The History of WWII Podcast XX
[0] Welcome to True Spies, the podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.
[1] Suddenly out of the dark, it's a bit in love.
[2] You'll meet the people who live life undercover.
[3] What do they know?
[4] What are their skills?
[5] And what would you do in their position?
[6] Vengeance felt good seeing these.
[7] People paid for what they'd done, felt righteous.
[8] True Spies, from Spyscape Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.
[9] This episode is brought to you by Audible.
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[13] Today, I would like to recommend The King's Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi.
[14] This is the story of Lionel Logue, a commoner from Australia, and Albert George, who was fortunately the second son of George V of the United Kingdom.
[15] speeches and public appearances will be required of him.
[16] There won't be as many as the first son, Edward, who becomes Edward VIII of the United Kingdom.
[17] And Albert George has a speech impediment, a stutter, problem speaking, speaking in public and very shy.
[18] And he tries many different things, many different techniques.
[19] He sees a lot of different people, but one day he...
[20] He and Lionel Logue get together.
[21] Now, Lionel Logue is not an official doctor.
[22] He doesn't have a degree, but he has spent his life, and he's made it his life's work helping people with their speech problems for different reasons, mostly after people come back from World War I who've been gassed and things like that.
[23] So they work together for years, and Lionel Logue's approach helps Albert.
[24] It actually helps him to the point where Albert doesn't need to see him for about two years.
[25] They stay friends, but he doesn't need his services, so everything's going along fine.
[26] Albert gets married, he has kids, and he's going to be able to get through it.
[27] It's really still a struggle for him to speak, but he's able to manage, and things look well for him.
[28] But on January 1936, King George V dies, Edward becomes king, and now George, who never expected this, is suddenly next in line to become king.
[29] Well, that's one thing, but then just short of a year, Edward abdicates the throne in December of 1936 for love.
[30] He wants to marry Miss Wallace Simpson, and now George is going to become king of the United Kingdom, and he has to deal with this, so he needs Lionel Logue back.
[31] But then, three years later, World War II starts, and the king is definitely more needed with a lot more public speeches and public appearances, and he is going to need Lionel Logue services once again.
[32] So it's an amazing story.
[33] And the movie is out, and of course I will be going to see the movie as soon as I can afford to go see it with the price of gas and the price of movie tickets going up.
[34] But anyway, I'm sure the movie is good, but to get more of a detailed story, you would definitely want to check out the book, and you get the story behind the story.
[35] Because Mark Logue, one of the writers, is the grandson of Lionel Logue.
[36] He's the one who had all his papers and all his notes and things like that, so he put the book together.
[37] Peter Conradi is a writer for one of the newspapers.
[38] So you can get the story behind the story, and it really is amazing, and I think you'll enjoy it very much.
[39] Now, there are two ways to sign up for this free trial.
[40] You can go to my website, worldwar2podcast .net, and click on the banner, or you can go to audibletrial .com slash worldwar2podcast.
[41] Again, that's audibletrial .com slash worldwar2podcast.
[42] That way they'll know who sent you.
[43] Thank you very much.
[44] But if you need another reason to go to my website, I have one.
[45] When you get time, go to my website, worldwar2podcast .net.
[46] Look at the top of the screen and click on the video selection.
[47] I have about six videos on there from YouTube and things like that.
[48] And you'll see one on there.
[49] That very few people know about.
[50] Even though people that know World War II.
[51] There's another aspect that I was able to find.
[52] So check it out.
[53] You'll know which one it is right away.
[54] Because I just put it on there yesterday.
[55] So check it out.
[56] And it's something that very few people know about.
[57] I think you'll be fascinated by it.
[58] And you'll be able to do more research.
[59] And I'll probably cover it later.
[60] But again it's pretty neat.
[61] It's not very well known.
[62] But it is a very fascinating story.
[63] So here is the interview I had with Laszlo Montgomery of the China History Podcast.
[64] I just wanted to give you a heads up.
[65] I had some technical issues, nothing too major.
[66] As you're listening, when you're about halfway through it for about five minutes, the quality of the audio drops a little bit, and it's all on my side.
[67] I live in the middle of nowhere, and my Internet connection is not as good as it could be.
[68] So Laszlo was gracious enough we actually recorded it twice, and so I had to slip in a little of my recording.
[69] You hear everything.
[70] Everything's fine.
[71] You'll just notice the change, and it only lasts for about five minutes, and then it goes back to the good quality.
[72] But I just wanted to give you a heads up, so do not attempt to adjust your iPod.
[73] And again, I want to apologize to the listeners.
[74] I want to apologize to Laszlo Montgomery of the China History Podcast, but we got it in there.
[75] You can still hear everything.
[76] It's an amazing story.
[77] The Long March is up.
[78] not only allows the Communist Party to survive in China, but it also allows Mao Zedong to come and be head of the Communist Party and to stay there.
[79] So it's a really amazing story, but I just wanted to let you know what to expect.
[80] Thank you.
[81] Hello, and thank you for listening to a History of World War II podcast, episode 19.
[82] The Long March.
[83] Well, as promised, we have Laszlo Montgomery with us from the China History Podcast.
[84] Hello, Laszlo.
[85] Hi, Ray.
[86] Thanks for inviting me on your show this week.
[87] Thank you for accepting.
[88] So on the last podcast, I was giving everybody a little intro into stuff we've talked about, how we met and that both did our podcast roughly the same time and that you were waiting for someone to do.
[89] podcast on China, and I was waiting for someone to do one in World War II, and I think we both just got tired of waiting and started our own.
[90] Yeah, that's how it worked.
[91] That's how it worked, and I'm still waiting for a China history podcast.
[92] There's only mine.
[93] Yeah, and I'm still waiting, too.
[94] I mean, there's a lot of snippets out there, but just kind of an overall World War II one, I think I just got frustrated and decided to dust off all the books and take a stab at it.
[95] Now, I was telling everybody kind of your background that you started studying the language, I think it was in 1979 when you started studying Mandarin.
[96] Yeah, that was 1979 was when China, when U .S. normalized relations with China.
[97] Jimmy Carter was president and there was a promise of a whole new world in U .S.-China trade and diplomatic relations.
[98] And so I...
[99] I was a history major at the time, so I took on a second major and began studying Mandarin, and that was, what, 32 years ago.
[100] So Mandarin was your second major.
[101] Yes.
[102] Now I'm really impressed.
[103] Okay.
[104] And you lived in Hong Kong for a while.
[105] Yeah, I lived there from 89 to 1998, a year after Hong Kong was returned to China.
[106] That must have been an amazing, amazing time.
[107] It was an amazing day, very historic day.
[108] Watched it with my kids in Hong Kong who couldn't care less.
[109] They were like three years old.
[110] And it was just a very humid, rainy day.
[111] But there was a fantastic fireworks display that night.
[112] And it was very interesting to be watching the...
[113] while it happened.
[114] That's amazing.
[115] So I was telling everyone you still work with, I think, companies in China and you still travel there on a, I guess, regular or semi -regular basis.
[116] And I was telling them about the, I like the way you do your podcasts where you kind of, to a certain degree, jump around for different subjects because there's so much to cover.
[117] I mean, you couldn't really do it chronologically because that's what, 5 ,000 years worth of history.
[118] But I've been doing it.
[119] I've been doing it.
[120] Yeah, I just finished.
[121] I listened to the latest one, the Ming Dynasty.
[122] Is that part one that you put out recently?
[123] Part one.
[124] Part two will be coming very shortly.
[125] Yeah, just really – I was telling this really amazing stuff because it's a world I truly know very little about, which is I think why I was intimidated as far as covering China during World War II.
[126] But just listening to your podcast, I feel like I have a better – basis for understanding.
[127] So when I do read something, it actually makes more sense now.
[128] Yeah, it's a very intimidating subject.
[129] The names are hard to pronounce, hard to remember.
[130] And it's so different from our American history and Western civilization.
[131] So it is a little intimidating.
[132] But anyway, I try to make it somewhat approachable and just give a good general overview to those that.
[133] you know, are interested in Chinese history, interested to know, but, you know, maybe not interested enough to go read a history book.
[134] But if it's sort of presented in some semi -entertaining format, then perhaps this, then my show was, you know, a good suitable way to learn it.
[135] Yeah, because it's so much easier just to download and listen.
[136] Kind of take it all in.
[137] I haven't really been – I haven't really seen a lot of emails from people who have asked me why my show is, in my opinion, kind of unbalanced.
[138] It's pretty much focused on Europe.
[139] That's where a lot of my library comes from, my interest comes from.
[140] But I'm trying to do a better job, which is one of the reasons I contacted you.
[141] You know, when Americans – well, I guess I should say when citizens of the U .S., I should be as geopolitically correct as I possibly can because like you, I get emails from all over the world.
[142] I guess when a lot of U .S. citizens think about World War II, if you don't live on the West Coast or Hawaii or have family in the Navy maybe, you know, you think of Hitler and Stalin, Churchill, Battle of the Bulge, Beaches of Norway, that kind of thing.
[143] But I just wanted to do a better job of – You know, being able to balance it out and focus on Asia.
[144] So I might be calling you in the future if that's okay with you.
[145] Anytime.
[146] I really appreciate that.
[147] So as far as the long march is concerned, we're going to cover that in detail in a couple of minutes.
[148] But is it fair to say that that's, I guess, maybe the way it's taught to the school children over there?
[149] It's kind of like, you know, George Washington is to us.
[150] You know, a lot of these things really happen, but it does get blown up and become.
[151] more than just the story, you know, more of what it represents.
[152] Yeah, you know, it's part of the whole mythology of the whole revolution.
[153] You know, it was, we have Valley Forge, you know, George Washington and the Bastille in revolutionary France, storming of the Winter Palace in Russia.
[154] You know, these were all central events in the revolutionary mythology.
[155] And for...
[156] China, the Long March sort of plays that role.
[157] And actually, things that happened during the Long March are also fodder for pushing the spirits and all the sacrifices of the old revolutionaries.
[158] Right.
[159] I'm sure there's lots of movies, lots of books, a lot of memoirs, that kind of thing.
[160] Yeah, yeah, a lot of that, and a lot of it was glorified in Chinese cinema during the Cultural Revolution and whatnot.
[161] I mean, it's a great story.
[162] I'm sure a good deal of it is true.
[163] It's just hard to know how much is exaggerated, how much has been left out.
[164] It has to be very carefully polished.
[165] How the Long March is presented because it really is one of the pillars of legitimacy of the Communist Party.
[166] Right.
[167] Well, that's why you're here.
[168] So we'll talk about the Long March and then you straighten me up and let me know if I – let me know when I butcher the names or the cities and just keep me on the straight and narrow path.
[169] Okay, great.
[170] So the next podcast that I'm going to – do on China and Mao and that kind of thing is going to start January 1937.
[171] So I figured we could talk about the Long March, but then just kind of hit the highlights until we get to the end of 1936 and now to set up the next podcast, if that's okay.
[172] Sounds perfect.
[173] All right.
[174] So could you give us just like a setup about why it was important for the Communist Party that had been – in that area for a couple of years, why it was important for all 80 ,000 or 100 ,000, whatever it was, to pick up and go through the jungles.
[175] Just give us an idea of why it was necessary for them to do that.
[176] Well, they had been there for a while up in Jiangxi province.
[177] In April 1927, April 12, 1927, Chiang Kai -shek moved again.
[178] Since the death of Sun Yat -sen in 1925, there had been a...
[179] an uneasy peace between the communists and the KMT.
[180] And after, uh, Chiang Kai -shek, you know, uh, uh, got the, uh, a big air do and the green gang on his side and, and got them to move against all the communists in Shanghai.
[181] I mean, pretty much almost all of them were wiped out.
[182] And those that were not, uh, killed in that uh in that that whole thing in april of 27 they retreated to jiangxi province which is in the interior of china even today some parts of it are still pretty backward but 1930s jiangxi was it was just a great hideout place you know none of the roads you know that you see today.
[183] I mean, it was a good place to hide, and that's where they sort of regrouped.
[184] And so up in 1927, Mao was up there in Jinggangshan, up in Jiangxi.
[185] They set up this Soviet Republic there, and they started to plant some roots and train, and that's where Mao established his...
[186] His theory that, you know, you don't need the proletariat.
[187] China is an agrarian nation.
[188] You need you need you need to have the peasants on your side and incorporated into the revolution.
[189] All kinds of weird things that went against the Soviet orthodoxy.
[190] And so while so they continue to grow there and in Chiang Kai -shek kept trying to root them out.
[191] And he had four.
[192] campaigns to annihilate them.
[193] They were called the annihilation campaigns.
[194] But, you know, they couldn't.
[195] It always came down to fighting these guys, fighting the communists on their terrain.
[196] They're up in the mountains.
[197] It was very difficult to fight them.
[198] So, Chiang Kai -shek finally...
[199] With the fifth and final campaign, they were really meant business and they were going to really get them.
[200] And they started to move in on them and shrink there, slowly encircle them and sort of push them into smaller and smaller territory.
[201] And it got to the point in 34.
[202] where the communists said, hey, you know, we got to get out of here.
[203] They're going to just sooner or later, as Peng Dehuai said, they were drying the pond to catch the fish.
[204] Old Chinese saying, just, you know, shrinking down their land to the point where they wouldn't have anywhere to run.
[205] So that's where they decided in October 34 to get out of town and head north to safety.
[206] Welcome to True Spies.
[207] The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.
[208] Suddenly out of the dark it's appeared in lab.
[209] You'll meet the people who live life undercover.
[210] What do they know?
[211] What are their skills?
[212] And what would you do in their position?
[213] Vengeance felt good.
[214] Seeing these people pay for what they'd done felt righteous.
[215] True Spies from Spyscape Studios.
[216] Wherever you get your podcasts.
[217] And just one thing I wanted to ask.
[218] The other four annihilation campaigns, one of the reasons that those did not succeed was because Mao had an idea of what the nationalists were doing because of the spies.
[219] The Russians, I believe, had set up for them or – Yeah, yeah.
[220] The Soviets had infiltrated the KMT and there was – the communists had a great – Great spy.
[221] They were privy to a great spy network.
[222] So they knew a lot about what was going on.
[223] So the Fifth Annihilation Army is coming.
[224] It's huge.
[225] Chiang Kai -shek means business this time.
[226] He's kind of, I guess, to a certain degree, ignoring the Japanese or focusing on the Chinese communists.
[227] And he's really trying to wipe them out this time.
[228] So they know they have to take off.
[229] But even at this point now, I believe he's not in charge.
[230] He's not in charge of the government.
[231] He's not in charge of the military.
[232] But he's already got a bad reputation with some of the leaders, Boku and maybe Zhou Enlai.
[233] And they're going to try not to leave him behind.
[234] Yeah, Mao was definitely.
[235] Not a popular guy.
[236] I mean, he had his allies, of course, but he was not a very popular guy.
[237] And again, he had this, you know, these strange unorthodox theories about how revolution should be made.
[238] And, you know, so, yeah, they wanted to try and leave him behind, but he wasn't going to miss out on this.
[239] He knew the importance of this.
[240] So and really to stay behind meant almost certain death.
[241] So he.
[242] Left with them, I believe the Long March, the first group started leaving October 16th, 1934, across the Yudu River, southern part of Jiangxi.
[243] That's where they took off, anywhere from 80 to 100 ,000 men, 50 women, 20 ,000 administrative cadres.
[244] And Mao left a couple days later on the 18th.
[245] And then it began.
[246] Okay, so they're all going on, but they have trouble with the Nationalists pretty much straight away.
[247] Yeah, a month after they're out, the Battle of the Xiang River takes place.
[248] That's the first bit of bad luck that the Red Army faces.
[249] They've only left Jiangxi for a month, and they just get...
[250] really messed up at this battle.
[251] Half the army had crossed the river, half the other half had not even started crossing.
[252] And that's when Jiang's and the KMT forces pounced on them.
[253] And of the 86 ,000 or whatever it is, number of troops that started off.
[254] There were only 30 ,000 left at the end of this battle, and there were just lots of desertions.
[255] The baggage train just carrying all the printing presses, party records, furniture.
[256] I mean, it was like 50 miles long, and they couldn't.
[257] This thing was just slowing them down, and everything was just jettisoned at this battle.
[258] So it was a real disaster and caused a lot of low morale.
[259] So this one really hurt.
[260] So that happens pretty early, and so you have a couple of cross -purposes here.
[261] I think Chiang Kai -shek is trying to put everybody, push all the communists together, get them to go up north.
[262] He wants to be able to keep an eye on them in one location.
[263] But Mao was trying to slow down the progress of the march because he needs time to regain his position as either military and or political leader.
[264] So there's cross purposes there.
[265] And so after this horrible defeat from the nationalists, I think it's in mid -January where Mao's going to make a move at getting some of his power back.
[266] Is that right?
[267] Yeah, he had been working with his allies within the party.
[268] His two most powerful allies was Luo Fu and Wang Jiaxiang.
[269] These two worked with Mao to take down Bo Gu and Otto Braun, also known as Li De.
[270] That was the German that the Soviets had sent to work with the...
[271] to work with the communists.
[272] Anyway, those two, Boku, Li De, they were really the two most powerful guys.
[273] And Mao, along with Lo Fu and Wang Jiaxiang, they sort of at the Sun Yi conference that was January 15th to 17th in Guicho, they met, they rehashed, you know, what went wrong, how did things, you know, how do we...
[274] chopped up at the Xiang River.
[275] And what was going wrong?
[276] What do we got to do?
[277] And Boku and Alita, they were both attacked at the meeting and held responsible.
[278] And Mao sort of pounced on them using his proxies and directly.
[279] And so they lost a lot of prestige.
[280] So one of the results of the Zunyi conference, I mean, not...
[281] So it's said, okay, well, that's where Mao took over.
[282] Well, he didn't really take over, but that's where he sort of established himself.
[283] He got into the party secretariat, into a high military position, and Boku and Lita, they were discredited.
[284] So that was a critical turning point in where Mao really established himself, and there was no stopping him after that.
[285] Okay, so that's in mid -January.
[286] And then isn't there another battle near the end of January?
[287] Yeah, January 28th, the Battle of Tucheng.
[288] Another huge loss for the Red Army.
[289] Another 4 ,000 men killed, which was really 10 % of the Red Army at that point.
[290] Mao was blamed.
[291] The true cause was mostly faulty intel on the size of the nationalist forces.
[292] But Mao made a comeback from there.
[293] He wasn't, although he was faulted for this, it wasn't fatal.
[294] Right.
[295] And by February, Wofu, he's now the top spot.
[296] Wofu, who's been in charge all these years, he's now out.
[297] And at this point, the decision has been made.
[298] that he should march with the First Red Army to Sichuan and hook up with Zhang Guo Tao's army, Fourth Army, and meet up with the two armies.
[299] Right.
[300] But Mao's not ready for that.
[301] He's making progress.
[302] His man is now in charge, but he's not ready to meet up with...
[303] Chen Gu Tao, because that man has a very good reputation.
[304] He has a larger army, and he wants to be in charge, too.
[305] And I think I read somewhere...
[306] Chen Gu Tao is a much larger army.
[307] He has much greater prestige.
[308] He's really the top guy.
[309] And Mao didn't feel like...
[310] meeting up with him in his territory and where he was really the top guy.
[311] So Mao was in no hurry to hook up with Zhang Guotao, and he starts creating diversions, and he starts heading back to Zunyi.
[312] He ends up taking that town from the Nationalists, puts up a great fight, and then for February, March, April 1935, he's being chased and marching all over Guizhou and Yunnan, and Chiang Kai -shek is busy putting up all kinds of traps for him and using hundreds and hundreds and thousands of troops at his disposal trying to intercept Mao and not let him cross the Yangtze River and keep him from...
[313] Right.
[314] So Chiang Kai -shek is trying to still push them north.
[315] The communist hierarchy agreed to all get together, but Mao is the only one who does not want to go north, so he keeps running all over the place.
[316] And then I think it's by the end of April, he just can't fight the group anymore, the hierarchy, and he agrees to go north.
[317] Exactly.
[318] But even then, do they go to...
[319] Mao's troops are down to about 22 ,000.
[320] Down to about 22 ,000.
[321] Wow.
[322] So he starts heading towards Sichuan.
[323] Okay.
[324] And even though he's not ready, he pretty much doesn't have a choice, and he knows there's going to be some kind of showdown with that commander.
[325] Now, so they're marching, and I think it's in late May where they crossed the Dadu River, which was...
[326] I don't know how to put it.
[327] It was certainly blown up in the legend of the Long March.
[328] Yeah, the Battle of Ludin Bridge, May 31, 1935.
[329] You know, it's just another milestone in the Long March.
[330] It was a very dramatic, come -from -behind dramatic victory for the communists at this ancient bridge that had been built in the 18th century in 1701.
[331] The battle had huge propaganda value and had been milked for years.
[332] And then he crossed the Snowy Mountains, which is another dramatic tale of survival in early June of 1935.
[333] And then he is able to meet up in...
[334] Liang He Ko, the two armies join up, and there's very cordial relations between Zhang Kuo Tao and Mao.
[335] They hadn't seen each other since 1923.
[336] So, you know, even though there was all this competition between the two for supremacy, they had not actually been face -to -face since two years after the founding of the party.
[337] So here they are.
[338] They're up there in Sichuan.
[339] outwardly everything is okay and cordial and but inside uh lots of uh lots going on so i think i read somewhere that um the reason mal wanted to not meet up with um chung kuota was that he had a reputation for removing or killing people to get what he wanted you know mal had that same reputation but he was actually you know And browbeating your opponent is one thing, but knowing that your adversary might kill you if you're in his way is another thing.
[340] So these two get together, but they really can't agree on who should run what.
[341] And do they pretty much go their separate way, or what happens after they can't agree on who should run things?
[342] Well, they start heading north.
[343] They go through.
[344] what's known as the grasslands.
[345] Their armies just both suffered terrible, terrible hardships on this 11 ,000 -foot plateau.
[346] It's right between the watersheds of both the Yellow River and Yangtze River, and they completely walked into this just no man's land.
[347] There was no food.
[348] It was just grass growing in just the most unhospitable swamps.
[349] And many have called this the worst part of the Long March.
[350] I mean, even in August, the weather was freezing, high up, severe hardships.
[351] And the stories of soldiers eating grass and leather, animal skins, any dogs, anything to get their hands on, many comrades left behind in the grasslands.
[352] But, you know, and they get past there.
[353] September 8th, 1935, Zhang Guotao and Mao are still together.
[354] At this point, they're arguing on tactics and who's in charge.
[355] Mao thought that Zhang Guotao was making some sort of move against him.
[356] So he just sort of disappeared with his army, and they head off on their own.
[357] Mao had spies.
[358] Within Zhang Guotao's camp, two of which, Yang Shang -Kun and Li Xian -Nian, old revolutionaries who were party leaders up until they died in the 80s, 90s, they informed on Zhang Guotao and said, hey, Mao, this guy's going to try and bump you off.
[359] So that's why Mao said he had to get out of there.
[360] So that's why Mao sort of took off very surreptitiously.
[361] And that was that.
[362] Then it was like an open rift.
[363] So Mao is heading towards Soviet -controlled territory for supplies and support because earlier – I can't remember exactly when – earlier he had sent an envoy or representative to Moscow to plead his case.
[364] And so he's got that going for him, and then he's going to try to get closer to their – where he can get some supplies from them.
[365] What happens to the, to Chen Quotau's army after they split?
[366] He just gets decimated.
[367] He, his large force totally wiped out by the, by the, he had 80 ,000 troops, like three quarters of them were killed and he never made a comeback.
[368] He never was able to make a comeback after that.
[369] And once he lost his force, That was really it for him.
[370] Mao still held on to his.
[371] So anyway, and it's September 15th.
[372] The last battle of the Long March was at a place called Lazako.
[373] It was against the KMT 14th Division.
[374] They guarded this strategic and narrow mountain pass with thousand foot high cliffs.
[375] And, you know, so the Red Army had to, like, get through this very narrow pass, like only 12.
[376] He'd across in some parts with the KMT at the top.
[377] Blockhouse is just shooting down on them.
[378] But another thing, just like the Battle of Lutding Bridge, the Battle of Lazico is another one filled with all kinds of just, you know, stories of incredible bravery.
[379] And it was a great triumph.
[380] You know, Mao had some people, some of his men just climb these mountains.
[381] And, you know, just rained down grenades and whatnot on the nationalist troops.
[382] And so they got through.
[383] And, you know, after one last skirmish with the Ma clan out there in the northwest, this was a Muslim clan, the Ma family.
[384] They had sided with the nationalists.
[385] Had one last skirmish, but after they finished with those guys and made fast work of them, Mao's army did make it to Shanxi province, and that was it.
[386] September, October and 35, that's pretty much there.
[387] They arrived, Zhang Guotao's army gets there in shambles.
[388] And in October, one year later, the Second Red Army that had been, you know, won going all over China, led by Marshal He Long, they were the last to arrive.
[389] October 22nd, 1936, was the famous union of the three armies.
[390] And everybody that had set out on the long march at last in October 36, they were all together once again.
[391] And from this spot, In Shanxi called Yan 'an, that became their base for the next 10 years until 1948, and that's where the Communist Party sort of regrouped.
[392] Amazing.
[393] So by the time the long march is over with, it almost sounds like there were more officers than soldiers when you go from like 80 ,000 to maybe less than 10 ,000 or something like that.
[394] Yeah, it was, you know, but all the great ones were there.
[395] Mao, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yuan, Zhu De, Hu Yaobang, Lin Biao, Peng Dehuai.
[396] I mean, the whole aristocracy of the revolution.
[397] I mean, these were the guys.
[398] They're called the long marchers.
[399] You know, they're all dying out.
[400] You know, these were people in there that were in their teens and 20s and 30s, you know, in the 19th.
[401] So there's not very many of them left.
[402] But they were called the Long Marchers.
[403] In 1938, by the way, Zhang Guotao ended up defecting to the Nationalists, so a little postscript to his role in the Long March.
[404] He ended up dying in Canada many, many, many years later.
[405] So during the Long March, Mao is able to manipulate his way back into position.
[406] He's able to...
[407] remove his rivals.
[408] He gets the support of the Soviet Union because he kind of tricks them into, you know, through his own void.
[409] They don't know any radio contact for a lot of this.
[410] And so he really is able to get almost, I guess, everything he wanted out of the long march that he aimed to get when it started.
[411] And that's pretty much how it goes.
[412] And he was really, from that point forward, at the end of the Long March until September 1976, when he died, he was the man in charge, undisputed leader of the party.
[413] And over the period of the next, you know, 10 years in Yan 'an and, you know, during the Civil War, he, of course, you know.
[414] Right.
[415] It consolidated his power within the party and started setting up the party.
[416] So from like, I guess what, late 35, 36 until the end of the war, he's going to consolidate so he can be ready for the next struggle, which is to take on the nationalists to see who's going to control China.
[417] Yeah.
[418] That's amazing.
[419] And then, you know, and then remember, and then sort of the last thing is in December 12th, when they had the Xi 'an incident, when Chiang Kai -shek was kidnapped by the young marshal, Zhang Shui Liang, and coerced into cooperating with Mao and the communists to stop the civil war and, you know, join forces to fight the Japanese, which is what they did till 1945.
[420] Yeah, and a lot of that was orchestrated by Moscow.
[421] They wanted China unified to a certain degree, focused on Japan to keep Japan out of Russian territory.
[422] That was just Stalin's nightmare, and he was able to bring it off more or less, and it's pretty amazing.
[423] That's it.
[424] Yeah, so on the next podcast, I'll pick up January 1937 and try to do it some justice, especially the kidnapping.
[425] That's so fascinating.
[426] Supposedly the young marshal's working with Chiang Kai -shek.
[427] You know, for a while being his prisoner and now couldn't be more happy.
[428] But then it gets even more crazy from there.
[429] So I'll try to try to cover that future.
[430] So, again, I want to thank you for being with us, for talking about this.
[431] And I wanted to thank you for your podcast, because it really is a way to go into a whole different world that is pretty much new to me. And I'm going to let you sign off.
[432] But first, I want to just tell everybody.
[433] For everyone who's listening to this, if you could please go to the China History Podcast, subscribe to it, rate it, review it, send my own email, because when we do the podcast, we spend a lot of time alone on our computer or with their books, and it's nice to hear from the outside world that, you know, someone appreciates it.
[434] So for me and Laszlo, I just want to say thank you for listening, because without you, there's not much of a point to it, and I'll let Laszlo have the last word.
[435] Ray, thank you very much for inviting me on your show for today.
[436] Two history podcasters are better than one, I hope, for this topic.
[437] So, again, I want to thank you, and I've enjoyed it.
[438] And this is Laszlo Montgomery signing off from Claremont, California.
[439] Thanks very much.
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