The Long March Part 2 (3/4)

July 29, 2010

Mao’s troops didn’t want to return through the grasslands and he issued orders to take the pass. The fighting was fierce and Mao’s Red Army took heavy losses.

Mao stopped the direct assaults and sent skilled climbers up one of the canyon’s walls.  From the high ground, they shot down at the Nationalist fortifications blocking the pass.

One volunteer wrapped his body in explosives, leaped from the cliff into the middle of the Nationalist fortifications, and blew himself up opening the pass.

Mao’s First Red Army finally reached desolate and rugged Shaanxi Province. The Long March was over, and Mao’s troops linked up with other Red Army elements that already had a base there.

Of the original 87,000 who started the Long March, fewer than 6,000 survived. These survivors would recruit and lead the new army.

The Long March turned Mao into a leader with a following from the common people throughout China.

Eventually, the Fourth Red army arrived, but two-thirds of this army had been killed in battles.

Chiang Kai-shek planned a new campaign to defeat Mao, but Chiang’s supporters and generals forced him to work with the Communists to fight the Japanese. This uneasy alliance would become a Civil War in 1945 when World War II ended.

Return to The Long March – Part 2/2 or go on to The Long March Part 2/4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China is Serious about UFOs

July 29, 2010

The Huffington Post mentioned recent UFO sightings in China, “four lantern-like objects forming a diamond shape…hovered over the city’s Shaping Park for over an hour…. Last week, flights were diverted in Hangzhou, also in eastern China – after a mysterious object was seen hovering in the sky.”

I wrote about descriptions that sounded like UFOs in God, Ancient Astronauts and China’s Yellow Emperor.

In fact, Early Chinese texts tell of long-lived rulers from the heavens who flew in “fire-breathing dragons”.

In Tibet there is a book called the Kantyua, which means “the translated word of Buddha”. It tells of flying “pearls in the sky” and of transparent spheres carrying gods to visit man. Source: NetScientia.com

In 1947, a Chinese newspaper, the Commons Daily, reported that witnesses saw UFOs appearing over Wuhan.

Then in The Chinese Roswell by Hartwig Hausdorf, the author spent years in China uncovering tell-tale traces of an alien mind which may have passed that way millennia ago.

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many fascinating accounts of flying machines, unexplained celestial observations and close encounters with strange beings can be found quite extensively in historical and literary works from China.” Source: Open Minds

Conservative state-run newspapers and television media often report UFO sightings. China has a bimonthly UFO magazine devoted to UFO research, The Journal of UFO Research, which was launched in February 1981, circulation 400,000. Source: The Independent

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Long March Part 2 (2/4)

July 29, 2010

There is no drainage in the grasslands. As it rains, the water saturates the soil and turns it into a swamp.  Beneath the flowers and grass were hidden bogs that could swallow men and animals whole. 

The temperatures were slightly above freezing. Food became scarce and was rationed.

When there was no food, the troops boiled the grass and added a touch of salt. Everyone was weak. Those who collapsed were left to die, because the survivors were too weak to help.

They could only cry.

The Red Army lost more troops in the grasslands than from the Snowy Mountains.  A Nationalist army followed the Communists into the grasslands but turned back because of the difficulty and risks.

One reason the Nationalists turned back was that Chiang Kai-shek suffered from a lack of loyalty among his troops and generals. He even feared that one of his generals might kill him.

On the other hand, the loyalty of Mao’s troops was unquestioned. 

However, the general of the Fourth Red Army argued with Mao and the two armies split. 

Mao’s army was weak and still had hundreds of miles to go to reach safety. One obstacle remained—the dangerous Lazikou pass, which was also fortified by waiting Nationalist troops. Mao’s troops would have to fight to take the pass or return through the grasslands.

Return to The Long March – Part 2/1 or go on to The Long March Part 2/3

_________________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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The Long March Part 2 (1/4)

July 28, 2010

In June 1935, eight months and over three-thousand miles into the Long March, Mao’s Red Army moved into Western Sichuan Province.  For a time, Mao’s troops were safe from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese launched an attack on another northern Chinese province.  The Japanese now occupied most of Northern China and the Chinese there knew little about the struggle between Mao and Chiang Kai-shek. Feeling abandoned, they were alienated from the Nationalist government.

However, the Red Army had to cross the Snowy Mountains with peaks as high as 15,000 feet.  Because these mountains were so rugged and dangerous, the Nationalist Army stopped the pursuit and waited for the mountains to kill Mao.

Some historians believed crossing these mountains was a blunder, but Mao had no choice. Only defeat waited behind him. There was no turning back. 

The thin air and the steep, snow-covered mountains exhausted the troops. A shortage of food, lack of firewood, snow blindness all contributed to the challenge. While crossing the mountains and linking up with the Fourth Red Army, thousands were lost. Once joined, the combined armies number 100,000 troops.

The next challenge was the deadliest obstacle of all—a high-desert grassland. There was no choice. All the easy routes were controlled by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops. Then heavy rains came, which turned the grassland into a swamp.

Return to The Long March – Part 1/6 or go on to The Long March – Part 2/2

______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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The Long March Part 1 (6/6)

July 27, 2010

In the race to the bridge, advanced elements of the Red Army arrived first.   The bridge was about 100 yards long and nine feet wide.  Thirteen chains held up the side supports along with the bridge’s flooring. The troops for a local warlord guarded the bridge, and they had removed the flooring.  Only the chains were left since the local people refused to cut them.

The battle for the bridge began.  Volunteers from the Red Army started to crawl along the chains while covering fire was focused on the warlord’s troops on the other side.

The warlord’s troops used mortars and machine guns shooting at the Red Army volunteers as they crawled toward them. After fierce fighting, Mao’s troops took the bridge and the Red Army crossed. The Nationalists had made a mistake by not cutting the bridge’s chains.

However, The Long March was not over.  The Red Army was heavily outnumbered, and they had some of the highest mountains in the world to cross before reaching the Fourth Red Army and safety deep in Western China.

Return to The Long March – Part 1/5 or go on to The Long March – Part 2/1

__________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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