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March 8, 2014 |
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Fleeing from pursuing Kuomintang forces, the Communism|communists found that there were not enough boats to cross the Dadu River (Sichuan province). They were forced to use Luding Bridge, a Qing dynasty chain bridge built in 1701. http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Long-March/history-Luding-Bridge.html. It consisted of thirteen heavy iron chains with a span of some 100 yards. Normally thick boards lashed over the chains made the road of the bridge. On May 29, 1935, Lin Biao and communist army forces reached the bridge to discover that local warlords, allied with the Kuomintang, had removed most of the planks on the bridge. With the main Kuomintang army closing in on the Chinese Red Army, a small volunteer force were sent across the badly damaged bridge. Red Star Over China - which uses the old-style name, Tatu River - says it was a force of thirty men; other sources say twenty-two. Red Army sources agree that they crawled over the bare iron chains while under heavy machine-gun fire from the opposite side. Three were hit, fell and died but the rest came forward. Red Star Over China suggests that some of the warlord forces admired their foes and were not shooting to kill. And that at a late stage, "paraffin was thrown on the planking and it began to burn". But there were Red Army forces on both sides. The force guarding the bridge and Luding City were driven off; some surrendered. According to http://www.shangri-la-river-expeditions.com/willdowns/china/gonggashan1.html Account by the late Will Downs, "At last one Red crawled up over the bridge flooring, uncapped a grenade and tossed it with perfect aim into the enemy redoubt. Nationalist officers ordered the rest of the planking torn up. It was already too late. More Reds were crawling into sight. (Kerosene) was thrown on the planking and it began to burn. By then about twenty Reds were moving forward on the hands and knees, tossing grenade after grenade into the enemy machine-gun nest." This skirmish may have saved the Red Army from a major defeat. "'Victory was life' said P'eng Teh-huai Peng Dehuai; 'defeat was certain death'." (Red Star Over China (1971 edition)) The event raised morale for the troops, and was later used as a propaganda tool to highlight the courage of the communists. "For their distinguished bravery the heroes of An Jen Ch'ang the seized ferry boat and Liu Ting Chiao the bridge were awarded the Gold Star, the highest decoration in the Red Army of China." (Red Star Over China'). The British-Chinese writer Jung Chang and her historian husband, Jon Halliday, in their generally well-reviewed 2005 biography of Mao, Mao: The Unknown Story, write that there was no battle at Luding Bridge. Having interviewed eye-witnesses, including the owner of a nearby shop, they state that the Kuomintang did not sabotage the bridge, or contest the crossing. According to them, the Long March was exaggerated and used as propaganda. Currently Chang & Halliday's is a rare account in denying that there was a battle at Luding Bridge. There are non-Chinese historians who have supported the Communist point-of-view: for example, Harrison E. Salisbury in The Long March: The Untold Story, Dick Wilson in The Long March 1935 : The Epic of Chinese Communism's Survival and Charlotte Salisbury in Long March Diary.
Category:History of China This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Luding Bridge".
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