Jiangxi Soviet

Central Revolutionary Base 中央革命根據地
Revolutionary base area of the Chinese Soviet Republic
1931–1934
Flag
Capital	Ruijin
Historical era	Chinese Civil War
• Established	1931
• Disestablished	1934
Preceded by Succeeded by Communist-controlled China Communist-controlled China Republic of China

Jiangxi Soviet
Traditional Chinese	閩贛蘇區
Simplified Chinese	闽赣苏区
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Mǐn-Gàn Sūqū
Central Revolutionary Base Area
Traditional Chinese	中央革命根據地
Simplified Chinese	中央革命根据地
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngyāng Gémìng Gēnjùdì
Central Soviet Zone
Traditional Chinese	中央蘇區
Simplified Chinese	中央苏区
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngyāng Sūqū

Central Revolutionary Base, commonly called the Central Soviet (Zone), Kiangsi–Fukien Soviet, or the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet, was the largest component territory of the Chinese Soviet Republic, an unrecognized state established in November 1931 by Mao Zedong and Zhu De during the Chinese civil war. Geographically, the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet-occupied the mountainous parts of Jiangxi and Fujian provinces of China and was home to the town of Ruijin, the county seat and headquarters of the Chinese Soviet government.

The Jiangxi-Fujian base area was defended ably by the First Red Front Army but in 1934 was finally overrun by the Kuomintang government's National Revolutionary Army in the Fifth of its Encirclement Campaigns. This last campaign in 1934-35 precipitated the most famous of the grand retreats known collectively as the Long March.

Beginning

On November 7, 1931, on the anniversary of the 1917 Russian Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union helped organize a National Soviet People's Delegates Conference in Ruijin (瑞金), Jiangxi province. Ruijin was the county seat and was selected as the capital of the new Soviet republic. The "Chinese Soviet Republic" (Chinese: 中華蘇維埃共和國) was born, though the majority of China was still under the control of the nationalist Government of the Republic of China. On that day, they had an open ceremony for the new country, and Mao Zedong and other Communists attended a military parade. Claiming its own bank, printing its own money, and collecting tax through its own tax bureau, the modern Chinese Communist Party considers this the beginning of Two Chinas.

With Mao Zedong as both head of state (Chinese: 中央执行委员会主席) and head of government (人民委员会主席), the CSR expanded, especially within Jiangxi-Fujian, reaching a peak territory claim of more than 30,000 km² (12,000 sq mi) and a population that numbered more than three million, covering considerable parts of two provinces (with Tingzhou in Fujian). Its economy was doing better than most other areas that were under the control of the Chinese warlords, though still suffered by comparison to non-warlord-controlled China. In addition to militia, its regular army numbered more than 140,000 by the early 1930s -- larger than the armies of most contemporary Chinese warlords, though still smaller than the Nationalist forces. The Chinese Red Army also possessed modern communications equipment, such as telephones, telegraphs, and radios, which most Chinese warlords' armies still lacked, and was regularly transmitting and receiving wireless coded messages.

==history==[edit]

The history of the Central Soviet Area can be traced back to the armed struggle of peasants led by the Communist Party in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian after the CCP broke with the Nationalist government during the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army in 1927. As the armed forces led by Mao Zedong and Zhu De in 1929 and the armed forces led by Peng Dehuai in 1930 moved to southern Jiangxi and western Fujian, the "Soviet Movement" in that area developed rapidly, and the area of ​​the Soviet area continued to expand. In September 1931, after successfully defending the third encirclement and suppression of the National Revolutionary Army, the revolutionary bases in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian were joined together; in November, the Chinese Soviet Republic was established, and the Central Soviet Area was formally formed. foundation [edit] From November 1927 to March 1928, the special committees of the CPC in western Jiangxi and southern Jiangxi launched many armed struggles in the southwestern region of Jiangxi, and successfully established "revolutionary bases" such as Donggu and Qiaotou. In March and June 1928, the armed struggle in the western Fujian region established the "Yongding Xinan Revolutionary Base". These red separatist regions in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian laid the foundation for the Central Soviet Area. [4][5] In January 1929, Mao Zedong and Zhu De led more than 3,600 main force of the Fourth Red Army into southern Jiangxi from Jinggang Mountain. With the cooperation of local Communist Party organizations and guerrillas, they opened up the southern Jiangxi base area; from March to December, the Fourth Red Army entered Fujian for three times. West, opened up the base area of ​​western Fujian. Mao Zedong and others found that the National Revolutionary Army was very weak in the whole province of Fujian and on the two sides of eastern and southern Jiangxi. The foundation of the party organization in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian was relatively good. The economic situation in this area was much better than that in the Jinggangshan area. , The border area of ​​the three provinces of Fujian, mountains and mountains, dangerous terrain, easy to separate. Especially after the capture of Tingzhou, I read the newspapers of the Kuomintang government in many cities, and learned that the Kuomintang warlords would soon be fighting, which would facilitate the action and development of the Red Army. On March 20, 1929, Mao Zedong presided over an enlarged meeting of the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army at Xingeng Villa in Tingzhou, and decided that the Fourth Red Army, the Fifth Red Army and the Second and Fourth Regiments of the Jiangxi Red Army, in the early days of the domestic warlord melee, " Taking the more than twenty counties in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian as the scope, from guerrilla tactics, from mobilizing the masses to openly dividing the Soviet regime, the separated area will be connected with the separated area on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi." This is the original blueprint of the Central Soviet Area, As a result, the "land revolution" of the Chinese Communist Party moved from a low point to a high point, and the Central Soviet Area was able to quickly establish and develop. After the Gutian Conference in December 1929, in order to "smash the three provincial capitals", Mao Zedong and Zhu De led the Red Fourth Army to enter Ninghua, Qingliu, and Guihua (now Mingxi), and established the red regime in the northwestern Fujian Soviet area. Initial formation[edit] 1930 In January, four independent regiments of the Red Army in Jiangxi Province were combined into the Sixth Army of the Red Army of the Chinese Workers and Peasants. On February 7, the Special Committee of the Western Jiangxi, Southern Gansu, and the Fourth Red Army, the Fifth Red Army, and the Military Committee of the Red Sixth Army jointly formed a new front committee with Mao Zedong as the secretary. The committee was merged into the special committee of the Southwest Jiangxi of the Communist Party of China. On March 22, the "Soviet government" was established in southwestern Jiangxi and on March 18 in western Fujian. In April, the five independent regiments of the Red Army in the western Fujian region were combined into the Twelfth Army of the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army. On May 18th, the "Report of Representatives from Western Fujian to the National Soviet Congress" clearly listed the scope of the "Red Area in Western Fujian" at this time: "Ting belongs to eight counties (Changting, Liancheng, Shanghang, Wuping, Yongding, Qingliu, Ninghua, and Naturalization), three counties of the Dragon family (Longyan, Zhangping, Ningyang), a total of eleven counties, bordering Dapu in Guangdong and Ruijin in Jiangxi. , also merged in western Fujian". In June, the Fourth Army of the Red Army, the Sixth Army of the Red Army of Southwest Jiangxi Province (renamed as the Third Army of the Red Army soon) and the Twelfth Army of the Red Army of Western Fujian were jointly compiled into the First Army of the Chinese Workers and Peasants' Red Army with more than 20,000 people. In August, the First Red Army led by Mao Zedong and Zhu De and the Third Red Army led by Peng Dehuai joined forces in Yonghe, Liuyang, Hunan to form the First Front Army of the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army. In October, the Red Army marched into Jiangxi and conquered Ji'an. The Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government was expanded and established by the Southern Jiangxi Soviet Government. [4] On October 24, 1930, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided in the "Current Work Plan for the Soviets": "We now determine that Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi connect with southwestern Jiangxi as a large area, and we must consolidate and develop it into the central base of the Soviet area." "Fujian In any case, the Soviet area of ​​Guangdong and Jiangxi must maintain a link that can be integrated with the southwest of Jiangxi." At the end of 1930, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued an order: "Under the current situation, the First and Third Corps should take southern Jiangxi and southeastern Jiangxi as their combat areas; base".

Formal establishment

In April 1931, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adjusted the regional scope of the Central Soviet Area: "Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi are part of the entire Central Area, and he should consolidate this base area to open up the connection between the Central Area." At this time, the Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi Soviet Area already had 9 counties established county-level Soviet regimes, namely Yongding, Shanghang (Wuhang), Longyan, (Chang) Tinglian (city), Liancheng, Tingdong, Rao (ping) (ping) and (Da)pu, five (Hua) Xing (Ning) Long (Chuan) County, Jiao (Ling) Ping (Yuan) Xun (Wu) County. In May 1931, after the second anti-"encirclement and suppression campaign" in the Central Soviet Area, the main force of the Red Army took advantage of the victory to liberate Lichuan, Nanfeng, Jianning, Taining, Ninghua, Changting and other counties on the border of Fujian and Jiangxi. After the third anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign in September 1931, the First Army of the Red Army launched a strategic offensive in the vast area along the border of Fujian and Jiangxi, and opened up Shicheng, Changting, Yudu, Huichang, Wuping, Xunwu and other counties to get through. The two base areas of southern Jiangxi and western Fujian were connected and joined together, officially forming the "Central Soviet Area" with Ruijin as the center. On November 7, 1931, the first national congress of the "Chinese Soviet" was successfully held in Ruijin, and the "Chinese Soviet Republic" and "Soviet Provisional Central Government" were announced. The party, government, and military leaders of the "Chinese Soviet Republic" govern and lead the country's Soviet area. The Central Soviet Area was officially established. On March 18, 1932, the First Fujian Provincial Congress of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers was held in Changting, and the "Fujian Provincial Soviet Government" was established. ==evelopment== [edit] The 24th issue of "Red China" on June 23, 1932 and the Central Soviet Area Organization Statistics Table in July 1932 both listed 16 counties in Jiangxi: Ruijin, Xingguo, Ganxian, Shengli, Gonglue, Wantai, Huichang, Ningdu, Nanguang, Xunwu, Yongfeng, Le'an, Anyuan, Shicheng, Yudu, Xinkang; Fujian has 8 counties: Changting, Shanghang, Yongding, Wuping, Longyan, Liancheng, Ninghua, Xinquan . In the resolution "Analysis of the Current Political Situation and the Tasks of the Party in the Soviet Area" made by the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area on February 19, 1932, it was pointed out: "The Central Soviet Area (including western Fujian) has carried out a project to connect Fujian and Jiangxi after the National Soviet Congress. The Soviet territory of twenty-five counties." After that, the Red Army captured Wuping, Rao (Ping) (Ping), (Da) Pu, Ningyang, etc., expanding the red area to Pinghe and Zhangping counties. In January 1933, the Provisional Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee headed by Bo Gu moved from Shanghai to the Central Revolutionary Base. From February to March 1933, the Central Revolutionary Base Area won the fourth victory against "encirclement and suppression", which not only consolidated the Central Revolutionary Base Area, but also opened up the connection between the Central Soviet Area and the Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi Soviet Areas. The three relatively independent but closely related Soviet areas in Jian (Ning), Li (Chuan), Tai (Ning), Xinfu, and northern Fujian were combined to form a new central Soviet area, Fujian and Jiangxi Province. On April 26, 1933, at the 40th regular meeting of the Central People's Committee of the Soviet Union, it was decided that "Jian, Li, Tai, Jin, Zi, Guang, Shao, and the northern Soviet area of ​​Fujian, so that the area between the two rivers in the letter Fu and the two rivers should be designated as Fujian." Gan Province". Gu Zuolin, member of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area of ​​the Communist Party of China, is the secretary of the CPC Fujian and Jiangxi Provincial Committee. From December 12 to 15, 1933, the First Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Congress of Fujian and Jiangxi Province was held in Jianning County. The area under its jurisdiction includes Jianning, Lichuan, Taining, Linan, Guangfeng, Chong'an, Jianyang, Chong (An) Pu (city), Qianshan, Shang (Rao) Qian (mountain), Guangfeng, Guang (Feng) Pu (city), Shaowu, Dongfang, Jiandong, Jin (Xi) South (City), Guinan, Jian (Ou) Song (Xi) Zheng (He) and other 18 counties. In January 1934, after the Red Army's Eastern Army liberated Shaxian and Jiangle, the Central Fujian Special Zone Committee was established, which was also led by the Fujian-Jiangxi Provincial Committee and became an integral part of the Fujian-Ganxi Province in the Central Soviet Area. In May 1934, the central government assigned the five county committees of Ninghua, Qingliu, Guihua, Peng Pai, and Quanshang, which were formerly under the leadership of the Fujian Soviet District Provincial Committee, to the leadership of the Fujian and Jiangxi Provincial Committee. To this end, the area of ​​Fujian and Jiangxi Province in the Central Soviet Area has jurisdiction over 25 counties, with an area of ​​about 20,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 1 million. On August 16, 1933, the Central People's Committee of the Soviets held the 48th regular meeting and decided to divide the counties of Yudu, Huichang, Xijiang, Menling, Xunwu, Anyuan and Xinkang from Jiangxi Province to establish Guangdong-Jiangxi Province. Liu Xiao, former member of the Standing Committee of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and Minister of Organization, was transferred to be the secretary of the Guangdong-Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee. On December 23, 1933, the first congress of workers, peasants and soldiers of Guangdong and Jiangxi Province was held, and Zhong Shibin was elected as the chairman of the Soviet government of Guangdong and Jiangxi Province. At the end of 1933, the main force of the Central Red Army governed the Red First Army, the Red Third Army, the Red Fifth Army, the Red Seventh Army, and the Red Nine Army, with about 100,000 people; more than 200,000 local Red Army and Red Guards were also formed. Among them, there are 100,000 in western Fujian and more than 200,000 in southern Jiangxi. In the spring of 1934, the Central Soviet Area consisted of 4 provinces of Jiangxi, Fujian, Fujian and Jiangxi, Guangdong and Jiangxi, and the counties directly under the jurisdiction of Ruijin, with a total of 66 counties under its jurisdiction. Jiangxi Province has 22 counties: Xingguo, Bosheng (Ningdu), Shengli, Ruijin, Gonglue, Yongfeng, Wantai, Xingan, Chongren, Yihuang, Le'an, Yang Yin, Nanfeng, Guangchang, Kangdu , Shicheng, Luokou, Changsheng, Ganxian, Longgang, Chishui, Tailei. There are 12 counties in Fujian Province, namely Changting, Shanghang, Longyan, Yongding, Wuping, Pinghe, Zhangping, Zhaozheng, Tingdong, Liancheng, Daiying and Xinquan. There are 25 counties in Fujian and Jiangxi Province, namely Jianning, Lichuan, Taining, Linan, Guangzhuang, Chong'an, Jianyang, Chong (An) Pu (city), Qianshan, Shang (Rao) Qian (mountain), Guangxi. Feng, Guang (Feng) Pu (City), Shaowu, Dongfang, Jiandong, Jin (Xi) South (City), Guinan, Jian (Ou) Song (Xi) Zheng (He), Shaxian, Jiangle, Ninghua , Qingliu, naturalization, Peng Pai, Spring. There are 7 counties in Guangdong and Jiangxi Province, namely Huichang, Menling, Xijiang, Xunwu, Anyuan, Yudu and Xinkang.

==Eventually disappeared==[edit]

In October 1934, the Nationalist government encircled and suppressed the anti-government Central Red Army forces in the territory. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the main force of the Red Army abandoned the Central Soviet Area and "Long March". The Central Soviet Area Bureau, which was left behind, failed to change its fighting method in time, and most of the tens of thousands of Red Army troops left behind in the Southern Jiangxi Soviet Area were exhausted. In the end, the "three-year guerrilla war in the south" persisted in the narrow areas of Guangdong and Jiangxi, Shang (Yu) Chong (Yi) and Ting (zhou) Rui (Jin) borders centered on Youshan. By the beginning of 1938, when the New Fourth Army was concentrated and reorganized, only about 450 people were saved. After the Long March of the main Red Army, in the southern Jiangxi Soviet area, the Blue Shirts Rangers led by Kang Ze and the troops stationed in various fields, the Home Returning Corps repeatedly and thoroughly cleaned the villages, and under the system of the Baojia joint sitting, became the fourth place in Jiangxi Province during the Anti-Japanese War. A model area under the administration of Chiang Ching-kuo, administrative inspector and security commander. After the Red Army's Long March, the main force of the Western Fujian Soviet Area completed its strategic transformation earlier, preserved the CCP organization and the Red Army guerrillas, insisted on the "three-year guerrilla war in the south", and opened up guerrilla bases. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in July 1937, there were still more than 1,200 guerrillas of the Red Army in western Fujian. By the spring of 1938, there were more than 2,600 people when the New Fourth Army was reorganized. After the Red Army in western Fujian went north, under extremely difficult conditions, local party organizations in western Fujian were preserved and developed, large areas of old guerrilla bases were preserved, and a "struggle to protect fields" was carried out, so that there are still more than 200,000 people in Longyan, Shanghang, Yongding and other counties. The results of the "land reform" that was distributed to the poor and farm laborers were preserved until 1949, and western Fujian and Hainan Qiongya became the only two areas left by the Chinese Communist Party in the south.

Purges and massacres

As Marc Opper (2018) wrote,

In its drive to prevent defection to the GMD [also spelled "KMT"] and to ensure continued compliance, the CCP engaged in a widespread campaign of violence against civilians. The CCP detained those it suspected of being unreliable, confiscated their property, and organized them into hard labor brigades. Yet others were killed because they were regarded as suspect by the CCP because they criticized the CSR [Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi]’s enormous extraction of manpower and resources. But by far the greatest amount of violence was against those the CCP suspected of being sympathetic to the advancing GMD. [...] Mass killings took place throughout the CSR in anticipation of the GMD attack, as well as prior to the CCP’s evacuation of territory. Mass executions of civilians were reported in Ruijin and Ningdu, and relief work by the Red Swastika Society, a religious charity, gave proper burials to thousands of bodies in Ningdu and Guangchang. The scale of the killing was so extensive that the then-leader of the CCP, Zhang Wentian, called for moderation, but only once and only briefly.

According to Li Weihan, a high-ranking communist in Jiangxi at the time, "The reaction from local authorities, he noted, was usually to send armed squads after those attempting to flee and kill them on the spot, producing numerous mass graves throughout the CSR [Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi] that would later be uncovered by the KMT and its allies." According to censuses, Jiangxi's population reduced 3.16 million from 1931 to January 1936 due to the Chinese Civil War, among which, there was a drop of 700,000 (roughly 20%) in the 15 counties under the Jiangxi-Fujian Soviet

In 1983, the Ministry of Civil Affairs ordered local governments to politically rehabilitate the dead who were wrongfully purged during this period. As a result, around 250,000 Jiangxi people were posthumously recognized as "revolutionary martyrs", including both the purged and civilian war casualties. Among these 250,000, 160,000 were from Ganzhou and Ji'an, the base of Jiangxi Soviet.

Encirclement

The government of China, the Kuomintang (KMT), led by Chiang Kai-shek, moved against the Soviet republic, consolidating many former Chinese warlords in the creation of the National Revolutionary Army to repeatedly besiege the various enclaves of the Soviet Republic, launching what Chiang and his fellow nationalists called Encirclement Campaigns (the Communists called their counterattacks counter encirclement campaigns). While the first, second and third military encirclements were defeated by the First Front Red Army, they suffered massive losses: the Red Army was nearly halved, with most its equipment lost during Chiang and von Seeckt's Fifth Encirclement Campaign, utilizing fortified blockhouses.

In an effort to break the blockade, the Red Army under the orders of the three-man committee besieged the forts many times but continued to suffer heavy casualties with little success at the hands of untrained, untested, and uncaring leadership. The Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet shrank significantly in size due to the disastrous leadership, manpower, and material losses. By the fall of 1934, the Communists faced near-total annihilation. This situation had already convinced Mao Zedong and his supporters to believe that the Communists should abandon their bases in the Jiangxi Soviet republic. However, the Communist leadership refused to accept the failure, continuing to plot the defeat of the nationalist forces. The three-man committee devised a plan of diversions, and then a regroup after a temporary retreat. Once the regroup was complete, a counterattack would be launched in conjunction with the earlier diversion forces, driving the enemy out of the Jiangxi Soviet.

The first movements of the retreating diversion were undertaken by Fang Zhimin. Fang Zhimin and his deputy, Xun Weizhou, were first to break through Kuomintang lines in June, followed by Xiao Ke in August. Though these movements were unexpected, as the Kuomintang were numerically superior to the Communists at the time and did not expect an attack on their fortified perimeter, things did not turn out as the Communists had hoped: Fang Zhimin's force was crushed after its initial success, and with Xun Weizhou killed in action, nearly every commander in this force was wounded and captured alive, including Fang Zhimin himself, and all were executed. The only exception was Su Yu, who managed to escape. Xiao Ke fared no better: although his force initially managed to break through and then reached He Long's Communist base in Hubei, but even with their combined forces, they were entirely defeated and unable to challenge the far superior nationalist force besieging the Jiangxi Soviet, never to return until the establishment of the People's Republic of China 15 years later.

The failure of the diversion forces resulted in their loss of contacts with the Jiangxi Soviet, and the Communist leadership failed to coordinate its next proper move in a timely fashion, still believing that a temporary retreat near or within the Jiangxi Soviet would allow them to recover and counterattack, eventually driving out the nationalist force.

Collapse

In late September 1934, Chiang distributed his top-secret plan named "Iron Bucket Plan" to everyone in his general headquarter at Lushan (the alternative summer site to Nanchang), which detailed the final push to totally annihilate all Communist forces. The plan was to build 30 blockade lines supported by 30 barbed wire fences, most of them electric, in the region 150 km (93 mi) around Ruijin, to starve the Communists. In addition, more than 1,000 trucks were to be mobilized to form a rapid reaction force in order to prevent any Communist breakout. Realizing the certain annihilation of the Communists, Mo Xiong (莫雄) handed the document weighing several kilograms to his Communist handler Xiang Yunian (項與年) the same night he received it, risking not only his own life but that of his entire family.

With the help of Liu Yafo (劉亞佛) and Lu Zhiying (盧志英), the Communist agents copied the important intelligence onto four dictionaries and Xiang Yunian (項與年) was tasked to take the intelligence personally to the Jiangxi Soviet. The trip was hazardous, as the nationalist force would arrest and even execute anyone who attempted to cross the blockade. Xiang Yunian (項與年) was forced to hide in the mountains for a while, and then used rocks to knock out 4 of his own teeth, resulting in swollen face. Disguised as a beggar, he tore off the covers of the four dictionaries and hid them at the bottom of his bag with rotten food, then successfully crossed several lines of the blockade and reached Ruijin on October 7, 1934. The valuable intelligence provided by Mo Xiong (莫雄) finally convinced the Communists in Jiangxi Soviet to abandon its base and started a general retreat before Chiang could complete the building of his blockade lines with supporting barbed wire fences and mobilizing trucks and troops, thus saving themselves from total annihilation.

As the result of their catastrophic defeat, Xiang Ying was removed from his post of the chairman of the communist central military committee, and replaced by Zhou Enlai. Xiang Ying was put in charge of 20,000 soldiers that were assigned to stay behind in Jiangxi Soviet to continue the fight against the nationalists after the communist main force consisted of more than 80,000 had broken out. Xiang Ying was assisted by other top-ranking communist cadres assigned to stay behind with him, including Chen Yi, Zeng Shan, He Chang (贺昌), and Ruan Xiaoxian (阮啸仙), but Xiang had not learned from his previous disastrous blunder and continued his early practice when conducting battles, against the strong objection of Chen Yi. As a result of another huge blunder committed by Xiang Ying, the Chinese Red Army stayed behind was soon annihilated by the superior nationalist force, Xiang was barely able to escape with his own life, while many of his comrades were killed, including He Chang (贺昌) and Ruan Xiaoxian (阮啸仙). So insignificant was the communist threat left had become that the nationalist reward for capturing Chen Yi was once dropped to 500 dollars in silver, a tiny .25% of its earlier peak of 200,000 dollars in silver.

On October 10, 1934, the three-man committee Communist leadership formally issued the order of the general retreat, and on October 16, 1934, the Chinese Red Army begun what was later known as the Long March, fully abandoning the Jiangxi Soviet. 17 days after the main Communist force had already left its base, the nationalists were finally aware that the enemy had escaped after reaching the empty city of Ruijin on November 5, 1934. Contrary to the common erroneous belief, the original destination was He Long's Communist base in Hubei, and the final destination Yan'an was not decided on until much later during the Long March, well after the rise of Mao Zedong. To avoid panic, the goal was kept a secret from most people, including Mao Zedong, and the public was told that only a portion of the Chinese Red Army would be engaged in mobile warfare to defeat nationalist forces, and thus this part of the army would be renamed as Field Army.

First Front Red Army

However, the so-called the portion of the Chinese Red Army engaged in the mobile warfare was actually the majority portion of the Communist force making a general retreat, but the bulk of this force was only a fraction of what used to be more than 140,000 men army at its peak. With most of its equipment lost, many of the surviving members of the Chinese Red Army were forced to arm themselves with ancient weaponry. According to the Statistical Chart of the Field Army Personnel, Weaponry, Ammunition, and Supply completed by the Chinese Red Army on October 8, 1934, two days before the Long March began, the Communist Long March force consisted of:

Order of battle

The escaping communists included a total of 72,313 combatants and additional noncombatants, and they were organized into 7 formations, 5 armies (called legions by the communists) and 2 divisions (called columns by the communists), and these included:

• (Communist) Central Military Committee Column (1st Column)
  • Committee chairman / Commander-in-Chief: Zhu De
  • Deputy committee chairmen: Zhou Enlai and Wang Jiaxiang
  • Chief-of-general-staff: Liu Bocheng
  • Director of the General Political Directorate: Li Fuchun (李富春)
• (Communist) Central (Committee) Column (2nd Column)
  • Commander: Zhou Enlai
  • Political commissar: Li Weihan (using alias Luo Mai 罗迈参 at the time)
  • Chief-of-staff: Zhang Yunyi (张云逸)
  • Security Bureau chief: Deng Fa
  • Senior Cadres Regiment consisted of Chinese Red Army University cadets:
    • Commander: Xiao Jingguan (萧劲光)
  • Cadres Regiment consisted of Chinese Red Army (Junior) Academy cadets:
    • Commander: Chen Geng
    • Political Commissar: Song Renqiong
    • Chief-of-staff: Bi Shiti (毕士悌), aka Yang Lin (杨林, a Korean communist)
    • Director of the Political Directorate: Mo Wenhua (莫文骅)
  • National Garrison Regiment
    • Commander: Yao Zhe (姚喆)
    • Political commissar: Zhang Nansheng (张南生)
• The 1st Legion (The largest of the five armies, with 19,880 combatants)
  • Commander: Lin Biao
  • Political commissar: Nie Rongzhen
  • Chief-of-staff: Zuo Quan (左权)
  • (Communist) Central (Committee) Local Work Regiment commander:
  • Security Bureau special appointee: Luo Ruiqing
  • Secretariat political secretary: Fang Qiang (方强)
• The 3rd Legion
  • Commander: Peng Dehuai
  • Political commissar: Yang Shangkun
  • Chief-of-staff: Deng Ping (邓萍)
  • Director of the Political Directorate: Yuan Guoping (袁国平)
  • (Communist) Central (Committee) Local Work Regiment commander: Guo Qian (郭潜), later defected to the nationalist side and changed his name to Guo Qianhui (郭乾辉)
  • Security Bureau special appointee: Zhang Chunqing (张纯清)
• The 5th Legion
  • Commander: Dong Zhengtang (董振堂)
  • Political commissar: Cai Shufan (蔡树藩)
  • Chief-of-staff: Chen Bojun (陈伯钧)
  • Director of the Political Directorate: Li Zhuoran (李卓然)
  • (Communist) Central (Committee) Local Work Regiment commander: Zheng Zhenxun (郑询振)
• The 8th Legion (The newest and smallest of the five, with 10,922 combatants)
  • Commander: Zhou Kun (周昆)
  • Political commissar: He Kequan (何克全)
  • Chief-of-staff: Zhong Weijian (钟伟剑)
  • Director of the Political Directorate: Liu Shaoqi
  • (Communist) Central (Committee) Local Work Regiment commander: Liu Xiao (刘晓)
• The 9th Legion
  • Commander: Luo Binghui (罗炳辉)
  • Political commissar: He Changgong (何长工)
  • Chief-of-staff: Zhang Zongxun
  • Director of the Political Directorate: Wang Shoudao (王守道)
  • (Communist) Central (Committee) Local Work Regiment commander: Feng Xuefeng (冯雪峰)

The 5 armies and the 2 columns had a total of 86,859 combatants when they first left their abandoned base in Jiangxi.

Weaponry

The Statistical Chart of Field Army Personnel, Weaponry, Ammunition, and Supply (Currently kept at the People's Liberation Army's Archives) also provided the weaponry and provisions prepared for the Long March, and the weapons deployed included:

• Artillery: 39 total
  • Mortar: 38
  • Mountain gun: 1 (originally not included, but was added later on)
• Breechloading Firearms: 33,244 total (with 1,858,156 rounds of munition), and of these, a total of 29,016 were distributed to the 5 corps, including:
  • Rifles: 25,317
  • Heavy machine guns: 333
  • Light machine guns: 285
  • Submachine guns: 28
  • Handguns: 2,804

Other weapons included:

• Lance: 6,101
• Chinese saber: 882

Various weapons were also deployed but their numbers were not counted, and these included:

• muzzle-loading rifled muskets and smoothbore muskets
• Flintlock and Snaphance guns
• Matchlock and Wheellock guns
• Spears and rakes (though later during the Long March, spears were most useful as canes)
• Axes and polearms (though later during the Long March, poles were most useful as building material such as that for stretchers)
• daggers and knives

Other material included:

• Provisions
• Winter clothing: 83,100 sets
• Horses: 338
• Herbal medicine: 35,700 kg
• Salt: 17,413 kg

Economics

1.642 million dollars of the Soviet Republic. Most of the stamps are imperforate and are printed on white newspaper-quality paper. The numerals printed on the stamp are of the complex style to prevent forgery.

• They are quite rare today, with prices ranging from US$1,000 to over $25,000.

When the Long March began in October 1934, the Communist bank was part of the retreating force, with 14 bank employees, over a hundred coolies and a company of soldiers escorting them while they carried all of the money and mint machinery. One of the important tasks of the bank during the Long March whenever the Chinese Red Army stayed in a place for longer than a day was to tell the local population to exchange any Communist paper bills and copper coins to goods and currency used in nationalist controlled regions, so that the local population would not be persecuted by the pursuing nationalists after the Communists had left. After the Zunyi Conference, it was decided that carrying the entire bank on the march was not practical, so on January 29, 1935, at Earth Town (Tucheng, 土城), the bank employees burned all Communist paper bills and mint machinery under order. By the time the Long March had concluded in October 1935, only 8 out of the 14 original employees survived; the other 6 had died along the way.

• China Soviet Silver Dollars were made at that time. These dollars do have the full name of China Soviet Republic and the hammer and sickle on the other side. Some coins also have the slogan of "People around the world with no properties should gather together". The hammer and sickle is a symbol inside a globe-like shape on the reverse of the coin. China Soviet Silver coins are rare and in November 2008, a copy (not real) China Soviet Dollar was sold on Ebay for US$695. The seller stated clearly that it is just a replica or counterfeit but it still had a good ending value. The fair retail value for that piece is around US$5000 without mentioning of the word "copy". A genuine China Soviet Silver coin should have a fair market value of US$20000-25000 (200,000 China yuan). China Soviet Silver coin is like the Cultural Revolution type of China stamps - historic or cultural item of the PRC. For example, a W7 China Cultural Revolution stamp set has a value of around US$2500–3000. A genuine coin of China Soviet is 8-10 times more expensive but 100 times more difficult to find than the W7 stamp set. China Soviet Republic Silver Coins are truly a very special type of treasure coins of China. Only time can tell when Chinese and other people can truly understand and give them the true value as the current value is still low compared with China stamps and coins of same rarity in other countries like USA and Canada.

Red tourism

• In 2002 the building of the CSR National Tax Bureau was fixed for visitors.

External links

• Preface to Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Repub
• 2 photos of a handwritten official declaration document and the Conference
• flags from FOTW website
• coins
• 12 stamps (explanatory caption in Simplified Chinese)