2. The Long March

Chinese Communists built up revolutionary bases in the early 1930s in Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, and neighboring provinces through guerrilla war. In October 1936, the Second and Fourth Front Armies arrived in Huining, Shaanxi, where they were welcomed by the First Front Army. Thus the three Red Armies reunited and concluded the Long March. Originally called withdrawal or retreat, the Long March was not thought of as such even as late as the summer of 1935, after the Red Army finished two thirds of their journey. Almost all records hold that the Long March started in October 1934, when the First Front Army set out from Jiangxi, and ended two years later in October 1936 with the joining of three forces: the First, Second, and Fourth Front Armies. The Chinese people have inherited more from the Long March than any other episode in modern Chinese history. Keywords: Chinese history; Fourth Front Armies; guerrilla war; Jiangxi; Long March