Mao: The Unknown Story

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.