Chapter 25 25. The only bridge on the Dadu River

In the early morning of May 27, 1935, the Red Fourth Regiment received an order from the Central Revolutionary Military Commission to go north along the west bank of the Dadu River and arrive at Luding Bridge on the 30th.The head of the regiment Wang Kaixiang and the political commissar Yang Chengwu immediately led the soldiers of the whole regiment to march towards Luding Bridge.There are many enemy strongholds along the way, and the Red Fourth Regiment must fight while walking. In the two days before the departure of the Red Fourth Regiment, they have been marching and are now exhausted.Not long after they walked along the river, they were attacked by the enemy on the other side.The river surface of the Dadu River is very narrow in some areas, so you can clearly see the road on the other side and hear the voices coming from the other side.In order to avoid more encounters with the enemy and speed up the march, the Red Fourth Regiment decided to climb the mountain and take a shortcut.What they walk is not called a "road" at all, and sometimes they have to stop and dig a place to stand.

On the 27th, the Red Fourth Regiment fought two battles.Once defeated a guard force of more than 100 people; once outflanked from behind the mountain and defeated an enemy battalion.After nightfall, they rested on the spot overnight. At this time, the enemy situation has changed.Mao Zedong learned from intelligence that Chiang Kai-shek sent reinforcements to Luding Bridge.Before the arrival of enemy reinforcements, the advance team of the Red Fourth Regiment must launch an offensive to capture the bridge.Otherwise, it will be difficult to win the battle for the bridge. At 5 o'clock in the morning on the 28th, the soldiers ate some dry food and continued on their way. Soon after, they received a new order from the Military Commission.This order restricted the Red Fourth Regiment to capture the Luding Bridge before the 29th, and wished them victory.

Yang Chengwu couldn't believe it. On the first day of marching, fighting while walking, the Red Army only walked about 40 kilometers.In the next 24 hours, it is almost impossible to travel nearly three times as far as the first day.However, military orders are overwhelming, and soldiers take obedience to orders as their bounden duty. It is related to the fate of the entire army, and no matter how difficult it is, they must be implemented without any delay. The Red Fourth Regiment gave an order for the whole regiment to run forward.In one morning, they ran more than 30 kilometers and came to Menghugang.Menghugang is a high mountain with an up and down distance of tens of miles. The mountain is shrouded in clouds and mist. There is only one narrow path in the mountain, which is the only way to the Luding Bridge.A battalion of the Kuomintang was stationed on the top of the mountain. The soldiers took advantage of the fog to touch the enemy's position and took the mountain pass by surprise.At around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the Red Fourth Regiment went down the mountain, arrived at a village called Moxi, and defeated another battalion of the enemy.A small bridge on the way forward from Moxi was blown up by the enemy, and the Red Fourth Regiment took two hours to build a new bridge.Most of the soldiers took the opportunity to rest.After the bridge was erected, they ran and marched again.When it was dark, we arrived at Kuiwu, which was about 55 kilometers away from Luding Bridge.

The Red Army moved on.While the Red Fourth Regiment was racing against time, the two brigades reinforced by the enemy were also rushing to reinforce the Luding Bridge along the east bank of the Dadu River. The weather was not beautiful, and it rained heavily in the evening, which drenched people completely.It was so dark that you couldn't see your fingers, and the road was muddy, so you took one step at a time.The soldiers did not stop to eat throughout the day, but just chewed some raw rice and drank some cold water.They were cold and hungry, and they continued on their way.But because the road could not be seen clearly, the marching speed slowed down significantly.

At around 11 o'clock in the evening, in a place called Chumei, the Red Fourth Regiment found an enemy army on the other side with torches on their way.Yang Chengwu had an idea and told the head of the regiment Wang Kaixiang: "We can also light torches." Wang Kaixiang also thought it was a good idea, but the two armies were separated by a river, which would definitely arouse the suspicion of the enemy.Yang Chengwu and the others decided to take a bold gamble and use the numbers and contact signals of the Kuomintang troops seized during the day to confuse the enemy. The Red Army also lit torches and hurried on their way.Not long after the torches were lit on the west bank, the enemy's horns from the east bank came through the sound of wind and rain and the sound of the waves of the Dadu River.The Red Army also used trumpets to tell the other side that we are also a Kuomintang army and have just wiped out a "red bandit".The enemy did not have the slightest suspicion.On this stormy night, a rare spectacle was formed on both sides of the Dadu River. Two long fire dragons were swimming among the mountains, reflected across the river, and both rushed towards the same target.The two teams went hand in hand for about 15 kilometers. At 12 o'clock, the fire on the other side went out.The Red Army blew the trumpet again to ask, and the enemy replied that they wanted to camp and rest.Yang Chengwu and the others deceived the enemy. After the enemy stopped, the Red Army continued on their way.In the early morning of the next day, the Fourth Red Regiment arrived at Luding Bridge as scheduled.

The scenery in the valley by the bridge is very beautiful.The pink rhododendrons are blooming on the hillside, the potato flowers are snow-white, the red cherries and yellow loquats are ripe, and the whole valley is decorated colorfully. Although the scenery is beautiful, the danger of Luding Bridge is amazing.The height of the bridge is suspended in the air nearly 10 feet above the river. Luding Bridge is an iron cable bridge. The bridge body is composed of 13 iron cables, each weighing about 1.5 tons. Nine are bridge decks and four are handrails, forming a suspended cableway with a length of 100 meters and a width of 2.7 meters, on which 3-meter-long planks are laid to form the bridge deck. The 13 iron cables are all thick with bowl mouths and are made of interlocking iron rings. There are 12,164 buckles in total, with a total weight of 21 tons. Adding the iron used for the abutment ground dragon piles and crouching dragon piles, the total weight is more than 40 tons.In the forty-fifth year of Kangxi (1706), the Qing government spent 13 provinces to complete the construction.The plaque of "Luding Bridge" written by Emperor Kangxi, "Luding" means "Pingding of Lushui (the old name of Dadu River)", celebrating the pacification of the Dajianlu Rebellion.Luding Bridge originally belonged to Luding County, Xikang Province. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was placed under the jurisdiction of Sichuan Province. In 1935, there was only Luding Bridge, the only bridge on the thousands of miles of Dadu River.There are two poems engraved on a stone tablet on the west side of the bridge - "Thousands of mountains beside the Luding Bridge, the peak reaches thousands of miles into the clouds", which refers to the steep and majestic shore of the bridge.The main force of the Red Army had to cross the bridge to enter Sichuan and go north.

After the advance team of the Fourth Red Regiment arrived at Luding Bridge, they immediately inspected the terrain.On the other side of the bridge is the small town of Luding. The bridgehead and several blockhouses at the city gate behind form a tight firepower network.The Sichuan army guarding the bridge has already emptied the planks on the bridge, leaving only 13 dark iron chains hanging in the air, which are easy to defend but difficult to attack.Hundreds of people were stationed on the opposite bank, and if the Kuomintang reinforcements who had marched across the bank from the Red Army had arrived last night, there would be even more troops on the other bank.

The Fourth Red Regiment occupied several houses and a small Catholic church in the West Bank.After the enemy army on the other side found them, they fired a few mortars from the east bank, causing bricks and stones to fly around.The enemy yelled loudly, "Fly over!" The Red Fourth Regiment seriously arranged the task of capturing the Luding Bridge.The first battalion frontal assault: the second company is at the forefront, forming a death column of 22 people; the third company follows up and is responsible for laying planks; the first company closely follows the third company and is responsible for covering the charge.The 2nd Battalion and 3rd Battalion provided flank fire cover.Yang Chengwu asked the cook to cook a meal, and the soldiers could fight a good battle only when they were full and rested.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, all the trumpeters of the Red Fourth Regiment blew the charge horn together, and the firepower covering the assault battalion opened fire on the opposite bank.The battle for the bridge has begun. Liao Dazhu, commander of the second company, led 21 commandos, armed with submachine guns, sabers in their backs, and grenades tied to their waists, and crawled towards the opposite bank.The rain had stopped long ago, and the sun made people feel hot all over.The soldiers, covered in sweat, crawled on the iron chain and moved to the east bank bit by bit.The waves rolled under the bridge, and the bridge was full of bullets.Liao Dazhu and the others were getting closer and closer to the east bank, and the soldiers of the third company followed closely behind, crawling and laying down the wooden planks inch by inch and foot by foot.As they approached the bridgehead, a fire broke out at the bridgehead.In order to prevent the Red Army from storming over, the enemy poured kerosene on the wooden boards pulled from the bridge, trying to attack the Red Army with fire.With nothing to stop the advance of the Red Army, the commandos plunged into the fire, fighting the enemy in thick smoke and flames, and took the bridgehead.

In the next two hours, the Red Fourth Regiment defeated the defending enemy and firmly controlled Luding Town and Luding Bridge. In the evening, the Red First Division of the Red First Army marching along the east bank also arrived in Luding one after another.Yang Chengwu led Liu Bocheng and Nie Rongzhen, carrying lanterns, and set foot on the Luding Bridge.The three walked from the east of the bridge to the west of the bridge, and then turned back from the west of the bridge.A crescent moon hangs in the blue starry sky, dimly reflecting the quiet chain bridge.Liu Bocheng suddenly stopped in the middle of the bridge, deeply moved—after spending countless efforts and energy, the Red Army finally captured the only large passage on the Dadu River.

When the Fourth Red Regiment captured the Luding Bridge, Mao Zedong led the main force was marching in Tiger Hill.He had a premonition that the vanguard had captured Luding Bridge.When he went down the mountain to Moxi Village, he got the excellent news that the Red Army had captured the bridge. Luding Bridge has not collapsed for 300 years, thanks to continuous repairs.According to the custom, there is a minor repair every three years, and a major repair every five years. The iron cables are unloaded and placed in the river beach, and the most experienced ironworkers check them one by one.Perhaps it was a coincidence that when the Red Army captured the Luding Bridge, the Chain Bridge had just been overhauled for only 3 months, and it was extremely strong. On the third day after taking down Luding, the main force of the Red First Army came to Luding along the path that the Red Fourth Regiment had walked. More than 20,000 people crossed the Dadu River from the Luding Bridge.Chiang Kai-shek sent planes to bomb the Luding Bridge for three consecutive days, but not a single cable was broken.The cables were too strong and the river bank was too high for the plane to descend to the height needed to blow the cables. In early June, after the Ninth Red Army Regiment crossed the Dadu River, under the command of political commissar He Changgong, they sawed off four iron chains.It was not until May of the following year that Sichuan Provincial Chairman Liu Wenhui allocated 30,000 yuan for restoration. The heroes who flew over the Luding Bridge received the highest awards at that time: a set of Lenin suits, a diary, a pen, an enamel bowl, an enamel plate, and a pair of chopsticks.