Source: China Military Network WeChat, PLA News And Communication Center Rong Media
Author: Xu Ping
Today marks the 85th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March. From October 1934 to October 1936, the Red Army (Central Red Army), the Red Second, the Red Sixth Army (Red Second Front), the Red Fourth Front and the Red Twenty-fifth Army were strategically transferred from the Soviet Districts to the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Region. Among them, the Red Army traveled 25,000 miles, so the Long March is often called the 25,000-mile Long March.
Before the departure of the main Red Army's Long March, most of them were guaranteed by the Soviet government for the supply of military uniforms. However, at that time, the rural base areas were limited by conditions, and most of them relied on the people to make clothes by hand, and it was difficult to fully standardize the style and color. In order to ensure the supply of military supplies for the anti-"encirclement and suppression" war and to prepare for the strategic transfer, the people of the Soviet Union mobilized extensively and raised grain, clothing, buckets, and other military supplies to support the Red Army.
The pointed bucket hat (replica) acquired by the Red Army in Tingzhou that year
In October 1934, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Headquarters of the Red Army led the main force of the Central Red Army (on the one hand) and the rear organs of the Central Red Army ( on the one hand ) to a total of more than 86,000 people to start the Long March. In the first nine months of 1934, the Changting Red Army Bucket Factory stepped up the production of Red Army bucket hats, ensuring that each commander and fighter of the Central Red Army had one bucket hat per person during the Long March. The Changting Quilt Garment Factory worked two hours a day and produced a large number of military quilt uniforms, so that the Red Ninth Army was fully replenished and updated with military supplies such as thin cotton clothes, quilts, and ambulance bandages when changting set out. On the eve of the Long March of the main Red Army, the Ninghua Quilt Garment Factory and others worked day and night to produce a large number of military supplies to support the strategic transfer of the Red Army. Before the Central Red Army broke through from the Soviet zone, each person was issued a new set of military uniforms. It was autumn when we set out, and the weather in the south was moderately hot and cold, which was more suitable for marching. In early December, when entering the Wuling area at the junction of Hunan and Guangdong, especially when crossing the Laoshan boundary, the soldiers felt for the first time the climate of "four seasons in an instant, a few different days", and the thin military uniforms of the commanders and fighters were already difficult to withstand the cold.
On the eve of the departure of the Long March, the Red First Army gathered at the head of a village in Changting, Fujian Province. It can be seen from the figure that the uniform style of the Red Army is generally the same, but the color is dark and light, and the color of the military hat is obviously darker than the uniform.
After the Long March of the Red Army, most of the garment factories were disbanded or downsized, and some of them followed the main force of the Red Army. At the beginning of the Long March, the supply department of each army was equipped with 3 to 5 sewers and two sewing machines, which solved some temporary necessary problems of quilting and repair for the troops. During the Long March, the Red Army carried out no rear combat and did not have a fixed military production base, but the troops were still equipped with the organization of sewing squads, platoons and companies to undertake part of the supply of military uniforms. The Red Army in the Long March was surrounded and blocked by a large number of enemy troops, and mainly relied on rapid marching to get out of the dangerous situation. At that time, rubber shoes were a rare treasure, cloth shoes were not wearable, and each commander and fighter carried two or three pairs of grass shoes on his body, and marched all the way to play grass shoes by himself.
In January 1935, a week after breaking through the natural dangers of the Wujiang River, the Red Army occupied Zunyi. At this time, after nearly three months of fighting, most of the military uniforms have been worn. General Yang Dezhi recalled: "Our team, after a long journey and continuous combat, because it left the base area and could not get supplies, many people wore jackets and barefoot and wore straw shoes. A squad of more than a dozen soldiers wore clothes (which is hardly a military uniform) in seven or eight colors and styles. Some comrades even wrapped uncut cotton cloth around their bodies, like primitive people, and some wore bare plate dog skins and sheepskins strung together with thin hemp ropes, and protected the front chest and back of the shirt. The troops rested in Zunyi for more than ten days, "seizing the time to ask the landlord to cut and sew the purchased cloth into a new military uniform." Some impatient soldiers also make their own military uniforms, although they are clumsy, the landlord's wife and sister-in-law want to help him, he still refuses... Although the uniforms made by the comrades are not the same in style, they are generally the same in color. As soon as the new uniform was put on, the troops gathered, but they were in a good mood. The soldiers said excitedly, 'Well, like a Red Army of workers and peasants.' ’”
During the ten days of this rest, at the same time, the clothing factory in the city was mobilized to work day and night, and one or two sets of new military uniforms were replenished for each person, and the warm clothing was barely guaranteed when the four crossings of the Red Water were carried out. Thereafter, the marching army failed to replace for 9 months.
When the Long March reached the territory of Xikang, the weather gradually became colder, and the troops needed to change their cotton clothes, and the clothes of the troops from the south were very thin, and the local people could not buy cloth and cotton. Fortunately, wool was produced in this area, so I bought a batch of wool, mobilized everyone to twist wool thread, and beat sweaters, sweaters, woolen socks, shoes, and hats, which solved a big problem. Some troops used local brown leather to sew into double shoulders, which were covered with wool and wore warmly on the body.
Specimens of wild vegetables eaten by the Red Army during the Long March and brown vests worn through
Before the Red Army crossed the snowy mountains, it was impossible to prepare cotton clothes, so some soldiers sewed up the two single clothes they carried with them, and decorated them with broken cotton wool and hay to make warm clothes; some got a hole in the middle of cattle and sheepskin, and sewn together with needles on the left and right sides as leather vests. However, most of the commanders and fighters wore only single clothes and single pants. Tan Fagui, a former soldier of the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 12th Regiment of the Red Third Army, recalled: "We were all single-clothed, some of us were shorts, and we were wearing straw shoes on our feet, and they were already in tatters. Chairman Mao, like us, wore the faded gray cloth military uniform, cloth shoes on his feet, a stick in his hand, and a rain cloth on his back." "The smog on the mountain is thick and light, and the people are walking in it, like a cloud driving the fog, and the mountain wind is rolling with snowflakes and flying in the sky." The thin military uniform could not withstand the blowing of the wind and snow, and his face and body seemed to be scraped by countless sharp knives. We are trembling, fighting with our teeth, and even putting everything we can put on our bodies will not help." The vast majority of the Red Army's wearing across the snowy mountains were straw shoes, which were woven with straw, hemp rope, and cloth, and had no effect on the cold. The road to climb the snowy mountain is mostly sharp gravel, and the grass shoes are quickly worn.
The Snow Mountain that the Red Army overturned during the Long March was the Jiajin Mountain
Although it is not as cold as climbing snowy mountains when crossing the meadow, the grassland climate is changeable and the conditions are harsh. Founding General Yang Chengwu recalled: "In the meadow, not only is the road difficult to walk, but also the food and clothing have encountered great difficulties. In terms of clothes: we issued two sets of clothes when we set off from Jiangxi, and one set of clothes was reissued in Zunyi, Guizhou, and it was almost ten months by this time. So there are very few people who have complete clothes to wear. The climate is extremely cold, some people wear all kinds of animal skins, such as sheepskin, tiger skin, camel skin, dog skin, it is really colorful, and some people put wool into the felt of the cloth and casually hang it on their bodies. There are also many people who have no military hats, no buckets, no umbrellas, let the wind and rain hit the sun..."
After climbing snow-capped mountains and crossing meadows, most of the red army arrived in northern Shaanxi in October 1935, most of them were in rags. Winter of this year seemed to be deliberately opposed to the Red Army, and winter on the Loess Plateau fell earlier than in previous years, with heavy snow and cold air. The commanders and fighters of the Red Army draped everything they could wear on their bodies to keep them warm. General Xiao Jinguang wrote in his memoirs: "It is late autumn in northern Shaanxi in October, and the plateau climate is inseparable from cotton clothes sooner or later. Most of our Red Army was still wearing single clothes and straw shoes on their feet. Some were still the same gray clothes they had worn when they came out of the Central Soviet District, and they were now in rags. Some were still wearing shorts, some were wearing captured Kuomintang yellow military uniforms to keep out the cold, and some were wearing various flower clothes bought along the way and obtained from fighting local tycoons..."
Marshal Nie Rongzhen recalled: "It was a severely cold winter, and the First Army lacked more than 2,000 sets of cotton clothes to supply at that time, and the troops were sick and sent to the hospital in the cold wind of northern Shaanxi. The troops relied on their high morale to withstand the cold, hoping to fight a victorious battle to solve the problems of military supplies and supplies such as cotton clothes. ”
Battlefield site of the town of Gira
At the critical moment, the great victory in Zhiluo Town supplied the Red Army with military supplies in time, which was really like sending charcoal in the snow! When the Central Red Army reached northern Shaanxi in victory, Chiang Kai-shek was extremely uneasy and mobilized the strength of 5 divisions of the Northeast Army in an attempt to encircle and annihilate the main force of the Central Red Army. The Red I Corps and the Red XV Corps launched the Battle of Zhiluo Town, which annihilated 1 division and 1 regiment of the enemy, and captured a large number of guns, ammunition, cotton clothes and other equipment. The commanders and fighters of the Red Army all put on cotton coats after the battle. The victory in this campaign broke the "encirclement and suppression" of the Kuomintang troops in the Shaanxi-Gansu region, greatly boosted the morale of the Red Army, and held a groundbreaking ceremony for the CPC Central Committee to place the national revolutionary base camp in the northwest! At the same time, it also solved the problem of winter clothes for the main force of the Red Army.
The Long March of the Red Twenty-fifth Army lasted from November 1934 to September 1935. After the Long March of the Central Red Army, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided that the Red Twenty-fifth Army would move from the Eyu-Anhui base area to the Tongbai Mountains and Funiu Mountains west of the Beijing-HanKou Railway. It was late November, and the troops were still wearing single clothes. During the march of more than 2,900 people, the team encountered a sudden cold current heading south, the temperature in western Henan plummeted, and the clothes of the Red Army commanders and fighters were soaked with rain and snow, and most of the hungry and cold soldiers froze their fingers, and some gun bolts were also frozen. At this time, the troops encountered a fierce attack from the superior enemy. At the moment of crisis, Wu Huan, the political commissar of the army, took the lead as a soldier, picked up a large knife, and used a white-bladed fight to kill the enemy. After dark, the wind and snow fell, and then turned to heavy rain. The Red Army endured extreme cold, hunger and fatigue, and braved the wind and snow to get out of danger.
After that, the Red Twenty-fifth Army established a base area on the border of Eyu and Shaanxi, and by mobilizing the masses to collect cloth and cotton, it was possible to solve the cotton clothing for the troops, so as to spend a cold winter in the southern foothills of the Qinling Mountains.
The Red Fourth Front March lasted from May 1935 to October 1936. After the Red Fourth Front began its Long March from the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Suzhou region, it entered the desolate Sichuan-Kang border Tibetan area for more than a year, and cloth was rare, and the commanders and fighters made their own sweaters and leather coats with wool and yak leather. In order to overcome the shortage of materials and ensure the supply of military supplies, the Red Fourth Front also set up some military factories, recruited some skilled craftsmen, and repaired guns, fighting knives, weaving bucket hats, and sewing quilts by themselves, which partially solved the difficulties in material supply.
The Red Fourth Front made serious preparations before crossing the meadow. The first was to mobilize troops to beat sweaters and sweaters, each with a sheepskin and five dried branches, and prepared chili peppers, ginger, and liquor in companies and platoons. Before the troops set out, they were required to bring 3 things with each person; one was a grain bag containing 3 days' worth of grain; the other was clothing, with cotton or sweater, and if not, at least one single coat; and the third was to bring 3 to 5 pairs of straw shoes. In addition, preparations have been made for weapons and ammunition. When crossing the meadow for the third time, Xu Shiyou's memoirs wrote: "It was already the middle of winter, the plateau climate was even colder, and because the local cotton was not produced, the comrades had to go up the mountain to cut palm and make a robe to wear on the body to protect themselves from the cold, or to wear unnitrated cow and sheep skin as a vest." ”
Marshal Xu Qianqian once recalled: "Commanders and fighters generally play straw shoes, and also learned to cut leather clothes, tear sheepskin, twist wool, knit sweaters, wool vests, and woolen socks. In June 1935, when the Red First and Red Fourth Fronts were meeting with the Maogong Division, the units of the Red Fourth Front sent many condolences, including many homemade clothes, which were recorded in Xu Xiangqian's Memoirs: "In the Thirty-first Army alone, a batch of 500 pieces of clothes, 1,400 pairs of straw shoes, 500 pairs of woolen socks, 100 pairs of blankets, 170 pairs of shoes, and 200 pairs of sock soles were sent. ”
In order to meet the divisions of the Red Second and Red Sixth Armies, with the support of Tibetan compatriots, the Red Fourth Front raised and purchased a large number of cattle and sheep; in order to ensure that they would cross the grassland again and go north to resist Japan, they also extensively carried out sweater fighting activities. Each person was assigned the task of wearing two sweaters, one to wear for himself, and the other to the comrades of the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies as a gift for the division to go north.
The Red Second and Sixth Red Armies (Red Second Front) marched from November 1935 to October 1936. During the Long March of the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies, each unit was asked to solve their own clothing along the way to adapt to climate change. The Red Second and Sixth Red Armies also had a sewing company with fifty or sixty men and two sewing machines, which mainly produced hats and some military uniforms. Because it is difficult to find gray cloth in the southwest region, the uniforms of the Red Second and Red Sixth Armies are mostly made of local black cloth, so that when the three main forces meet the division, many people looking for the Red Second Front are identified by black uniforms.
Xia Jingcai, an old Red Army soldier, recalled: "Back then, I joined the Red Army wearing bare-buttocked pants. "At the beginning of 1935, the Red Second and Red Sixth Armies hit Guizhou's Qianxi County, and Xia Jingcai, who was selling firewood, threw down the firewood and followed the Red Army. After joining the army, Xia Jingcai did not immediately get a military uniform - for a long time, the 14-year-old Xia Jingcai was wearing torn pants with bare buttocks. "Later, when I was beating a local tycoon, the company commander gave me a pair of satin pants of a landlord's wife." Xia Jingcai recalled, "These satin pants are very awkward to wear, it is not convenient to fight and march, I have been wearing them until northern Shaanxi." ”
During the Long March, the costumes of the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies were different. Most of the Red Sixth Army is a Jiangxi person, everyone carries a bag, carries an umbrella, another rice bag on the waist, and wears cloth shoes on the feet; the clothing of the Red Second Army is not very neat, the hats are large and small, everyone bundles a red belt, carries a bucket hat, and wears straw shoes on the feet. Before the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies arrived in Ganzi, the leaders of the Red Fourth Front, considering that this unit lacked cold supplies, asked the whole army to work and knit a sweater or wool vest for each of the brother troops. The clothing departments of the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies distributed dozens of sweaters and hundreds of sheepskin vests specially woven by the Red Fourth Front to the frail soldiers and women.
According to Fan Ziyu, chief of the accounting section of the Supply Department of the Second Red Army, the Red Army basically ate, dressed, and used whatever it captured. Whenever the Red Army went to a place and opened the city, the logistics organs first bought cloth to make hats, and blue cloth and gray cloth could do it. The clothes of the Red Army are varied, except for the flower clothes that are not worn, all other clothes are worn, and the flower cloth is kept with grass shoes. The grass shoes worn by the Red Army were all cloth, and one pair was worn on the feet, and each person had to carry two pairs on his back. Straw shoes were important to the Red Army, and marching walking without it could not be done. Therefore, almost every Red Army will play straw shoes, and those who can't fight will ask others to hit two pairs of backs. After the end of the Long March, the troops entered Zhuangli Town, Fuping County, Shaanxi Province, and only then did they give each person two sets of clothes, the Red Army headquarters issued us one set, and we made one set ourselves, all gray, and the uniformity of the troops began to be uniform.
A group photo of the Red Second Front army arriving in northern Shaanxi. The third from the right in the middle row is He Long, the second from the right is Ren Bi, and the first from the left is Wang Shusheng. Most of the Red Army cadres in the photo wear the same cotton hat, indicating that the red army clothing style is basically unified at this time.
"I am even happier at the snow of the Min Mountains, and after the three armies, I am all happy." When the three main forces of the Red Army met the division, the personnel of each unit were dressed in a messy color, some wore cloth clothes, some wore fur sweaters, and the only unified symbol was the red five-star octagonal hat, which shone with the light of firm faith. The Red Army presented to the vast number of commanders and fighters of the Fourth Front Army winter clothes that had been driven out of the garment factory, as well as sweaters, woolen socks, gloves, shoes, and other condolences, and some sweaters and gloves were also embroidered with the words "Welcome Class Brothers" and "Remembering the Teachers."
"The Red Army is a man of steel, and they are not afraid of difficulties." Relying on the will of steel, the Red Army overcame the special difficulties in food, clothing, shelter and transportation, traveled twenty-five thousand miles, and created a miracle on earth recognized by the whole world.
(Produced by China Military Network WeChat and PLA News And Communication Center)