The Red Army marched across the meadows, the first time in late August 1935.
It was after the First and Fourth Fronts of the Central Red Army met the Maogong Division, after the shawo conference resolution and the Xia Tao Campaign plan, from August 13, 1935, the Red Army was divided into two routes, the left route army led by Zhu Laozong, Zhang Guotao, and Liu Bocheng marched to Aba, and the right route army was led by the chairman and Xu Xiangqian and Chen Changhao to Banyou.
On August 20, 1935, the Right Route Army held a meeting in Maoergai and decided to go north to the Tao River Valley and then eastward. However, since the direction of the Development of the Red Army was set to go north, but the main road from Songpan to the north had been blocked by Hu Zongnan, the Only way for the Red Army to continue north was to pass through the Songpan Meadow, which was called the Magic Swamp by the locals, and even birds could not fly.
Songpan Grassland is located in the northwest Sichuan grassland of the connecting section of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Sichuan Basin, with a length of more than 300 kilometers, an area of about 15,200 square kilometers, and an altitude of more than 3,500 meters. Due to poor drainage, large swamps are formed. Aquatic grasses are intertwined and form meadows that cover the swamps. On top of the pedestrian meadow, you must step on the roots of the grass and follow the meadow. If you accidentally fall into a quagmire and no one can save you, you will struggle more and more deeply until you are ruthlessly engulfed by the swamp. In addition, the climate of the grassland area is harsh, the clear sky and fog are unpredictable, and the temperature difference is huge, even in the summer, the temperature is 10 degrees. The rainy season in the grasslands is from May to September every year, which makes the swamps that are already full of muddy waters more difficult to fly in the country. With the exception of herders grazing on the fringes in the summer, very few people venture deep into the meadows.
The Red Army crossed the meadow, although it was not fighting the enemy, but it was fighting with nature, fighting against the harsh natural environment, it can be said that the Red Army crossing the meadow was a death march.
The first to enter the Songpan Grassland were the leading units of the Right Route Army led by Ye Jianying, the 164th Regiment and the 265th Regiment of the Red 30th Army, which set out on August 18, while the 4th Regiment of the Red First Army set out from Maoergai on August 21 and entered the meadow. The red army directly under the army entered the meadow on August 23, according to Tong Xiaopeng, who later served as deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, in his "Diary of Tong Xiaopeng in the Army":
"August 23rd: The meadow that was prepared a long time ago is about to start moving towards it today, and everyone wants to arrive early, to taste what the grass really is, and to cross it. After breakfast, we set off in disguise, and we parted ways twenty miles from the Tongharon Road, still going up the river, still seeing alpine woods along the way, the sky is indeed very abominable, it rained soon after departure, is it inevitable that we have to cross the meadow and deliberately make trouble? Because the rainy weather is very cold, and some comrades do not have rain gear to resist, so there are a few who freeze to death on the side of the road because of their weakness..."
It wasn't until August 28 that Tong Xiaopeng and they walked out of the meadow and went to Brazil. Although the time to cross the meadow was only five or six days, the death of his comrades-in-arms made him very sad.
Later, according to statistics, the Red Army had nearly 20,000 people before crossing the meadow, but after crossing the grassland, there were 13,000 people left. In five or six days, the Red Army lost 7,000 men on the grass. Why?
The main reason is food shortages. The root cause of the hunger was that the Central Committee and Zhang Guotao had a dispute with Zhang Guotao for more than a month after maogong meeting the division, so that the entire Red Army could not move, and the grain in this place that was originally starving of grain was exhausted, even the grassland would still starve people.
The second reason is that this is a plateau area at an altitude of 3500 meters, lack of oxygen makes it difficult for healthy people to carry out physical activity for a long time, the Red Army soldiers from the south marched to this place, the body is extremely weak, coupled with hunger, coupled with cold, the body can not bear such a weight, they can only lie down on this vast grass.
The third is the spiritual problem. In particular, some fallen soldiers, when walking in this no-man's land, will cause people's mental breakdown, lose confidence, and lead to death.
The last reason for the attrition of the Red Army was the people who fled away from the Red Army, all of whom joined the Red Army during the Long March, and whose revolutionary consciousness was far inferior to that of the old Red Army fighters who had set out from Jiangxi and other places, so that they would not be able to bear this suffering in the most difficult period of the revolution, and thus chose to become deserters, of course, this was only a minority.
Now the Songpan grassland, after treatment, ditches and drainage everywhere, the appearance of the grassland is no longer what it used to be. White sheep and black yaks can be seen everywhere in the green grasslands, and groups of tourists come to Songpan and Hongyuan to indulge in beautiful scenery. But the Red Army soldiers did not have this kind of leisure, in the eyes of the Red Army soldiers, this meadow is a sea of death, only brave people can walk firmly.