Diary Entry of a Soldier on the Long March

Day, night, walking for what we believe in...

I am a peasant soldier, and I am on this march for my family. I refuse to live in poverty any longer, and same as all of the other people on this march, I believe that a classless society where the wealth is shared would be better for China. 

The past few weeks have been sheer torture, nonstop walking every day. The hours blur into days and the days blur into weeks. I’m not exactly sure how long we have been walking, but from what I heard, Mr. Otto Braun is no longer leading us. The leadership has gone back into the hands of Mao and Zhu. I personally think that this was a wise decision. Mao did make some mistakes in the past, but he was always a far better leader than the German. I don’t see how we all were supposed to trust the betterment of the country of China in the hand of a foreigner. Everyone in the Communist society knows that Mao Zedong has no ulterior motives, and only wants what is best for the country, as the rest of us do.  He believes in equality throughout, sharing the wealth, and a classless society. All 80,000 of us that are following him on the road to Yanan, believe that too.

The day-to-day life is horrible. If I didn’t firmly believe in the fact that switching to a Communist government would greatly benefit China as a whole, I wouldn’t be here right now. I have not slept on a proper bed in weeks, and it is cold. There are many people on this march, and I have watched my friends die of starvation and diseases picked up along the way. At least one person dies a day it seems, if not more.  All of my loved ones have stayed at home. They too believe in communism, but the little ones are only a few years old, and they most likely would not have survived the journey, so they have stayed in my house with my wife, and my parents. We have never been particularly wealthy, and with ideas like the Land Law, proposed by the Communists, we would be able to own property and benefit in the wealth of others. I am here now fighting for what I believe in. I know that the days will be long, but I am willing to make the effort to push though it, so that my children will not have to grow up in the same poverty I suffered in. I believe in a new China, where the wealth will be shared among, and the power is in the word “we”, not the word “I”. I, along with many others, am marching to Yanan in hope of living this dream.

溥儀故事 Puyi's Story

載灃生下清末帝，
慈禧亡兩歲登基。
數年後被逐出宮，
後來蹤影是個迷。

Puyi, the Last Emperor, is born in the family of Prince Chun, the regent of China
Empress Dowager Cixi’s death caused Puyi to rise to the title of Emperor at the age of two.
After two separate periods of ruling, Puyi was finally surrounded in the Forbidden City and then forced to leave by warlord Feng Yuxiang in 1924
Afterwards, he would not be seen again for a few years. Even his shadows will seem like a mystery, until the Japanese make him the ruler of Manchukuo.

China: Qing to Mao Until Now Timline

Click to see larger picture!

Yuan Shikai Obituary

This past week, an influential member of the Chinese government has passed away. To some, this comes as the loss of the first President of the Republic of China. To most though, it comes as a relief. Yuan Shikai was a fine man for the first half of his life. He served as the Chief Military Commander in north China under the rule of Empress Dowager Cixi. He was dismissed from that position when Regent Prince Chun came to power in 1911. Yuan was recalled from retirement near the end of that same year in order to aid in the rebellion that was brewing within the Chinese borders. He was made the Commander-in-Chief of the armies and he was ordered to crush the rebels by all possible means.  Yuan made a deal with the rebels that, in return for their support, he would use his power to persuade Prince Chun and the Emperor to give up the throne and make China a republic. Using his great influence, Yuan kept his side of the deal and soon enough, China was a Democratic Republic and he was named President. It was at this point that his career took a turn for the worst. After a few months, the power got to his head. He didn’t like having to share his power with a Parliament made up of mostly people from Sun Yat-Sen’s party, the political party that was against his own. He decided to simply get rid of the need fro a Parliament altogether and crown himself Emperor. Many Chinese opposed the idea of another Emperor. They had gotten rid of Emperor Piyu in the hope of starting a republican democracy. Now, the president of that democracy had decided to name himself Emperor. The Japanese too were not very pleased with the idea of another Chinese emperor. The Japanese sent Yuan a list of Twenty One Demands that included control of many of China’s factories, railways and ports. The Japanese threatened war on the Chinese if they did not meet the demands in a timely manner. Yuan was such a cowardly man, afraid of a war with Japan that he met the demands of the Japanese government, making him even more unliked within his own people. Shortly after this, Yuan’s own army rose up against him and rebelled. Yuan terminated his plans to officially become emperor shortly after that. He died this past week of a stroke, though some say it was from the sadness of a broken heart. It is still a matter of opinion as to weather he was a good man or not. All that we know is that he did change the course of China’s history.