In the crowd, Huang spotted the mother from the family he had been billeted with, who had looked after him like a son. She ran towards him, and pushed two eggs into his hands. ‘Look after yourself, my son,’ she said, barely holding back her tears. Suddenly he felt the pain of what he had learned days before: her son joined the Red Army two years ago and she had not heard from him since. ‘Don't worry, mother. We'll be back soon.’
October, the autumn wind blows cool;
Swift the Red Army, swiftly it goes. By night across Yudu's flow, Old land, young blood – to victory.
IFOLLOWED THE RED ARMY'S withdrawal to Yudu, and walked by the river outside the town. Its wide expanse was placid, with tree-covered hills on the far shore stretching as far as you could see, dotted here and there with villages; close by a few old boats were tied up to stakes in the shallows. Upstream the scene is much as it was when the Red Army crossed here seventy years ago. The barges that carried the pontoons for the crossing still float on the grey-green water. But right in front of me there was something new: a white obelisk, incongruously large, its size emphasized by small conical evergreens that lead away from it on either side. Its curved sides soared to a peak, and near the top was a large gold star on a red disk. Below this was the inscription: ‘The first fording by the Central Army on the Long March.’ Downstream, some way beyond the monument, stands a majestic four-lane bridge. Large characters on a huge red arch over it announce ‘Long March Bridge’, and smaller characters tell you it was opened in 1996, the sixtieth anniversary of the March.
Like most visitors, I came here to see the starting point of the March, but somehow I felt uneasy that the monument, the bridge, and so many commemorative sites in the town were all celebrating the start of the March. Was not the Red Army's departure also the end of the Jiangxi Soviet Republic? It was the first Communist government in China, and it had collapsed. Was there nothing to be said about that? Chiang's military strength was one reason why the Soviet failed; it was also running out of men and materials, but the reasons might go deeper. Before I embarked on the Marchers’ route, I needed to know more about what had happened here.
I first made for the house where Mao had lived. I had read in the guide book that it was only a short walk from the river in the old quarter of town, but when I asked a young man where it was, he said, ‘What house?’ I was puzzled. Mao's house was normally well known anywhere he had stayed, but the man seemed to know nothing about it. Perhaps he was not a local. I walked further and saw an old lady; although she did tell me the way, I still almost went past it. It was in a side street with a small entrance. There was a red placard: ‘Chairman Mao's Residence, July-October 1934’.
It was locked, so I banged noisily on the door for some time, attracting a few passers-by, before someone answered from inside: ‘We are not open. Go away.’ This was a change; I remembered the crowds that poured through Mao's residence in Ruijin. I shouted I had come a long way and could I just have a quick look? There was total silence, and then the clicking of keys. Finally, the door creaked open, an old man showed himself, and he let me in.
The house and its very small courtyard face west. In China, houses are usually built facing south to enjoy the sunshine. Those facing east or west are inferior; in a traditional compound they are normally for children or junior family members. The courtyard was bare, without the trees that normally adorned Mao's residences. He loved trees. The ancient camphor tree in front of his house in Ruijin bore a placard saying that he often sat under it to read and chat. Inside there was just a dusty portrait on the wall of the sitting room, and some drab information boards below. They carried a very brief summary of Mao's life and his activities in Yudu. A shaky staircase led to the second floor which was where he slept. After Ruijin, this was quite a come-down.
I told the old man my disappointment. ‘What do you expect?’ he asked, lighting a cigarette and taking a puff. ‘Mao only stayed here briefly, and that was when he was really down. When you are down, even dogs don't come near you.’ Then the man went inside and came back with a stool to sit in the sun, puffing away.
The old man had mentioned that Mao spent a lot of time in the house reading and thinking, or pacing in the courtyard. Occasionally he went out to inspect the progress of the pontoons over the river, or talked to the local people. He must have reflected on his life, what had happened that had left him out of the centre of power, isolated here while hectic preparations were being made for the Long March. While his courtyard was so quiet the swallows could land undisturbed, as the caretaker put it, Yudu was a bustling place, busier than on a market day. Whole regiments of soldiers marched in and out of the town gates; mules groaned under heavy loads; orderlies dashed here and there without a minute's rest; peasants pulled bamboo poles and door planks towards the river for the pontoons.
Zhou Enlai only told Mao in August of the decision to leave the base, although it had been made as early as May. Mao had not been consulted, nor had his advice been sought about what to do: what to take or leave behind, who were to go or stay, what route should be taken for the breakout, what would become of the Jiangxi Soviet, whether they were coming back. He only knew that the Red Army was to leave from Yudu, the southern-most county of the Jiangxi Red base, and then head west to join He Long's 2nd Army near the border of Hunan and Hubei. Mao was shown the list of senior Party officials who were to leave. He looked grim as he went through it – many of his close associates were not on it, including one of his brothers. The list had been decided, like everything else, by the trio of Zhou Enlai, the Commissar of the Red Army, Bo Gu, the Party Secretary, and Braun, the Comintern adviser to the Red Army.
Many leaders and senior commanders came through Yudu to check up on the preparations, but few bothered to call on Mao. Gong Chu saw more of him than most. He was Commander of the Red Army in Yudu and of the force left behind to guard the Jiangxi base when the Long March began. He gave a graphic account of Mao's state in the days leading up to the March. Mao had had an attack of malaria and was lank and grey. Gong asked him about his health, and Mao replied: ‘I have not been well recently, but more painful is that I feel extremely low.’1 He invited Gong to come and see him: ‘I hope you can come and have a chat whenever you have the time in the evenings.’ He took up the invitation; Mao's wife joined them, and she would ‘prepare delicious suppers. The three of us would chat and drink and smoke, often …till midnight …From my observation, Mao's place was not visited by other people except me … It really felt as if he was isolated and miserable.’
On another visit, Gong found Mao sadder still, complaining about his loss of power, how the people who had fought with him in the Jinggang Mountains were pushed aside, and how his Party enemies wanted all the power in their hands. Reflecting on the punishment meted out to him, he even cried. ‘Tears ran down his cheeks. He was coughing from time to time, and his face looked drawn and dried and sallow. Under the flicker of a tiny oil lamp, he was quite a picture of dejection.’2
Mao's state of mind was understandable. He had rescued the Party and founded the Jiangxi base, and was rewarded by being removed from his position. In the 1920s, the young Communists followed every instruction from Moscow religiously. When Moscow told them to work with the Nationalist government, they did so – until Chiang decided that they were too much of a threat. The White Purge of 1927 was horrific in its butchery, and reduced the Communists almost to nothing. But gradually they restored themselves. Next Moscow came up with a plan to organize armed uprisings and take major cities, as had happened in the Russian Revolution. They tried this in Nanchang, Wuhan and Canton – but all of them failed spectacularly.
Mao was instructed to lead an attack on Changsha, a heavily fortified city. Instead, he took his men and headed for the Jinggang Mountains on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi, where Chiang had little control – no doubt inspired by peasant rebels of the past, particularly those immortalized in The Water Margins, his