Chapter 27 27. Women don't give way to men

One day in October 1934, Wang Quanyuan was recalled to Ruijin by an urgent order. At that time, she was working in the countryside to expand her popularity.After returning to Ruijin, she obviously felt that the atmosphere was a little strange. Her leader, the comrades of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, ordered her to only bring a jacket, quilt, straw sandals, and throw away all other items, and set off with the women's work group code-named "Red Star". , headed by Dong Biwu.Like many Red Army troops who set out from the Central Soviet Area, she went out of southern Jiangxi, crossed the Xiangjiang River, and walked north until she realized that the Central Red Army had been forced to start a strategic shift.

A total of 30 female cadres were transferred with the Red Front Army. Some of them held positions in the central government or the army, and some were selected female backbones.Before joining the Red Army, Wang Quanyuan was the women's minister of the Ji'an County Party Committee. After joining the Red Army, she was sent to Ruijin University of Marxism-Leninism to study culture (she was still illiterate at the time).At the end of the study, he was assigned to work in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. ——The 30 female Long March soldiers, except Cai Chang, Kang Keqing, Liu Ying and other 6 people, the remaining 24 people were arranged in the women's work group.They mainly publicized the policies of the Communist Party and the Red Army along the way, raised food and funds, hired people to carry stretchers, and took care of the wounded.In addition to these female cadres, there are also some women in charge of nursing work.

The female writer Ding Ling believed that the women in the Long March were the most difficult.She did not participate in the Long March, but she was the first literary celebrity to arrive in Yan'an, and she is also the most typical Yan'an literati.Ding Ling is a new woman with fire-like enthusiasm, unruly.She believed that the women who participated in the Long March were all virtuous women, and they were also a group of women who could endure hardships and stand hard work. Otherwise, the Long March would not have been possible for 25,000 miles, from Jiangxi to Yan'an. Liu Qunxian, Bogu's wife, recalled the past of the Long March and said that the march was very difficult and her feet hurt so badly that she had to wash her feet with hot water every day.In fact, marching super-intensively every day, washing feet with hot water is of no avail.Women also have to suffer the same exhaustion and pain as gay men, and even because of their physical characteristics, they need to be more patient than men.Some lesbians have small feet and it is inconvenient to walk, but they never lag behind when they walk and climb mountains.Another troublesome point is that during menstruation, there is often no piece of paper or a rag, and the menstrual blood can only be allowed to flow down the trousers.Excessive stress and fatigue, coupled with hunger, cold, and humidity, many women have amenorrhea, especially after crossing the snow-capped mountains, some people never have menstruation again, and it is impossible to have children.

At the beginning of the Long March, because the organization was chaotic, they could not get enough food.Gays and gays also quarreled over food.The women had to be formed separately, Liu Qun was the captain first, and Li Bozhao (Yang Shangkun's wife) was in charge of food supplies. The situation was much better than before.But starvation is a very common thing.When we were in Lianghekou, Sichuan, some women were left behind to take care of them, just because there was a notice written on the side of the road saying that there was an army behind them, and they were asked to stay in charge of contact.They had no choice but to stay at Lianghekou and wait for two or three months. They ran out of food early and relied on wild vegetables to satisfy their hunger every day.One day, Wang Quanyuan and another lesbian went to buy grain. They walked more than 30 miles, but they didn't get a grain of grain.After they ate the pigweed, they put a silver dollar in a more conspicuous place.

The female soldiers of the Red Army walked on the rugged mountain road all day and all night, feeling that there was no end in sight, and they did not know how far the road ahead was.When I entered Guizhou, it was foggy, rainy and cold; when I arrived in Yunnan and Sichuan, the sun was exposed to the sun every day, and it was extremely hot; when I entered the snow-capped mountains, it was so cold that people could be frozen into icicles.Wei Xiuying is short in stature. She said that the Long March was much more difficult for women. Every day was full of difficulties, and every day was difficult.

Only Kang Keqing, the wife of Commander-in-Chief Zhu De, was an exception. She thought the Long March was relatively easy.By 1935, she and Zhu De had been married for almost 7 years.She was only 17 years old when she married Zhu De (Zhu De was 43 years old), and she didn't know a word. In 1933, Kang Keqing graduated from the Red Army School and the Red Army University.Kang Keqing participated in almost every battle of the first four "encirclement and suppression" campaigns against the Red Army by the Kuomintang army.Because of the long war, she became an excellent marksman.When the Red Army was in Jinggangshan, there was a rule that husband and wife could only meet each other on Saturday nights, and the rule could only be broken when the husband or wife was ill and needed care from the other party.The same is true in the Long March.But Zhu De and Kang Keqing are exceptions among exceptions.During the Long March, they were hardly separated for a single day, because Kang Keqing was capable of fighting. She not only carried a pistol (she was equipped with two pistols and a Mauser), a leather bag, military maps and provisions, but also carried her own baggage and blankets. Often help tired soldiers carry three or four rifles.Once, a soldier saw her on the bank of a river, lying on her lap to write an order for the procedures for the troops directly under her to cross the river.She was originally an ordinary peasant woman, but in just a few years, her education level and military skills have reached an astonishing level.Kang Keqing once told the American reporter Edgar?Snow (who wrote "Red Star Over China") said that the Long March was "like going out for a walk every day".She was really good at walking and riding, was always at the front of the line, and worked harder than many gay men.

Despite all the difficulties, among the 30 women of the Central Red Army, except for Gan Tang, Li Guiying, and Xie Xiaomei who stayed halfway to participate in local work, the other 27 all arrived in northern Shaanxi safely, and none of them was left behind. Many people thought that these women comrades were used to hard work, so they could walk to Yan'an safely.In fact, this is not the case. Although many of them are used to working, there are also people from wealthy families who have enjoyed the life of young ladies, college students with higher education and students who have studied abroad, and some political activists who have long enjoyed a reputation.

Here, I have to mention Deng Yingchao, Zhou Enlai's wife. In 1915, Deng Yingchao was admitted to Tianjin No. 1 Women's Normal School. She was not outstanding in appearance, but she had a pair of bright eyes. She was keen on political activities and good at speeches. In 1919, several girls' schools in Tianjin established women's patriotic comrades' associations, and 15-year-old Deng Yingchao was elected as the speech captain.Her speech was passionate, impassioned, and extremely motivating.That year, the May 4th Patriotic Movement made her meet Zhou Enlai. They were both patriotic and progressive student representatives, and together they organized a student group "Zhouwu Club".During the period of the Great Revolution, Zhou Enlai held some positions in the Nationalist Government in Guangdong, including the well-known director of the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy.Deng Yingchao also served in the National Government during that period, serving as the minister of the Central Women's Department, a member of the Central Supervision Committee, and an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee. Many people in Guangdong call Deng Yingchao an orator.

She and Zhou Enlai married freely in love, shared common beliefs and goals, and had a harmonious relationship.Before meeting Zhou Enlai, she hated marriage. She felt that in those days, when a woman got married, her life was over.Later circumstances proved that Deng Yingchao chose a revolutionary partner.She recalled that in his later years, when Zhou Enlai told his love story to the younger generation, he said that he married Deng Yingchao because he saw that he could persevere in the revolution.Deng Yingchao also took a fancy to Zhou Enlai. ——Many leaders and their wives in the Long March, like Zhang Wentian and Liu Ying, Li Fuchun and Cai Chang, Li Weihan and Jin Weiying, Yang Shangkun and Li Bozhao—were such a combination.

Deng Yingchao suffered from severe lung disease before the Long March.She fell into the swamp while crossing the grass, and after being rescued, she developed a high fever the next day and did not eat a grain of rice for seven days and seven nights. The comrades around thought she was dying, but she survived miraculously.She had the same tenacious vitality as Zhou Enlai. Not long after her illness got better, Zhou Enlai got liver disease again and almost died of liver abscess.Deng Yingchao was carried on a stretcher across a river on the grass. The water was three feet deep, so the troops stayed by the river and crossed in order.Many middle and lower rank officers went to see her. She kept panting, but she still asked the officers around her with concern: "How deep is the river?" Clothes, this is the last difficulty of crossing the grass.The soldiers present were all moved.

Cai Chang is a native of Hunan and has received a fairly high education. He once studied in France.Her elder brother, Cai Hesen, and Mao Zedong were classmates in Changsha First Normal School. During the May Fourth Movement, they initiated the work-study program for Hunanese to go to France.Her sister-in-law, Xiang Jingyu, is also a well-known revolutionary.Cai Chang and Cai Hesen went to Paris in 1919. Their mother, a 50-year-old lady with small feet, resolutely accompanied the two children across the ocean.In France, Cai Chang met Li Fuchun and they got married.In China, it is difficult to find a more revolutionary family than the Cai Chang family.People in the Red Army affectionately called Cai Chang "big sister".She was wearing military uniform and hemp shoes, carrying a pistol, and standing in the line, people who were not familiar with her appearance could not tell that she was a woman at all.Her French was good, and she could sing the "La Marseillaise," which the soldiers begged her to sing whenever they had the opportunity.Her singing was impassioned. The soldiers traveled long distances and suffered from hunger and cold. Hearing her singing relieved a lot of fatigue and loneliness.Kang Keqing called the stories and jokes told by Cai Chang their "spiritual food".Inspiring people with optimism is also a major feature of the Red Army's political work. Li Bozhao, the "red dramatist" who is better at publicizing literature and art than Cai Chang, graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. She is very beautiful and has an elegant temperament.On the Long March, she always ran in front of the team, doing propaganda and agitation work.When the Red Army camped, she and many lesbians went to the resident masses to investigate, condolences to the wounded, and distributed confiscated supplies.During the rest time, she often makes up her own programs and organizes performances to make the atmosphere very active.Her husband Yang Shangkun said: "As a red literary and artistic warrior, as long as the revolution requires her, she will do anything." No matter on the banks of the Xiangjiang River, in the Laoshanjie, or on the Dadu River, her singing can be heard. He will happily dance the Soviet sailor dance, and his posture will fascinate everyone. The 25th Red Army started the Long March one month later than the Central Red Army. They set off from the Hubei, Henan and Anhui bases, accompanied by 7 female nurses.In order not to fall behind, when they marched at night, they used leggings to form a long rope and pulled them forward.Comrades from the Political Department tried several times to persuade them to stay, but without success.They nursed the wounded and did propaganda work all the way. They were the first to reach northern Shaanxi among the various Long March teams. The number of women in the Fourth Red Army far exceeded people's imagination.Not a few or dozens, but more than 2,000 women's independent divisions. In March 1933, the predecessor of this Detachment of Women, the Sichuan Tongjiang Women's Independence Battalion, was established under the Red Fourth Front Army, with more than 300 people at first.The women's independent division has two regiments, led by Zhang Qinqiu.Most of the female fighters are girls aged 16 or 17 from rural areas in northern Sichuan, and the youngest is only 9 years old.Regardless of their age, the women all have crew-cut hair, gray military uniforms, bamboo hats, leggings, straw sandals, knives and guns, no difference from men.Their main tasks are to defend the offices of the Red Army, Red Army hospitals, warehouses, transport ammunition, food, and transfer the wounded.They followed the Fourth Red Army across the snow-capped mountains twice and grasslands three times, and experienced all kinds of hardships.The female soldiers in the engineering battalion, in addition to bearing the luggage of the whole battalion, also had to transport supplies for the Fourth Red Army, and each of them carried at least 40 to 50 catties of items on their backs.One time, the wounded were blocked by the river due to an enemy air raid. A company commander named Wang Xuenong led the female soldiers, jumped into the river, and built a bridge with his shoulders to let the wounded pass. Teacher Zhang Qinqiu is the woman with the highest position and the highest education in the Fourth Red Army, and the only female teacher in the Red Army.She studied at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow and was one of the famous "28 and a half Bolsheviks". In 1936, she became the wife of Chen Changhao, political commissar of the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army. In the summer of 1933, she led 500 female soldiers to escort the wounded of the Red Army, and encountered a regiment of the Sichuan Army.She commanded the female soldiers to fight calmly, but even instigated the enemy's internal strife. The soldiers of the Sichuan Army tied up their officers and surrendered to the Red Army. After the women's independent division arrived in northern Shaanxi in 1936, the number of women's independent divisions decreased sharply, and it was reduced into the Women's Anti-Japanese Pioneer Group.Later, they marched west along the Hexi Corridor with Zhang Guotao, and were forced into the Gobi Desert by Ma Bufang's cavalry, and fought in the Qilian Mountains. In the end, all the remaining 300 people were captured.The fate of the women in the women's regiment is nothing more than being captured, sacrificed, and exiled to other places. Only a small part of them can return to Yan'an. Zhang Qinqiu was pregnant during the Western Expedition, and the boy she gave birth during the battle in January 1937 was soon killed by the cold ice and snow in the Gobi Desert.There were lesbians in the Red First, Second, and Fourth Front Army who gave birth to children during the Long March, including Mao Zedong's wife He Zizhen.They couldn't take care of their children in the midst of the bombardment. As soon as the children were born, they entrusted them to the local villagers.Sometimes time is too late, put the child on the side of the road, leaving a note about the child's life experience.Most of the lost children can never be found again. According to statistics, among the women who participated in the Long March, there were 30 members of the First Red Army, 7 members of the Second Red Army, more than 20 members of the Second Red Army, and more than 2,000 members of the Fourth Red Army.