MeganLM

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The fifth and biggest extermination campaigns was launched in Autumn 1933 by Chiang Kai Shek as his final attempt of crushing the communist party situated in the Jiangxi soviet. New strategies and tactics employed by the GMD forces allowed for the success in the military encirclement of the communist, which aim was to “starve the Communists of food, fuel, weapons and ammunition” furthermore creating an economic blockade for that region. The success came with the help of German military adviser, General Hans von Seeckt, in who encouraged tactics such as advancing slowly to their target, building blockhouses, digging trenches and building up barbed wire fences. All in which this “blockhouse strategy” proved successful by October 1934. During this time the communists Red Army was lead by commander Zhu De, Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai and Russian agent Otto Braun.======

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Since the tactics used by the CCP in the first four GMD extermination campaigns were criticized for being politically incorrect, new tactics were suggested and implemented by Russian agent Otto Braun, this was to fight head on battles with the GMD in order to defend the boarders of the soviet. In addition Mao was expelled from the Communists party’s central committee as a result of the number of Russian-trained leaders who made the decision of Braun being the leader of the Communist party and the Red Army. October 16, 1934 marks the day of the Red Armies retreat plan against the surrounding GMD forces that had now successfully created four lines of blockhouses. A march which is described today as “one of the central heroic sagas in Chinese history”. However, this retreat plan can be proved highly unsuccessful and can be directly attributed to the amount of equipment that was carried by the Red Army and most significantly Braun leading the Army in a straight line, allowing the GMD to predict any movement by the CCP. This consequently led to the loss of 45 000 Red Army men, which was more than half that set out from Jiangxi, and was marked as the major battle at Xiang River (25 November – 3 December 1934).======

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These bad leadership skills and strategies employed led to the suspension of Otto Braun at the conference held when the Red Army reached the town of Zunyi on 9 January 1935, whereby military control was back in the hands of Mao Zedong and Zue De. The conference that was held by Zhang Guotao and Mao Zedong was to discuss the strategies and plans for the future of communism and where the final destination would be which in the end the two leaders had to agree to disagree on their visionary paths of Communism. Consequently the two armies were blended and redivided, setting out on their separate journeys which would soon join back together to effectively end the long march. During this time the soldiers endured many hardships, diseases, exhaustion and illnesses and a variety of unbearable weather conditions which caused death. Mao led his army in a series of directions - south, through remote provenience's, crossing wide rivers such as Yangzi, trekking back north, over the largest mountains. Perhaps the most famous obstacle set by Mao’s army was the daring and dangerous crossing of Dadu River, as twenty-two courageous soldiers swung across the river gorge on unstable chains under enemy fire, successfully allowing the Red Army to follow behind in crossing the river.======

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The strategic operation of the long march was undertaken between October 16, 1934- October 22, 1936 when the fourth, second and first front Red Armies finally collaborated due to the split that had occurred as a result of the differences in vision, ideas and opinions of two courageous leaders - Mao Zedong and Zhang Guotao. However when both armies reached Yanan, this marked the end of 368 days of marching, through approximately 9000 kilometres whereby about 8 – 9 thousand of the 80 000 troops that had originally set out from Jiangxi, had survived to the end of the long march with Mao, in which he declared “The Long March...proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes...while...Chiang Kai Shek and his like, are impotent”.======