–Mao Zedong, Summer 1931
On Baiyun Peak, clouds rage as if to stand;
Beneath Baiyun Hill, battle cries expand.
Withered trunks and old stumps lend a hand.
Steel forests press –
Flying Generals descend from heaven’s span!
Seven hundred li in fifteen days we race;
Gan River misty, Min hills green embrace.
Sweeping foes like rolling mats in space.
Some wail in grief:
“Step-by-step forts – too late to retrace!”
Note
In April 1931 Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) concentrated 200,000 troops in his second “Encirclement” campaign against the Red area in Jiangxi Province and used the strategy of “consolidating at every step,” that is, building a bastion at each step. On April 27 the Red Army led by Mao Zedong, numbering over thirty thousand men, lay in ambush in White Cloud Mountain (Baiyun Peak) near Ji’an County. On May 16 two Kuomintang divisions totalling eleven regiments fell into the ambush and lost the first battle. Then from May 16 to 30, the Red Army marched three hundred and fifty kilometres from the River Gan to Wuyi Mountains, fought four battles and smashed the second “Encirclement” campaign.
Fisherman’s Pride (Yujia’ao): A cipai (ci tune) suited for heroic, military themes.
Baiyun Mountain (Baiyun Shan)
Key battlefield in Ji’an, Jiangxi, where the Red Army ambushed Nationalist forces on May 16, 1931.
Flying Generals
Allusion to Li Guang (Han Dynasty general, “Flying General” in Records of the Grand Historian), symbolizing the Red Army’s swift, surprise attack from high ground.
Withered trunks old stumps
From Records of the Grand Historian, meaning even weak things strive – here, all nature and people unite for revolution.
Second Encirclement Campaign (1931)
Chiang Kai-shek’s 200,000-strong army using “step-by-step forts” tactics; Red Army won 5 straight battles in 15 days.
渔家傲·反第二次大”围剿”
毛泽东, 一九三一年夏
白云山头云欲立，
白云山下呼声急，
枯木朽株齐努力。
枪林逼，
飞将军自重霄入。
七百里驱十五日，
赣水苍茫闽山碧，
横扫千军如卷席。
有人泣，
为营步步嗟何及！
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