Chapter 21 21. Seven Days and Nights by the Jinsha River

The newspapers of the Kuomintang publicize that the Central Red Army is fleeing in a hurry every day, and the number of casualties is more than 1,000 people every day.There were about 20,000 people in the Red Army at that time. According to the newspaper, the Red Army should be wiped out before May.However, the Red Army was not wiped out, and during Chiang Kai-shek's siege and interception, thousands of new recruits were still recruited to make up for the attrition caused by fighting and falling behind. After entering Yunnan, the only possibility for the Red Army to go north was to cross the Jinsha River.

The Jinsha River is the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It originates in Qinghai, flows through Tibet, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces, and flows north to Xufuhou (now Yibin) in Sichuan.The cliffs stand on the banks of the Jinsha River, with a height of more than 300 meters; the area about 10 kilometers on both sides is barren of grass. According to the history book "Three Kingdoms", Ma Dai, a general of the Shu Kingdom, led more than 2,000 soldiers to cross the Jinsha River. Due to the hot weather, Drinking Jinsha water, 1500 people died of poisoning, or such a thing happened.According to legend, Zhuge Liang "crossed Lu in May and went deep into the barren".The Jinsha River is choppy and there are few ferries. The Red Army must seize the ferries at the big bend of the Jinsha River at the junction of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces to cross the river, otherwise they are in danger of being forced to march westward into Tibet.Tibet is full of rolling snow-capped mountains, with few residents and a lack of food. It is impossible to maintain the survival of an army of more than 20,000 people, and there is no way to replenish soldiers.Therefore, Mao Zedong took great risks to command the troops to cross the Jinsha River.

Whether the Central Red Army can cross the river depends on two conditions: one is to confuse the enemy, so that the enemy cannot judge its true intentions, so as to gain more time to cross the river; the other is to speed up and cross the river in the shortest time .Lin Biao's feigned attack on Kunming mobilized the enemy troops; in order to better confuse the enemy, the Red Army deliberately went west to capture Luquan, Dingwu, and Yuanmou counties, and even pretended to cross the river at Longjie north of Yuanmou.The tactics used by Mao Zedong did buy some time for the Red Army. The enemy troops who pursued and suppressed detoured to Yuanmou, but the Red Army rushed to cross the Jinsha River at Jiaopingdu in Luquan County.

Jiaoping Ferry, also known as Winch Ferry, has been a famous ferry since ancient times.From Luquan to this ferry is Huili in Sichuan. Sichuan caravans loaded with salt, grain, silver, and leather entered northern Yunnan for trade through this ferry.There is also a road in and out of Tibet nearby. Herbs, gold and other special products shipped from Tibet are also transferred from Kyaukpingdu to various places. The Red Army sent an advance team of cadre regiments to Jiaoping Ferry.The advance team marched hurriedly along the way, the weather was hot, the mountain roads were rugged, and sometimes there was no road at all, and the sun made people sweat, but none of the soldiers complained—but it was hard for the local guides they found.These guides were born and bred and are known for their foot strength, but they encountered difficulties in marching with the Red Army for a long time and quickly.They all had backaches, complained endlessly, and kept asking the Red Army comrades to walk more slowly.In order not to delay the trip, the Red Army had to walk a certain distance and change guides.Finally, I met an old man who looked very old, but in fact he was only in his forties.He was very familiar with the mountain roads around Jiaopingdu, and the Red Army did not change guides, because it would take some time to find a guide.This old man smoked opium and couldn't walk fast. When he got addicted to smoking, he yawned and had a runny nose and saliva, and he couldn't stand upright.The soldiers thought of a good way. They gave him one or two big cigarettes (captured), and the two of them took turns to help him walk, so that he could eat while walking, so that he could barely keep up with the team.

When this advance team came to Shan Laoshu, which was only 30 miles away from Jiaopingdu, they met a fat secretary of the Kuomintang District Office (some people said he was a pseudo-district head).The Red Army once again pretended to be the Central Army of the Kuomintang. The fat secretary happily told the Red Army that he happened to be notified that he was going to burn the ferry on the Jinsha River—but he was captured as a guide.This happened on May 3. At dusk that day, the Red Army of the advance team finally arrived at Jiaopingdu after marching 280 kilometers for 30 hours. Jiaoping Ferry was managed by a chieftain surnamed Jin of the Yi nationality. In order to prevent the Red Army from crossing the river, Chieftain Jin sent people to row all the boats to Sichuan and hide them.The Red Army will not be able to find the ferry for a while.In the middle of the night, a small boat came over from the opposite bank. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was God's blessing—Jin Tusi's brother was addicted to cigarettes, so he sent his men to row over to fetch opium, and sent a boat to the Red Army.So the Red Army crossed the river overnight, quickly occupied the opposite bank, and found 6 boats, so that the Red Army had 7 ferries and found 36 boatmen.The leader of the boatmen was Zhang Chaoshou.The current at Kyaukping Ferry is very fast, and it is impossible to build a pontoon bridge, so we can only cross the river by boat.There is a row of caves dug on the rock wall on the north bank of Jiaoping Ferry. The headquarters of crossing the river is located in the cave, and Liu Bocheng is in charge of crossing the river.

There were only six boats available for large troops to cross the river, because one boat was used by fishermen to fish and support the Jintusi family, and it could only accommodate seven or eight people. It was too small, and the Red Army gave up using this boat. There are more than 20,000 people on 6 boats, so all the boatmen can only be divided into two shifts, and they take turns to ferry, day and night, and the boat does not stop.The boats are numbered, with 60 people on the big leaf boat and 40 people on the second leaf boat (Dayezi and Eryezi are the names of the boats by Zhang Chaoshou's boatmen, which are commonly used by local people).Each ship has a person in charge of crossing the river, and all personnel on board obey the command of the person in charge.When the troops arrived at the river, they had to wait for the order to cross the river, and they could not rush across.After the ship docked, according to the number of people who can cross, order this number of Red Army troops to the beach at the ferry, and the soldiers boarded the ship one by one.There are also designated seats on the boat, and you are seated according to the number.All the donkeys and horses floated across the Jinsha River with the boat.During the day, there was an endless stream of troops along the river, and at night, torches were lit on both sides of the river, and amidst the sound of bugles, ferries shuttled back and forth on the river, fast but not chaotic.According to the original plan of the Red Army, it was divided into three routes and crossed the river at Hongmen, Longjie and Jiaopingdu respectively.The Third Red Army set up a pontoon bridge by the Hongmen River. After the vanguard troops crossed the river, the river washed away the pontoon bridge.They were ordered to transfer to Longjie to cross the river.The current in Longjie was also very fast, and the Red First Army Corps, which was scheduled to cross the river there, could not cross the river.So the first and third armies of the Red Army rushed to Jiaopingdu to cross the river. On May 7, the Red Army crossed the river. On the 8th, the First Red Army Corps crossed the river.The Fifth Red Army Corps, which was in charge of the rear guard, had been stopping the nearly 10,000 elite division of the Central Army led by Wu Qiwei. After completing their mission, they all crossed the river in Jiaoping from the 8th to the 9th.The enemy's reconnaissance planes flew over the Jiaopingdu River twice, but the river was too narrow and there were cliffs on both sides, so it could not be bombed.

There is a big stone more than 3 meters high on the riverside called "Dragon Head Stone". Liu Bocheng stood on that big stone and directed the crossing of the river.From May 3rd to May 9th, a total of seven days and seven nights, no one was lost, and the entire Red Army crossed the river safely.According to the agreement in advance, each boatman's daily salary is 2 silver dollars, and if he wants to receive opium, he can get 5 taels.The boatman who had been ferrying all the way got 30 silver dollars in the end. Among them was a boat, which was the private property of the boatman. He got 80 silver dollars as compensation from the Red Army.But as soon as the Red Army left, many boatmen were arrested by the Kuomintang.

Many people did not believe that such a huge team crossed the Jinsha River with six small boats—and the enemy's pursuers did not reach the riverside until two days after the large army had crossed the river. The Red Army can cross the river calmly, just like the two conditions mentioned above, confusing the enemy and speeding up, the Red Army has completely achieved these two points.Mao Zedong praised Liu Bocheng as a dragon descending from the mortal world, "How can the river stop the dragon? He will take us there." Some documents record that the Red Army took 7 boats to cross the Jinsha River for 9 days and 9 nights.It is necessary to explain this further: after the main Red Army crossed the river, they destroyed the big boats they were on. In the next two days, as the Red Army left behind rushed to the river, the boatmen used the small fishing boats used to support the chieftain’s family. Send these people across the river.So, neither statement is wrong.

In order to celebrate their victory, the Red Army wrote and performed a satirical play called "A Broken Straw Sandal".The content of the plot is roughly like this: Chiang Kai-shek's army chased the Red Army for thousands of miles, and chased them to the Jinsha River, but they couldn't see the Red Army, but only picked up a broken straw sandal left by the Red Army by the river.The enemy then desperately snatched the broken straw sandal, scrambling to take it back and ask Chiang Kai-shek for a reward. ——The Red Army soldiers couldn't stop laughing after watching this play.