Little Long March
The Little Long March was a 600-kilometre (370 mi), two-month withdrawal by left-wing members of the
Withdrawal of liberated troops
Facing a counter-attack from Right-Kuomintang (Chiang Kai-shek-affiliated Nationalists) regiments moving up from Jiujiang, the Revolutionary Committee—basically Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan and their Comintern military advisor Kunanin—decided to evacuate the city and make for the southern port of Shantou, Guangdong, in the hope of receiving a Soviet arms shipment. Once supplied they would attempt a return to the provincial capital Guangzhou and thence a new and proper dissemination of Left-Kuomintang/Communist influence throughout the province from which most of the insurrection's soldiery had come. He Long strongly opposed this idea: he pointed out that marching such a great distance and over such terrain in the heat of summer would put a severe strain on the troops. He also pointed out that the popular support for the communists in Guangdong was merely a fraction of what they enjoyed among the peasantry in Hunan, the province where he had thrived by brigandage since 1913. Resupply and local enlistment were assured. Why should the new base not be established somewhere in its vast border regions?
He Long's suggestion was vetoed—Guangzhou, springboard of the Northern Expedition, was the target set by the Comintern. Accordingly, on August 5 the 25,000 Left-Kuomintang troops began the 600 km march to the South China Sea coast. The Communists would pay a hefty price for their obeisance two months later in the rout known as the Battle of Shantou.
By the 8th, only three days out, a third of the Uprising troops had deserted.
In the aftermath of battle, He Long swore allegiance to the
Down the Tingjiang
Having rested at the headwaters of the Gan River, the Liberated troops filed over into
At
In the meantime, other Left-KMT troops had convened at
And so it was that by the end of September, with their Nanchang troops poised above Shantou, the Communists knew that their uprisings had yet to take and keep one city from the Rightists. The Chiang-affiliated KMT or warlord forces were even now moving in to trap the Left Mutineers with the sea at their backs. The Com-Intern's Hong Kong station sent word that they should avoid further battles, forgo Shantou port (where in any event Soviet arms would not be forthcoming) and take cover like the Wenjiashi troops, and furthermore establish a rural soviet in Peng's hometown.[3] There was now, however, no avoiding the Rightist hammer: Ye and He lost two-fifths of their troop strength in battle at Fengshun County-town. In belated accordance with the Com-Intern directive, Ye circled down to Shanwei, lending peasant leader Peng a triumphant return to his home town Haifeng.
Refugee force
Zhu, who in the battle had minded the northern front, marched his 1,000 troops back up into Jiangxi and over its western ridges into Hunan. Zhu finally found refuge for his mutineers' regiment with the
In 1928 April Zhu's force had expanded to 10,000 and he marched them into the Jinggang Mountains along the borderlands, there to join the survivors of Mao's uprising.
Down but not out in Hong Kong
Other surviving members were much less fortunate; all became fugitives. Zhou Enlai, now seriously ill, unarmed save for a pistol or two and incommunicado save for the company of Ye Jianying (and some say Ye Ting too) made it to Hong Kong, the largest and safest of China's foreign concessions. Nie Rongzhen too arrived there.
Zhang Guotao and Li Lisan holed up in the small fishing port of Tiazugang but soon also arrived in Hong Kong. They were made to write reports on the
Elsewhere
He Long went home alone after the defeat. Reduced from an army commander in charge of tens of thousands of men to a beggar, he was not well received by his family except a few who were already communists. He was to raise another 3000 soldier-strong force in his homeland but it too would be wiped out by the Right-KMT (with just over 30 survivors). Only a year later would He Long again command a formidable force.
Other fugitives of the rout at Fengshun included Liu Bocheng, who hooked up with communist sympathisers and was eventually sent to Moscow for military training. Lin Biao, incommunicado for a time, returned to the surviving uprising force in flight from hostile locals. Guo Moruo sailed to Japan.
See also
References
- ISBN 0-679-42271-4, p. 53.
- ^ ibid., pp.54-5.
- ISBN 0-06-008464-2.