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The Mystery of the Battle of la-tzu-k'ou in the Long March
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Abstract
The historical experience of the Chinese Communist Party before 1949 has often assumed the dimension of a myth. As in any myth, what actually happens is not as important as the significant lesson to be learned. A case in point is the battle of “the last and the most strategic pass” of La-tzu-k'ou in the Long March. The Chinese annals contain at least five differing versions of this encounter on September 17–18, 1935. This may be attributed, inter alia, to the desire of the authors to glorify their own part in the Long March as much as that the battle of La-tzu-k'ou is of greater political than military significance. By publishing these accounts, the Chinese authorities hope to prove the correctness of Mao Tse-tung's policy of the northward march in mid-1935. Indeed Lin Piao's role was largely a magniloquent account of relevant events at La-tzu-k'ou, following his appointment as Minister of National Defense to succeed the disgraced P'eng Te-huao in 1959—notwithstanding the fact that Mao Tse-tung had in 1935 composed a well-known poem praising only P'eng's valor during the battle. True, history is historiography and historiography is politics in the People's Republic of China.
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References
1 Ch'eng-wu, Yang: “Breaking Through the Natural Barrier of La-tzu-k'ou” in Hung-ch'i p'iao- p'iao (The Red Flag Flutters, hereinafter as HCPP), Vol. XVI, p. 113, 1st ed., Peking, Sept. 1961Google Scholar ; 1st printing, Shanghai, April 1962.
2 Interestingly enough, Yang Ch'eng-wu contributed two (hereafter as Yang Ch'eng-wu I & II, respectively) of the five articles on La-tzu-k'ou. All four authors took part in the Long March. After the Tsungyi Conference in January 1935, Hsiao Hua was put in charge of the Organization Bureau of the Political Department of the First Army Corps. While Yang Ch'eng-wu served as political commissar of the Fourth Regiment of the Second Division which participated in the assauit, Yang Hsin-hsiang and Hu Ping-yun were respectively appointed commander and political instructor of the Sixth Company of the Second Battalion of the above regiment.
3 In spite of scholarly comments, Rinden, Robert and Witke's, RoxaneThe Red Flag Waves: A Guide to the Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao Collection (Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1968)Google Scholar does not contain any reference to this deleted memoir (p. 41). Apparently the authors had, at their disposal, only a copy of the later (5th) printing of Vol. III of HCPP, which has been xeroxed and distributed by the Center for Chinese Research Materials, Washington, D. C. This memoir amounts to 9,000 characters.
4 Hsiao Hua, p. 44.
5 Yang Ch'eng-wu II, p. 113.
6 Hsiao Hua, p. 44.
7 Yang Ch'eng-wu I, p. 357; Yang Ch'eng-wu II, p. 113. A slight discrepancy exists between these two accounts in that the troops were ordered to capture La-tzu-k'ou “within two days” in the former and “within three days” in the latter. Yang Ch'eng-wu II appears to be more reliable in dates than Yang Ch'eng-wu I. Hsiao Hua's memoir (p. 45) mentions that the Second Division moved northward to assault La-tzu-k'ou one day earlier, i.e., on the night of September 14.
8 Yang Ch'eng-wu I, p. 358; Yang Ch'eng-wu II, pp. 114–115.
9 Yang Ch'eng-wu II, pp. 115–116. Yang Ch'-eng-wu I, p. 359, seems to set the date erroneously for September 16—one day earlier than Yang Ch'-eng-wu II. Cf. Yang Hsin-hsiang, p. 158, which also mentions September 16.
10 Yang Ch'cng-wu I, pp. 360–361; Yang Ch'eng- wu II, pp. 116–117. While Yang Ch'eng-wu indicated that La-tzu-k'ou had been guarded by three enemy (1st, 2nd and 4th) regiments under the command of Lu Ta-chang, Yang Hsin-hsiang (p. 158) disagreed with his superior Yang Ch'eng-wu in stating that the pass had been held by two enemy battalions belonging to Lu Ta-chang's command.
11 Yang Ch'eng-wu II, p. 117. None of the previous memoirs mention the formulation of detailed plans to outflank the enemy by scaling the precipices on the right hand, except for Yang Ch'eng- wu I, (p. 361), who states that, following reconnoitering activities by cadres of the First Battalion under the leadership of the Second Divisional commander, discussion meetings on how to capture La-tzu-k'ou had taken place about 7 p.m. in the evening among the several company units and party branches.
12 Yang Hsin-hsiang, p. 159. It is of interest to point out that the Sixth Company commander Yang Hsin-hsiang erroneously called his political instructor Hu Ping-yun “Fu Tso-jen.” But this mistake may be attributed to (1) his memoir having been drawn up by Chang Hung-hsiang, presumably an editor of HCPP (p. 163); and (2) the name “Fu Tso-jen” being quite similar in pronunciation to Hu Ping-yun, e.g., “Hu” is pronounced as “Fu” in Kiangsi dialect. As in Hu Ping-yun, pp. 197–198, Yang Hsin-hsiang's reminiscences do not indicate that Lin Piao personally led a reconnaissance party before launching the assault.
13 Yang Ch'eng-wu II, pp. 117–119, mentions that Lin Piao arrived at the regimental command and ordered that two companies be dispatched to ascend the precipices on the right flank. But Hsiao Hua, p. 48, states only that Lin Piao and Nien Jung-chen frequently telephoned during the combat, and that more than sixty men (including several Miao tribesmen from Kueichou as vanguard mountaineers) climbed the cliffs in the course of eight hours and that a few soldiers fell to their death. While Yang Ch'eng-wu I makes no mention whatsoever of Lin Piao's participation, Yang Hsin-hsiang (p. 160) merely indicates that “Chairparty man Mao and the Army Corps Headquarters repeatedly dispatched messengers to the front line for combat information.” Yet Hu Ping-yun's memoir (p. 200) says that “The Army Corps Commander Lin Piao arrived at our regimental command to take personal charge of the assault at La-tzu-k'ou.” Cf. Yang Ting-hua: “Recollections of Campaigning Through Snow-covered Mountains and Grasslands” in Recollections on the Long March of the First Front Army of the Chinese Worker- Peasant Red Army, p. 323, which states that the Second Division Commander (Ch'en Kuang) led seventeen soldiers in scaling the precipices. This information appears in error.
14 Yang Hsin-hsiang, pp. 161–162, stresses the formation of a “suicide group” consisting of sixteen persons (including himself), to be divided into three assault sections. While he himself led a section of five men in attacking the pass from under the bridge, the First Platoon leader led the other ten soldiers in an assault upon the enemy on the bridge. Cf. Hu Ping-yun, pp. 200–201, who states only that he commanded ten soldiers in attacking the bridge, and that five other soldiers (without naming Yang Hsin-hsiang) assaulted the enemy from under the bridge. Yet Yang Ch'eng- wu II, p. 119, says that both Yang Hsin-hsiang and Hu Ping-yun (whom he erroneously called “Hu Ping-jen”) led the Sixth Company in more than ten successive assaults upon the enemy.
15 There seems to be some confusion in the remmander iniscences about the signal to be made by Wang K'ai-hsiang for commencing the general assault: 3 red flares (Hsiao Hua, p. 49); 1 red flare (Yang Ch'eng-wu I, p. 362); 3 red flares (Yang Hsinhsiang, p. 162); 1 white flare, to be followed by 3 red flares from the rear (Hu Ping-yun, p. 201); I red and 1 green flare, to be followed by 3 red flares from the rear (Yang Ch'eng-wu II, p. 120).
16 Yang Ch'cng-wu II, pp. 120–121. While Yang Ch'eng-wu I (p. 363) reports that most of the enemy officers leaped to their death from the precipices on account of their ignorance or fear of the Red Army's treatment of captives, Yang Hsin-hsiang's memoir (p. 163) states that he and the other eight or nine suicide group members recklessly killed the dispersed enemies until they were stopped by Lo Hua-sheng, secretary of the CCP's regimental general branch. Cf. Hu Ping-yun, p. 201, who mentions that the wounding of the First Platoon leader in action greatly exasperated the surviving members of the suicide group, leading them to kill all enemies during the frontal assault.
17 Yang Hsin-hsiang, p. 158.
18 Cf. Yang Ting-hua: “Recollections of Campaigning Through Snow-covered Mountains and Grasslands,” op. cit., p. 323: “If the Red Army had had no gifted commander or heroes unafraid of death, La-tzu-k'ou could not have been taken.”
19 Yang Hsin-hsiang, p. 163.
20 Point 8: “Don't ill-treat captives.” (Selected Worlds of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. IV, 1st Chinese ed., Peking, 1960, p. 1241Google Scholar .)
21 Shu Tung: “Assaulting Northward—The Beginning of Victory” in The Combatant (Chan-shih), September 20, 1935, p. 3. Since Shu Tung then served as the chief of the Propaganda Section of the Second Division, his report, dated two days after the encounter, should be among the first official bulletins and perhaps the most unvarnished account of La-tzu-k'ou. This essay ends with an optimistic note: “Continue forward, exterminate large numbers of the enemies, and fight for the sake of establishing the base of a new Soviet area!”
22 “A Telegram Arising from the Battle of La- tzu-k'ou” in Liberation Army Art and Literature (Chieh-fang-chun wen-i), April 1957, p. 1. This is based upon information derived from the editor of the Journal of Friends-in-Arms (Chan-yu pao) of the Hopei-Shantung-Honan army units. Under- standably, this poem in praise of P'eng Te-huai is not included in 37 Poems and Lyrics of Chairman Mao (Wen-wu, 2nd ed., April 1964).
23 Selected Worlds of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. I, 1st Chinese ed., Peking, 1951, p. 147Google Scholar.