都敞开大门，毫无抵抗地接纳了红军，还献上食物、金钱。
It took the Reds seven days and nights to cross the Golden Sand River at the beginning of May. Chiang's troops stood close, but did not interfere. None of the ferry points was defended. Spotter planes wheeled overhead, but this time dropped no bombs. Long Marchers remembered “a frightening number” of flies being more of a nuisance.
渡金沙江花了整整七天七夜，船只在无人把守的渡口穿梭来往。蒋介石的军队待在附近不动。飞机在空中盘旋，只是侦察，不找麻烦。过来人的印象是苍蝇多得怕人，“太阳一出来总有好几十万，比飞机还讨厌”。
But once across the river, Mao tried to avoid going farther north. He ordered a siege to be laid to a town just inside Sichuan called Huili, so it could be the center of a new base. Surrounded by a moat, and with thick walls and battlements dating from the fifteenth century, Huili was held by a local warlord, whose home it was, and who was prepared to go to any lengths to keep it. He burned down all the houses outside the city walls so as to leave no shelter for the besiegers, and killed scores of his own soldiers suspected of harboring Red sympathies. Chiang's planes now began bombing again, to drive the Reds on. Casualties were very high, and the Red Army, with no medicine, was unable to take care of them. Mao was indifferent, and never once visited the wounded.
红军虽然進了四川，但为了避免与张国焘会师，毛不愿再往前走，要就地建立根据地。他派红军去围攻离江边不远的会理城。会理城易守难攻，既有护城河环绕，又有十五世纪的坚实城墙。本地军阀拚死命守城，把城墙外的房子一概烧掉，使红军攻城时失去掩护，又杀了几十个怀疑亲共的士兵，以防有人给红军作内线通风报信。蒋介石看看红军停下来了，就又开始轰炸。红军伤亡惨重，无医无药。毛是不管的，他从来没去看过伤兵。
For Peng De-huai, the level of casualties and failure to treat the wounded were the last straw. He decided to challenge Mao for the military leadership. Peng had wide support from other field commanders, not least Lin Biao, who pointed out that Mao had dragged the Red Army on a huge detour, and that they could have gone straight into Sichuan well over three months before. Lo Fu convened a meeting on 12 May, in a makeshift thatched shed.
红军的重大损失使将领们忍无可忍。林彪把毛带着红军走的这一大段弯路形象地比做“弓背”，说他们早该走弓弦。为了以中央的名义来压制这片反他的声浪，毛要张闻天召集会议。
With his back to the wall, Mao fought with fearsome willpower and enormous rage, condemning Peng with political labels like “right-wing,” and accusing him of stirring up Lin Biao. When Lin tried to reason, Mao just bellowed: “You are a baby! You don't know a thing!” Lin could not compete with Mao in a shouting match, and was bludgeoned into silence. Peng was doomed by his own decency and decorum. Unlike Mao, he was shy about fighting for power for himself, even though his cause was good. Nor could he match Mao in mud-slinging and “political” smearing.
会议于五月十二日在会理城外一问草棚里召开。毛寸土不让地捍卫自己的权力，发出阵阵暴怒之声。他用老办法给彭德怀扣帽子，说他“右倾”， 说他挑动林彪夺权。林彪待要争辩，毛冲他大吼：“你还是个娃娃，你懂得什么！”林彪吼不过毛，只好不作声。彭的弱点是脸皮薄，不好意思为自己争夺权位，哪怕争夺得有道理。他也没法跟毛比赛扣帽子。
Mao got support from the deeply compromised Party No. 1, Lo Fu, who stigmatized Peng and Peng's supporters as “right-wing opportunists.” In doing so, he acted against his own feelings, under the shadow of blackmail by Mao. Others were silent. Taking on Mao was no small thing. Apart from the terrifying atmosphere he created on the spot, and the sense of urgency and demoralization created by being on the run for some eight months, a sustained fight could well have led to the Party and the army being split. So Mao kept his job. His hatred for Peng because of Huili lasted for the rest of Peng's life, and he started to take revenge immediately. After the meeting, a close friend of Peng's, who had also brought up the tremendous casualties in the battles initiated by Mao, and had opposed marking time in Guizhou, found himself denounced. He understood that Peng was the implicit target: “it was inconvenient to denounce Peng De-huai by name, so I was denounced instead.”
最重要的是毛有张闻天当枪使，张不敢不照毛说的办，虽然他于心不安。他后来说他“勉强”地按毛的意思作了结论，用“很厉害”的、“过火的”“机会主义大帽子” 打击彭德怀和别的反毛的人。人们只有沉默。跟毛作对非同小可，又怕内讧分裂党和红军。结果毛仍然掌握军权。毛对差点取代他的彭德怀恨之入骨，会一开完就把彭的朋友、跟彭意见相同的黄克诚在干部会上狠批了一顿。黄知道“真正矛头是对着彭德怀的”，只是“不便对彭德怀直接点名批判”。会理的仇，毛记了一辈子。
Mao was astute enough to agree to a trade-off. He withdrew the order to take Huili, and agreed, finally and explicitly, to “go north at once to join up with” Chang Kuo-tao. He had been putting this off for four months, and in doing so had lost some 30,000 men, more than half of the force with him. Because of him, the soldiers under him had walked at least an extra 2,000 km, often on lacerated feet.
毛也很聪明地作了让步，收回了打会理的命令，明确同意“立即北上，同四方面军会合”。毛躲避这一天躲了将近四个月，损失了三万红军。长征，也就长出来两千多公里。
But Mao had made tremendous headway towards achieving his goal. Not only did he now have a formal top military job, but his puppet Lo Fu had established himself as the de facto Party No. 1. These four months of ruthless sacrificial procrastination had made a critical difference. Mao had not entirely averted a power struggle with Chang Kuo-tao, but he had vastly improved his chances.
Mao at once began making preparations, and his most important step was to dispatch a reliable envoy to Moscow to establish his status. (Someone had to go in person as there was no radio communication.) The man he chose had no political ambitions of his own, was obliging, and senior enough to deal with any problems that might come up in Moscow. This was Chen Yun, a member of the Secretariat. Mao chose his spokesman well. In Moscow, Chen delivered a carefully crafted message which gave the impression that the majority of the high command had elected Mao as their leader at a proper meeting: “an enlarged Politburo meeting … removed the [old] leadership and put comrade Mao Tse-tung in the leadership.”
毛仍然害怕与张国焘会师，深知一场恶斗必不可免。他马上着手准备这场权斗。首要的一步，是让他的地位得到莫斯科认可。由于电台联系没有恢复，五月底，毛派他信得过的陈云去苏联。陈云既是书记处书记，人又谨慎，与世无争，对毛乐于从命。在莫斯科，陈云的报告经过仔细推敲故意含糊其辞，给莫斯科造成印象：毛做领袖是在正式的政治局会议上，经大多数人推举的。
MAO'S GROUP HAD now reached west-central Sichuan, near Tibet, marching straight north towards Chang Kuo-tao. This next stretch provided the backdrop for the primal myth about the Long March—the crossing of the bridge over the Dadu River. This river constituted a formidable natural barrier. In late May, swollen with the Himalayan snows, it was a raging torrent, trapped between towering cliffs. Its rock-strewn bed concealed treacherous whirlpools that made wading or swimming across impossible.
中央红军往北去与张国焘会合，行進到四川中西部时，面临天堑大渡河。陡峭的山谷中，五月下旬喜马拉雅山的融雪卷起奔腾咆哮的激流猛浪，漩涡密布，河床布满尖利的岩石，使涉水无法想像。河上只有一座桥，叫泸定桥，建于十八世纪初叶，是四川通往西藏的要道。这是一座雄伟的吊桥，全长一百零一公尺，宽两公尺多，十三根粗大的铁索连接东西两岸，九根作桥底，每两根相距一尺左右，上面铺着木板做桥面。
There was no way around, and only one bridge, which had been built in the early eighteenth century as part of the imperial road connecting Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. It was a magnificent suspension bridge, 101 meters long and over 3 meters wide, carried by 13 thick iron chains, 9 on the bottom, with gaps a foot wide between each chain. Wooden planks paved the surface, and covered the gaps.
This bridge is the center of the Long March myth,* fed to the journalist Edgar Snow in 1936. Crossing the bridge, Snow wrote, “was the most critical single incident of the Long March.” As he describes it:
红军“飞夺泸定桥”是后来长征英雄史诗的代表，美国作者索尔兹伯坚(Harrison Salisbury)的《长征》(The Long March)一书封面，赫然就是这座桥。美国记者斯诺一九三六年采访了毛以后写道：
half this wooden flooring had been removed [by the Nationalists], and before them [the marchers] only the bare iron chains swung to a point midway in the stream. At the northern bridgehead an enemy machine-gun nest faced them, and behind it were positions held by a regiment of White troops … [W]ho would have thought the Reds would insanely try to cross on the chains alone? But that was what they did.
过泸定桥“是长征中最关键的时刻”。“木板有一半给抽掉了，从岸边到河中心只剩下光溜溜的铁链。在东岸的桥头，敌人的一个机关枪阵地正对着他们，它的后面是由一团白军把守的阵地……谁能想到红军会发疯似的试图从光铁链上过河呢？可是红军却偏偏这样做了……头一个战士中了枪，掉到下面的水流里，第二个也掉下去了，接着是第三个……敌人把煤油扔到桥板上，桥板开始燃烧起来。这时，大约有二十名红军战士用双手和膝盖匍匐前進，把手榴弹一个接一个地扔進敌人的机关枪阵地。”
He described men being shot and falling into the river.
Paraffin was thrown on the [remaining] planking, and it began to burn. By then about twenty Reds were moving forward on their hands and knees, tossing grenade after grenade into the enemy machine-gun nest.
This is complete invention. There was no battle at the Dadu Bridge. Most probably the legend was constructed because of the site itself: the chain bridge over the roiling river looked a good place for heroic deeds. There were no Nationalist troops at the bridge when the Reds arrived on 29 May. The Communists claim that the bridge was defended by a Nationalist regiment under one Li Quan-shan, but cables to and from this regiment locate it a long way away, at a place called Hualinping. There had been a different Nationalist unit headquartered in Luding, the town at one end of the bridge, but this unit had been moved out of town just before the Reds arrived.* The numerous Nationalist communications make no mention of any fighting on the bridge or in the town, while they do mention skirmishes en route to the bridge, and after the Communists crossed over it. Chiang had left the passage open for the Reds.
其实，在泸定桥根本没有战斗。红军五月二十九日到达时，泸定桥没有国民党军队把守。从国民党军队的大量来往电报、部署可以看出，长征故事中说的守桥的国民党二十四军第四旅李全山团，其实并不驻屯泸定城，而在远处的化林坪一带。驻扎泸定的是步二旅旅部，旅长余松琳。红军到来前夕，该旅就离开了，被派去五十公里外的康定，泸定、康定并属的西康地区专员六月三日的通报也表明，步二旅“集中康城附近”， 不在泸定。当时国民党无数通讯没有一份讲泸定桥打了仗，只提到红军在去泸定桥的路上，和离开泸定桥之后，有几次小型遭遇战。
When the Red advance unit reached the area, it set up HQ in a Catholic church near the bridge, and shelled and fired across the river at Luding on the opposite side. A local woman, who was a sprightly 93-year-old when we met her in 1997, described to us what happened. In 1935 her family—all Catholics, like most locals in those days—was running a bean-curd shop right by the bridge on the side held by the Reds, and Red soldiers were billeted in her house. She remembered the Communists firing as “Only Yin a shell, and Yang a shot”—a Chinese expression for sporadic. She did not remember her side of the river being fired on at all.
红军先头部队到桥边时，指挥部设在离桥不远的天主教堂里，向河对岸已无国民党军的泸定城打炮。当地人大多是天主教徒，其中一位妇女家里开豆花店，就在红军所在的桥边，红军还住在她家。一九九七年这位妇女已是九十三岁高龄，但头脑十分清晰，她对我们讲红军“阴一炮，阳一枪地打过去”，然后“慢慢过完桥”，过桥时“没有打”。
Some planks of the bridge may have been removed or damaged. The 93-year-old remembered that the Reds borrowed her doors and those of her neighbors to put on the bridge, and after the troops had crossed over, the locals went to collect their doors. But the bridge was not reduced to its bare chains: the only time this happened was when Mao's regime made a propaganda film. Nor was the bridge set on fire. This claim was explicitly denied by the curator of the museum at the bridge in 1983.
有的木板是被损害，可能有拆去的。九十三岁的老太太记得红军来借老百姓的门板去铺桥，有的人家交出了宝贵的棺材盖子，队伍过完后老百姓各自去认领。泸定桥只有一次剩下光溜溜的铁链，那是中共政权拍宣传长征的电影《万水千山》时。
The strongest evidence that there was no battle is that the Red Army crossed the bridge without incurring a single casualty. The vanguard consisted of twenty-two men, who, according to the myth, stormed the bridge in a suicide attack. But at a celebration immediately afterward, on June 2, all twenty-two were not only alive and well, they each received a Lenin suit, a fountain pen, a bowl and a pair of chopsticks. Not one was even wounded.
过桥时红军没有一人伤亡。首批过桥的二十二名战士，在六月二日过桥后，每人得了一套列宁装、一支钢笔、一个碗和二双筷子。他们中其他红军过桥时也没有伤亡。
No one else died under fire. Chou En-lai's bodyguard described how Chou, having been upset when he heard that a horse had fallen into the river, went to check on human losses. “No men lost?” Chou asked the commander of the unit that had taken the bridge, Yang Cheng-wu, to which Yang replied: “None.”*
周恩来的警卫员描述周听说有一匹马掉在河里淹死了很着急，问过桥的指挥宫杨成武：“人有没有受损失？” 当听说没有时，周又问：“一个都没有？”答覆是：“一个都没有。”
大渡河上还出了个神话，即“强渡大渡河”，在泸定桥南七十五公里的安顺场。那里渡口宽阔，没有遮掩，红军渡了足足一个星期，在国民党侦察机的眼皮底下。但同样，无一伤亡。* *一九四六年，一位英国作家问彭德怀过大渡河的事。彭委婉地说：“那是很早以前的事了，我也记不清了。我们过了那么多河--金沙江、湘江、乌江、长江……我记不清了，记得有人掉在河里。”他对战斗或桥起火之事不置一辞。有两三个人命丧此桥，朱德夫人和我们访问的九十三岁老人都说是红军修桥时，年久失修的桥板突然折断，他们失足掉下去的。
国民党部队再无能，凭借天险优势，也不至于让红军毫无伤亡吧。
In 1982, no less an authority than China's paramount leader, Deng Xiao-ping, himself a Dadu Bridge participant, confirmed that there was no battle. When a U.S. interlocutor described the crossing as “a great feat of arms,” Deng smiled and said, “Well, that's the way it's presented in our propaganda.… In fact, it was a very easy military operation. There wasn't really much to it. The other side were just some troops of the warlord who were armed with old muskets and it really wasn't that much of a feat, but we felt we had to dramatize it.” (Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security adviser, speech at Standford 2005, p. 3)
“飞夺泸定桥”纯系虚构。邓小平在一九八二年对美国总统卡特 (Jimmy Carter) 的国家安全顾问布列津斯基(Zbigniew Brzezinski)亲口说：“这只是为了宣传，我们需要表现我们军队的战斗精神。其实没有打什么仗。”
MAO WALKED ACROSS the Dadu bridge on 31 May 1935. He was now only about 300 km away from the dreaded meeting with Chang Kuo-tao. Between him and Kuo-tao's advance unit coming to meet him was a mountain called the Big Snowy, in a largely Tibetan area. In spite of its name—and myth—there was no snow where they climbed, locals told us. But it was cold, with sleet and biting winds, made worse by the fact that many men had abandoned their warm clothes in the semi-tropical lowlands, in an effort to shed some weight. All they had to provide some warmth was boiling chili water which they drank before they set off. Although it took only one day to cross, the mountain claimed many lives, partly because of the altitude (the pass was 10,000 feet high) but mainly because the marchers had been weakened by their privations.
毛一九三五年五月三十一日步行过了泸定桥。他离张国焘只有三百公里了。在他跟张国焘的先头部队之间横着藏民散居的“大雪山”。尽管山叫这个名字，当地人告诉我们说，毛翻山的那个季节和那个地点并没有积雪，只是寒冷异常，刺骨的风吹着夹雪花的冻雨袭击着没有冬衣御寒的红军。筋疲力尽的官兵渴望减轻一点负担，把厚一点的衣服在山下热的地方都扔了，如今他们只好靠出发前喝辣椒水来抵抵寒气。翻越四千多公尺的高山，严重减弱的身体无法与空气稀薄的高原气候拚搏，许多人就长眠在那里了。担架夫跟挑夫最苦，有的坐下来喘口气，就再也站不起来。
They had been walking virtually non-stop for nearly eight months, half the time totally pointlessly from a military or survival point of view—though not from the point of view of Mao's ascent to power. In addition to being attacked by their enemies, they had been assailed by innumerable ailments. “All of us were unbelievably lice-ridden,” Braun remembered. “Bleeding dysentery was rampant; the first cases of typhus appeared … More and more, our route was lined with the bodies of the slain, frozen or simply exhausted.” It was hardest for those who had to carry the leaders in their litters and heavy loads. Some porters never got up again after they sat down to rest.
Mao climbed the mountain on foot, using a walking-stick. He fared far better than his young bodyguards, as he was much better nourished and rested.
毛泽东爬雪山没坐担架，是自己走过来的，拄着一根木棍，走得还比他年轻的警卫员轻松。
Kuo-tao's men were waiting for them on the far side, in a Tibetan town of about 100 households, with a cornucopia of supplies—not only food, but clothes, shoes, woolen socks, blankets, gloves and delicacies like preserved yellow peas, tea and salt. This army was well fed and well kitted-out, and even had supplies to spare. Mao and the other leaders got extra food, horses or donkeys, and woolen suits. A docile horse was chosen for Mao, who was also given a male doctor to serve as his nurse.
张国焘的人在山那边等着欢迎中央红军，预备了一大堆急需的物资：盐、茶、鞋袜、毛毯、手套等等。毛跟中共其他领导收到额外的食物、粗呢制服、驴马，毛的马是特别挑过的，性情温顺，还有个医生来给他当护士。
A week later, on 25 June, Kuo-tao, having ridden over three days through virgin forests and rocky gorges, arrived to meet Mao and his companions at a village called Fubian. The two biggest Red armies were now formally linked up.
一星期后，六月二十五日，张国焘纵马三天，穿过峭壁森林，来到抚边村与毛等会台。中国两支最大的红军就此会师。
DAYS LATER, on 4 July, Chiang Kai-shek's brother-in-law, H. H. Kung (vice-premier and finance minister), called on Soviet ambassador Dmitri Bogomolov, ostensibly to discuss Japan's moves in northern China. At the very end, Kung remarked that the Generalissimo very much wanted to see his son. This was Chiang saying to Stalin: I have allowed two major Red armies to survive and join forces, would you please let me have my son? “We are not putting any obstacles in the way of him leaving,” Bogomolov replied, lying smoothly, “but as far as I know, he does not want to go anywhere.”
几天之后，七月四日，蒋介石的连襟、南京政府行政院副院长兼财政部长孔祥熙拜访了苏联大使鲍格莫洛夫(Dmitri Bogomolov)。拜访名目是谈日本侵略华北的事，但临走时孔对鲍大使说，蒋很想与他儿子团聚。这是蒋介石递信给斯大林：我已经让你的两支红军会合了，释放我的儿子吧！苏联大使显然早有准备，当场回答道：“我们并不阻碍他回国，但据我所知，是他自己不要回来。”
Although he did not get his son back now, Chiang had achieved his goal of bringing the three southwestern provinces under the central government. The Guizhou warlord had been forced to resign, and left the province after being lavishly bought off. The Yunnan governor stayed on and maintained a good relationship with Chiang (for the time being). With his own army now in Sichuan, following at Mao's heels, Chiang returned there in May to assume control of this strategically important—and most populous—province. Here he spent months of intensive activity to build up Sichuan as his base for war against Japan.
虽然蒋介石没有要回儿子，但他完成了统一西南三省的目标。贵州军阀王家烈被迫辞职，拿了一大笔钱走了。云南省主席龙云跟蒋介石合作，暂时地保持了良好关系。战略要地四川如今由蒋全盘控制。中央军跟随毛入川之后，蒋本人马上在五月份再回重庆，在四川待了好几个月，着手把这个人口最多的大省建成未来对日作战的基地。
Mao too had succeeded in his goal. The 2,000-kilometer detour he had forced upon the Red Army had bought the time to establish his puppet Lo Fu as de facto Party chief, and Mao had secured his grip on the Party leadership as the man behind the throne. Chang Kuo-tao's chances had been critically reduced. Mao's machinations had reduced the ranks under him by tens of thousands, to around 10,000 hungry and exhausted men in rags. But no matter to him. The army could be rebuilt.
毛泽东也在他的上升史上迈出了一大步。长征前他几乎被扔下，数月之间，他已是中共中央的实际掌权人。虽然中央红军从四万多人减少到不足一万，但没有关系：红军可以重建，可以壮大--只要有莫斯科的支援。而莫斯科只认中共中央。
As always, Mao regarded the Kremlin as his only hope if he was to conquer China. Now that he was nearer than ever to Russian-controlled territory, he began to talk about requesting “matériel and technical assistance” from Soviet Central Asia. His paramount aim now was to ensure that Chang Kuo-tao, who outgunned him by about 8 to 1, did not gain access to Soviet arms—or the Kremlin's ear—before he did.
*Lack of majority support for Mao is also clear from the fact that when he later referred to those who had supported him at Zunyi, he never produced more than two names—those of his two co-conspirators.
*Soviet military attaché Lepin secretly advised on the best supply routes. The former CCP leader Li Li-san was sent from Moscow to a secret GRU base on the Chinese border, to try to establish radio contact. The US vice-consul in Yunnan, Arthur Ringwalt, spotted the danger, and warned Washington in early January 1935: “The situation appears to be increasingly serious for China. Unless a miracle happens, the Communists will force an entry into Szechwan [Sichuan] by one route or another. [Then] it will be only a matter of time before the well-known plan … to establish communications with Soviet Russia will have been carried out. Then it will be useless to talk further about communist suppression.”
Another person who made the point was, surprisingly, a very important British spy for Russia, Kim Philby. In an article about Tibet published in Nazi Germany in 1936, Philby emphasized the strategic significance of the Chinese Reds linking up with the Russians in the northwest.
*Chang Kuo-tao was so successful mainly because the part of Sichuan he entered was in the grip of some exceptionally heartless warlords who squeezed the population so hard that even in towns there were many people who could not afford clothing, and were walking round completely naked. There had been several peasant uprisings just before Kuo-tao's army arrived, and his forces had been able to enlist recruits en masse. He also had a military chief, Xu Xiang-qian, who was arguably the most talented of the Chinese Communist commanders.
*Normal procedure on the March was to leave the wounded with local families, with some money. The fate of those left behind was a matter of luck. Chang Kuo-tao's branch left behind some women soldiers who were too ill and weak to go on. When Party historians went looking for them half a century later, they found they had endured atrocious experiences. The locals, whose families had suffered at the hands of the Reds, took it out on them, and tortured some of the women to death by driving wooden stakes into their vaginas and cutting off their breasts. To survive, some women married more affluent peasants. But when their own Party came to power they were designated as “landlords,” and denounced, humiliated and discriminated against for life. In 1985, in bitter November cold, the few seen by Party historians, by then in their sixties and seventies, were so poor that they did not wear shoes to the encounter, as these were considered too valuable to endanger for such a non-essential occasion.
*Chiang and his officers were so mystified that they thought Mao wanted to attack the capital of Guizhou, where Chiang was, to try to get Chiang himself. But the Reds sped past without stopping.
†In Guizhou, where the population was dirt-poor, the Reds had recruited many thousands of young men.
*Giving birth on the March was a nightmare. One woman who had gone into labor had to walk to the night's destination with the baby's head dangling out. Next day before dawn, weeping at leaving her baby in a bundle of straw in the empty hut, she had to walk on, and fainted wading through an icy river. Her women comrades found a table to carry her on. The wife of Teng Fa, the then head of the Chinese KGB, had a most painful delivery. Writhing in agony, she cursed her husband for making her pregnant. Teng Fa was fetched, and stood uncomfortably in the little hut, hanging his head. Mrs. Po Ku would say half jokingly: “On the march, I prefer a donkey or a horse to an old Male!”
*A picture of it features on the cover of the 1985 book The Long March, by Harrison Salisbury, which purveys the official post-Mao version.
*Nationalist plans on the 28th described the task of the unit, under Yu Song-lin, as “to defend Kangding,” a city about 50 km away as the crow flies. The fact that Yu's troops were not at or near the bridge is demonstrated in a report of 3 June by the governor of the region.
*When Peng De-huai, the most honest of all the Communist leaders, was asked about the Dadu crossing by a British writer in 1946, he gently, but very clearly, refused to endorse the myth. “It's a long time ago, and I cannot remember all of it. There were so many rivers—the Gold Sand river, the Hsiang river, the Wu and the Yangtse … I cannot remember very much, but I remember the people falling into the water …” He did not say one word about fighting, or a burning bridge. It seems that two or three people did die at the bridge, but only when they fell off while repairing it, when one old plank suddenly snapped, as Mrs. Zhu De and the 93-year-old local we interviewed remembered. For good measure, the Reds constructed an ancillary myth about more heroism around the other crossing of the Dadu River, at Anshunchang, some 75 km to the south. Although this ferry crossing was extremely exposed and it took the troops a whole week to cross, with spotter planes circling overhead, there was not a single battle casualty here, either.