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N0KFQ > TODAY 20.10.14 16:37l 80 Lines 3942 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 38382_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 20
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IR1UAW<IQ5KG<I0OJJ<N6RME<N0KFQ
Sent: 141020/1430Z 38382@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.60
Oct 20, 1935:
Mao's Long March concludes
Just over a year after the start of the Long March, Mao Zedong
arrives in Shensi Province in northwest China with 4,000
survivors and sets up Chinese Communist headquarters. The epic
flight from Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces lasted 368 days
and covered 6,000 miles, nearly twice the distance from New York
to San Francisco.
Civil war in China between the Nationalists and the Communists
broke out in 1927. In 1931, Communist leader Mao Zedong was
elected chairman of the newly established Soviet Republic of
China, based in Kiangsi province, in the southwest. Between 1930
and 1934, the Nationalists launched a series of five encirclement
campaigns against the Soviet Republic. Under the leadership of
Mao, the Communists employed guerrilla tactics to successfully
resist the first four campaigns, but in the fifth, Chiang raised
700,000 troops and built fortifications around the Communist
positions. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were killed or died
of starvation in the siege, and Mao was removed as chairman by
the Communist Central Committee. The new Communist leadership
employed more conventional warfare tactics, and its Red Army was
decimated.
With defeat imminent, the Communists decided to break out of the
encirclement at its weakest points. The Long March began on
October 16, 1934. Secrecy and rear-guard actions confused the
Nationalists, and it was several weeks before they realized that
the main body of the Red Army had fled. The retreating force
initially consisted of 86,000 troops, 15,000 personnel, and 35
women. Weapons and supplies were borne on men's backs or in
horse-drawn carts, and the line of marchers stretched 50 miles.
The Communists generally marched at night, and when the enemy was
not near, a long column of glowing torches could be seen snaking
over valleys and hills into the distance.
The first disaster came in November, when Nationalist forces
blocked the Communists' route across the Hsiang River. It took a
week for the Communists to break through the fortifications and
cost them 50,000 men--more than half their number. After that
debacle, Mao steadily regained his influence, and in January he
was again made chairman during a meeting of the party leaders in
the captured city of Tsuni. Mao changed strategy, breaking his
force into several columns that would take varying paths to
confuse the enemy. There would be no more direct assaults on
enemy positions, and the destination would now be Shensi
Province, in the far northwest, where the Communists would fight
the Japanese invaders and earn the respect of China's masses.
After enduring starvation, aerial bombardment, and almost daily
skirmishes with Nationalist forces, Mao halted his columns at the
foot of the Great Wall of China on October 20, 1935. Waiting for
them were five machine-gun- and red-flag-bearing horsemen.
"Welcome, Chairman Mao," one said. "We represent the Provincial
Soviet of Northern Shensi. We have been waiting for you
anxiously. All that we have is at your disposal!" The Long March
was over.
The Communist marchers crossed 24 rivers and 18 mountain ranges,
mostly snow-capped. Only 4,000 troops completed the journey. The
majority of those who did not complete the journey had perished
along the way. It was the longest continuous march in the history
of warfare and marked the emergence of Mao Zedong as the
undisputed leader of the Chinese Communists. Learning of the
Communists' heroism and determination in the Long March,
thousands of young Chinese traveled to Shensi to enlist in Mao's
Red Army. After fighting the Japanese for a decade, the Chinese
Civil War resumed in 1945. Four years later, the Nationalists
were defeated, and Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China.
He served as chairman of the country until his death in 1976.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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