2.6 The Cradle of Chinese Revolution

The fact that the last three Chinese dynasties—Yuan, Ming and Qing, stretching over 800 years, all set their capitals in Beijing, further pushed Shanbei not only to the geographical perimeter but also to the cultural margin. Shanbei was barely remembered in the collective mind of the Chinese people except the Mausoleum of Yellow Emperor. The political and economic centers were in Beijing — the Northern Capital and the southeastern parts of the country. However, in the mid-1930s, a tiny army with only several thousand men and women strong arrived at Shanbei, and their arrival completely changed the modern Chinese history. What was the Army? Where did they come from? What did they do during their stay in Shanbei? The answers to these questions will give present a brief account of the modern Chinese history in the first half of the 20th century.

China in the first half of the 20th century was plagued with wars — wars among contending warlords in the 1920s at the collapse of the last Chinese dynasty—Qing in 1911, war against Japanese invasion in the 30s and 40s, and civil war between Nationalist Party and Communist Party in the late 1940s. On the surface, all these wars were internal — military conflicts involving different fractions of the Chinese society. But in the deeper analysis, these wars were closely interwoven with the external forces that one way or another had profound impacts on the ever changing political map of China. First, the wars among warlords were made possible by the void left by the downfall of the Qing Dynasty. Qing Empire ruled China by a minority — the Manchu, an ethnic group from the northeastern part of China, from 1644 to 1911. Its decline actually commenced 70 years earlier in 1840 when a war broke out. It was, however, not an internal war; rather it was a war against a foreign invader — the British. Years prior to the war, there was a trade imbalance between the Qing Court and the Britain that had imported large quantities of Chinese tea, but found no British commodity to pay for the tea. So, the British merchants smuggled opium from its Indian Eastern Company into China. When the Chinese Emperor found out that more and more Chinese soldiers and government official became addicted to the drug, he ordered that the smuggled opium seized and burned. At the pressure of the British merchants, the British government went for war, sending its warships to Chinese coasts, thus launching what is later known as the“Opium War. ”The Chinese army was no match for the British naval force, and lost the war. As a result, the Qing government signed the first“unequal treaty”with the British to cede Hong Kong to Britain and open five treaty ports of China for foreign trade. The treaty also allowed British merchants to establish“spheres of influence”in and around British ports. The Treaty called“Nanking Treaty, ”signed in 1622, set precedents for other Western powers and Japan to follow suits. In the following years, these foreign powers, including the United States, signed similar unequal treaties with the Qing government either through military assault or coercion and by the time the Qing Court collapsed in the early 20th century, the foreign powers had established their own“sphere of influence”in different part of China. The Russians took the northern part of China; the German snatch the Province of Shandong; Japan took Taiwan and several provinces along the East Coast; French grabbed the southern part and the British obtained the central regions along the Yangtze River and almost all the important coastal regions.

The“sphere of influence”set forth by various foreign powers dealt a devastating blow to the Chinese economy as foreign merchandises flooded the Chinese markets. Compounded by the political pressures exerted by the imperialistic powers, the economic exploitation accelerated the demise of the Qing Dynasty, which eventually collapsed in 1911. The so-called“1911 Uprising”that toppled the Qing Court was led by Dr. Sun Yat-sun, Chairman of the newly established Nationalist Party. But the Party and its influence were mainly in the south, and the vast area in the north and central regions of China was controlled by warlords. The power vacancy left by the Qing Court plunged the entire nation into the never-ending wars. In 1925, an army formed by the Nationalist Party and joined by the members of the newly founded Chinese Communist Party embarked on what is known as“Northern Expedition”to fight the warlords and to unite China. The military campaign was very successful thanks to the bravery of the soldiers as well as the populace supports of the just cause—to end the incessant wars. But as the Expedition came to its close, the Nationalist Party, fearful of the Communists gaining more populous supports and power in the military, began to purge the members of the Communist Party from the Expedition troops and Nationalist Party. The purse was later elevated to the whole-scale persecution with tens and thousands of members of the Communist Party executed. The bloody persecution forced the Communists to take up arms to form its own army — the Red Army, and two Parties began decade-long armed conflicts. On September 18, 1931, Japanese soldiers suddenly attacked the garrison of the Chinese army in Shenyang of the northeast, and quickly grabbed the three northeastern provinces with their military superiority. But instead of ordering national guards to fight the Japanese invaders, the leader of the Nationalist Party—Chiang Kai-chek ordered the Chinese troops to withdraw. In the meantime, he dispatched thousands of soldiers to head for south in an attempt to exterminate the force of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chiang's military campaign eventually forced the Red Army to retreat from its base in the south and commenced what is famously known as the“Long March. ”

The Long March tookmore than a year to complete, beginning in Jiangxi Province in the south in October 1934 and ending at Shanbei in October of 1935. The Red Army left the military base of Jianggang Mountain of Jiangxi Province with an army of 80,000 strong; together with the civilians, there were as many as 130,000 men and women participated in the historical exodus. But when they eventually arrived at Yan'an of Shanbei, there were 8,000 left. In one year or 368 days to be exact, the Red Army traversed more than 6,000 miles, including snow-capped mountains and depopulated steppe. In his well-known book Red Star over China, Edgar Snow, the first Western journalist who ever traveled to Shanbei and personally interviewed dozens of Communist leaders including Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party, described what he learned from the commanders and soldiers of the Red Army:

… there was an average of almost a skirmish a day, somewhere on the line, while altogether 15 whole days were devoted to major pitched battles. Out of a total of 368 days en route, 235 were consumed in marches by day, and 18 in marches by night. Of the 100 days of halts—many of which were devoted to skirmishes—56 days were spent in north-western Szechwan, leaving only 44 days of rest over a distance of about 5,000 miles, or an average of one halt for every 114 miles of marching. The mean daily stage covered was 71 li, or nearly 24 miles—a phenomenal pace for a great army and its transport to average over some of the most hazardous terrain on earth.

Altogether the Reds crossed 18 mountain ranges, five of which were perennially snow-capped, and they crossed 24 rivers. They passed through 12 different provinces, occupied 62 cities, and broke through enveloping armies of ten differentprovincial warlords, besides defeating, eluding, or outmaneuvering the various forces of Central Government troops sent against them. They entered and successfully crossed six different aboriginal districts, and penetrated areas through which no Chinese army had gone for scores of years. (Snow )

No army throughout world history has ever sustained such hardship, physically, logistically, psychologically and militarily. Even though the majority of the Red Army all perished during the March, the nuclei of theRed Army and the Communist Party were intact. These 8,000 men and women were proven to be the seasoned leaders of the Chinese revolution, which eventually led to the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. Snow pointed out that the Long March of the Red Army was initially a strategic retreat. However, it turned out to be the advancement to the front of the war against Japanese invasion.

On July 7th, 1937, the Japanese troops attacked Chinese soldiers who stationed at the Marco Polo Bridge (known as“Lugou Bridge”in Chinese); the battle lasted for some time before the Chinese troops retreated, and the whole-scale war started. In a matter of a few months, Japanese troops swamped and occupied much of the land in the north, and China, as the current national anthem sings, reached the most dangerous moment of demise. From cave-dwellings of Shanbei, the Communist Party issued a statement to the entire nation to form a united front to fight against the Japanese. Under the pressure of the anti-Japanese sentiment, Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Nationalist Party, agreed with the idea of a“United Front, ”so for the second time, the Nationalist and Communist Parties, two arch rivals that fought against each other for a decade, reunited again to combat their common enemy — the Japanese invaders. Yan'an, the ancient frontier, became the cradle of the Chinese revolution. The revolutionary appeal of the Communist Party drew the attention of tens and thousands of educated youth throughout the country, who came to Yan'an to join the revolution. In the meantime, solders from the Red Army were dispatched to the front, and they joined the troops of the Nationalist Party to confront the Japanese advancement. Thousands upon thousands of Chinese soldiers from both Parties died at the battleground. A military academy was established in Yan'an to train military personnel to be sent to the battle front. As more and more people joined the revolutionary forces, there was a shortage of food supply. The barren land, coupled with the harsh natural condition, could not produce enough crops to feed a large army. So, Chairman Mao launched a“Grand Production Campaign”participated mainly by the solders to open up new land to grow crops. The“Grand Production Campaign”not only solved the problem of food shortage, but also instilled a spirit of resiliency and self-reliance, the very spirit that sustained the gradual but sure growth of the military and administrative base at Shanbei, which prepared the Communist Party to found a new republic in 1949.

The war against the Japanese invaders came to its close in 1945 when Japanese Emperor announced the unconditional surrender to the Allied forces, of which China was an integral partner. This was a crucial juncture of modern Chinese history since there were virtually two governments in China: the government of the Nationalist Party stationed in Chongqing, the temporary capital and the government of the Communist Party at Yan'an. And there were two directions lying ahead: a coalition government joined by both governments and a civil war. The delicate situation was closely watched not only by the people in China, but also by the foreign governments, particularly the American government that had been involved in China's war against Japan for some time. The US government hoped to see a coalition government formed by both Parties, so did Chinese Communist Party. However, the Nationalist Party intended to wipe out its arch enemy with its superior military power. In an attempt to mediate the two Chinese political and military powers, the US State Department launched what is known as the“Dixie Mission”by dispatching Observation Group, consisting of US diplomats and military personnel to Yan'an in an effort to establish a liaison office there. The Observation Group was headed by John Service from the US State Department and Colonel David Barrett. Service, known as the“China Hand, ”was born in Chengdu of Sichuan Province, a son of a missionary family. The Services family moved back to California when he was eleven years old, so he was fluent in Chinese language. He returned to China during World War II as one of the top US diplomats. He stayed in Chongqing, the temporary capital of China during the war, and had personal observation of the life in the Capital and quite familiar with the culture there. While in Yan'an, he had the opportunity to get to know the leaders of the Communist Party and to observe how people in Yan'an lived. In the next few months, he sent several reports, detailing his observation and assessment of the Communist Party and the atmosphere in Yan'an. His reports conveyed a contrastive image of Chongqing ruled by the Nationalist Party and Yan'an, the headquarter of the Communist Party.

We finally got up to Yenan on July 22,1944. Part of the thing that dazzled us — dazzled us is too strong a word — was the difference in attitude in Yenan. Chungking was simply waiting for the end of the war to come. Here up in Yenan — they had nothing, and they were poor as anything, off in the boondocks, the whole atmosphere was just full of confidence and enthusiasm. They were absolutely sure that they were winning. As the Communists always say, the situation is excellent. Everything is positive, everything is good, we're going to win, we are on the winning road. . . We didn't draw our conclusions immediately. We tried to wait a time until people had traveled in the areas and gotten out and seen what the guerrillas were doing and what things were like. But the confidence that we ran into, the difference in the morale, esprit, this was something that hit us right away. The ways things got done. If you asked for things, yes, they said they'd do it, and it was done, promptly, in fact, efficiently. In Chungking nothing was efficient. Nothing seemed to work and everything took a long time. (Service)

This positive attitude, the confidence and enthusiasm strike a sharp contrast with the general mood in Chongqing as Service depicted his report:

I'd been in Chungking a long time, maybe too long. Maybe I'd lost my perspective a little bit. Chungking was discouraging, a gloomy place to be. People were waiting for the end of the war, or they were trying to do as little as possible in prosecuting the war. There was rampant inflation with all the suffering and dissatisfaction, complaining, that that caused. Rampant inflation with nothing really being done to check it. . . You had all sorts of things like this. The attitude of the Chinese officials, generally, that you met was rather resentful. They had a feeling that you were critical of them. There was beginning to be criticism of China at this time in the American press. So they were rather on guard, rather prickly. They felt that we weren't giving them very much, we weren't doing what we should for China. So most of our official relations in Chungking were uncomfortable, uneasy. (Service)

The moody atmosphere of Chongqing and the on-guard attitude of the Nationalist government officials that Service described were quite different from what he experienced in Yan'an. Not only did the Communists welcomed the American diplomats with open arms, as Service continued with his report:

Just going there was a form of American recognition, and this was tremendously important and very welcome. We were treated with open arms and red carpet treatment. So that there was immediately a very warm, cordial atmosphere. They were interested in what was happening in the outside world. They'd been completely isolated. They wanted to talk to us. They asked us all sorts of questions. (Service)

And the contacts between the Chinese and Americans created a“lighthearted”atmosphere between Chinese and Americans

We had these dances every Saturday night, which was a sort of a— [pauses, then laughs] I don't know what's the right word—they were fun. Miserable conditions. Most of them were outdoors—it was the summertime and fall—on packed earth, under some pear trees, a pear orchard. A pickup orchestra would play one fox trot (an alleged fox trot), one waltz, and then one yang-ko, a local folk song. It was like a conga, sort of one, two, three, ; one, two, three, sort of a thing. It wasn't only the dances, but there was a sort of a light heartedness about the place. I mentioned before the confidence, the morale, esprit. (Service)

What Snow and Service described what they personally witnessed and experienced at Yan'an is part and partial of what is later known as the“Yan'an Spirit:”hard working, resiliency, optimistic of the future and plain style of living. In the view of Service who had the experiences of the areas controlled by the Nationalists and the Shanbei region under Communists, Yan'an is more open, vibrant, clean from corruption and democratic. Everybody, even the top leaders of the Communist Party, lived in cave-dwellings, which strikes a sharp contrast with the government officials of the Nationalist Party. Speaking of the Communist leaders, Service commented, “Most of them were intellectuals. Some were military men, but even most of the military men had had an intellectual period in their lives. ”But these intellectuals were not armchair scholars, confined to their studies; instead they were the practitioners of a brand new system in which they were able to combine the ideological beliefs with the Chinese reality. In the final analysis, the problem of China, as late Chairman Mao once said, was the problem of peasants. Whoever could solve the problem of peasants would win China. This is exactly what happened following the surrender of Japan in 1945. Chinese Civil War between the Nationalists and Communists broke out in full scale despite the mediation of American government. In a matter of four years, the ill-equipped Communist army, called“People's Liberation Army, ”triumphed with the supports of mainly peasants, and founded the new republic. For 13 years from 1935 when the Red Army first arrived in Shanbei to 1948 when the Communist headquarter left Yan'an, the Communist Party and its followers won one victory after another with the whole-hearted supports of the local people. In a way, it is Shanbei that nurtured the modern Chinese revolution, which in turn has left permanent imprint on this piece of land.