Chapter 45 Grasp the future (7)

If this is Maoism, at least it works, regardless of what 28 Bolsheviks think about it.As a result, several hundred 㑩㑩 joined the Red Army and reached the Great Northwest of China. The last major river crossed by the Red Army on its Long March was perhaps the most feared in all military history.Chiang was determined to keep the Communists west of the Dadu River so they would disappear into the snow-capped mountains of eastern Tibet.It is said that Shi Dakai (1831-1863), a hero in Chinese history and the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, died by this river.Mao knew this well, and it was the story of the two uprisings that he admired.

Chiang Kai-shek flew to Chongqing and took command again to eradicate the Communist Party.He was also aware of the two famous uprisings, but despised them very much.His planes dropped leaflets on the Red Army that Mao was following the "Road of Shi Dakai" (the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was executed and mutilated after his defeat). The Dadu River was so fierce that it was impossible to swim across it. Even the ferry boat was in danger of capsizing. The only bridge was firmly guarded by the Kuomintang defenders. Luding Bridge hangs in the air like a tightrope walking by acrobats.It consists of thirteen iron chains, raised two hundred feet above the swift-flowing water, fastened at each end to the cliffs, and the great chains are paved with planks one after another.

As a way of welcoming, the Kuomintang defenders removed half of the boards on the Red Army's side, leaving only a few sparse pieces connecting the iron chains.According to Mao, it was precisely the delay in timing that caused the destruction of the past insurgents here.In order to buy time, the Red Army soldiers miraculously walked the last 80 miles to Luding Bridge within 24 hours. The advance team jumps like monkeys from one chain to the next in order to complete the desperate task.They strapped grenades and Mausers behind their backs, approached gradually, stepped on the other half of the iron bridge with planks, approached the enemy's bridgehead and launched an attack.Many were shot and fell into the rapids, and only five of the first twenty-two reached the point where they could throw grenades at the enemy.

On the Dadu River that afternoon, spirit triumphed over everything.Others followed the five people and concentrated their firepower to attack.The Kuomintang defenders were at a loss. They began to remove the wooden planks, but they were too slow, so they poured kerosene on the wooden planks. But Mao's fighters marched forward as if pulled by a powerful attraction.More and more fighters followed—the gunfire faded—and they uttered chilling yells across the burning planks.It seemed that they were frightened by the crazy heroism of the Red Army, and the enemy fled in panic without fighting.About 100 Kuomintang soldiers joined the Red Army on the spot.

All the advance team members who voluntarily sign up to cross the Dadu River are under the age of 25. The next step is to join Zhang Guotao's Fourth Front Army. The harsh natural conditions and ethnic minority tribesmen make this meeting more difficult.The struggles that followed forced Mao to admit that Chiang Kai-shek was not the only problem. The climate conditions and altitude of Daxue Mountain changed abnormally, and the sky darkened in the middle of the afternoon.There was no rice, and eating highland barley made people feel uncomfortable in their stomachs. There were continuous blizzards, and hailstones as big as potatoes fell from the sky.Under the high mountain at an altitude of 16,000 feet, hundreds of thinly-clothed soldiers, especially the southerners with weak blood, were crushed by the severe cold, and some of them lay forever in the snow valleys of Sichuan.

What's more troublesome is that the tribal residents of the Fan tribe brutally rolled boulders down the mountain to express their dissatisfaction with the Red Army's invasion. Mao tried to cheer up the soldiers by chanting poems and telling stories, and he warmed the frozen soldiers with hot soup made of chili and ginger.The hardships of life, and possibly the anxiety of a meeting with Zhang Guotao, made Mao feel powerless, and he fell ill again with malaria. Mao's view of health is that the spirit plays an extremely important role.Mao talked with two doctors who participated in the Long March, Fu Lianzhang and Ji Pengfei (Ji later became the foreign minister of the People's Republic of China), about the problem of physical illness caused by psychological reasons.He believed that sometimes people could survive without taking any drugs and with great hope.

Mao attributed his illness to factors other than his physical condition, which was inspired by his own experience, because each of Mao's illnesses always coincided with his career setbacks. Indeed, in Shanghai in 1923 (he was criticized for his pro-KMT attitude); a year later during the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of China (he lost his position on the Central Committee); in the winter of 1925 and in retirement in 1926 in Shaoshan (his personnel relations were tense because of the role of peasants in the revolution); late 1929 (pressure from Li Lisan); get up), he is sick.