Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 05-15-07 21:37
The Hakka Chinese in revolution
剪掉髻子當紅軍
韭菜開花一杆心,
剪掉髻子當紅軍,
保護紅軍萬萬歲,
割掉髻子也甘心.
The chives blossom like small poles,
I cut off my Jizi [A] to join the Red Army,
In oder to safeguard the Red Army forever,
Willingly I cut off my Jizi.
韭菜開花新又新,
剪掉髻子當紅軍,
保護紅軍長長久,
拿把紅旗打南京.
The chives begin to blossom again,
I cut off my Ji4zi3 to join the Red Army,
In oder to safeguard the Red Army forever and ever.
With the red flags in our hands we are going to attack Nanjing.
韭菜開花一杆心,
割掉髻子當紅軍,
保護紅軍打勝仗,
婦女解放大翻身.
The chives blossom like small poles,
I cut off my jizi to join the Red Army.
And hope the Red Army would score victory,
So that all the women would be liberated.
[A] Ji4 Zi3 (髻子)
is the hair worn in a bun or coil or a tuft of a woman's hair
This is a Hakka folk song from Ninghua county (寧化縣) in Fujian province (福建省)
-------------------------------------------
On September 8, 1927 Mao Zedong (毛澤東) led a group of peasants and staged
an uprising called Autumn Harvest Uprising (秋收暴動) in Hunan province
(湖南省). The insurrection failed miserably. The following month Mao Zedong
congregated the remnants of the uprising of about 800 men and 80 rifles.
They climbed the Jinggangshan (井崗山) with the intention of establishing
a revolutionary base in these mountains.
Jinggangshan is a massive mountain ranges, lying between the two provinces
of Jiangxi (江西省) and Hunan. There were only five villages, at that time,
in this region of 900 square kilometers. All the families were Hakkas whose
forefathers came from the north several hundred years ago.The total population
in Jinggangshan was less than 2000 who were so poor that only a few of them
had more than a pair of trousers. They made fire by striking stones. (Selected
Works of Mao Zedong Vol.1 pages 93 to 94).
The red earth in Jinggangshan was so hard that hardly any crops grew in
this desolated area. These Hakka men were mostly porters and farm hands
in the plains below. The Hakkas in Jinggangshan helped Mao Zedong to realize
his intention. Mao managed to win over the two bands of about 600 Hakka
bandits in this area.
In April 1928 Zhu De 朱德), a Hakka originally from Sichuan province (四
川省), leading a force of about 2000 men, arrived in Jinggangshan and joined
forces with Moa Zedong. These two thousand men were the remnants of the
Nanchang Uprising (南昌起義 please refer to Nanchang Uprising - somewhere
in the Forum). Now, together, there were about 4000 of them in the region
which could hardly support such a large force. (The Morning Deluge by a
Hakka writer Dr Han Suyin 韓素音醫生 pages 177 to 178).
In January 1929, Mao Zedong and Zhu De shifted their base to the region
between the provinces of Jiangxi and Fujian (福建省) where there were more
Hakka villages. On November 7, 1931, in a little town called Ruijin (瑞
金), south of Jiangxi province (江西省), the Chinese Red Army proclaimed
the formation of the Chinese Soviet Republic and set up a Provisional Soviet
Government with Mao Zedong (毛澤東) as the chairman. The commander-in-chief
of the Red Army was Zhu De. More Hakkas from the Hakka towns in the region,
towns like Yongding (永定), Yongxin (永新), Shanghang (上杭) and other towns,
trekked to Ruijin to join the Red Army
The size of the Soviet territory expanded and contracted according to the
fortunes of the war. There was a short period during which the Red Army
occupied more than sixty counties of Jiangxi province. However, the districts
permanently held by the Soviet was only about seventeen counties in the
border regions between the two provinces of Jiangxi and Fujian (福建省),
with a population of about three million who were mainly the speakers of
Hakka and Gan (贛) dialects. The Gan speakers were the natives of the Jiangxi
province. Whereas, the Hakkas or the Guest People, residing astride the
border of these two provinces, were the offspring of the emigrants from
the north arrived and settled here at the end of the Dynasties of Jin (晉
朝), Tang (唐朝) and Song (宋朝).
The Soviet had a large corps of Hakka peasant Red Guards who fought alongside
the Red Army against Chiang Kai-Shek's (蔣介石) forces. In 1932 it was estimated
that the total strength of the Red Army and the peasant Red Guards were
151,000 with only 97,500 old rifles. These forces and the territory they
permanently occupied fought a civil war against Chiang Kia-shek's armies
which were five, six and seven times stronger than them. In armaments the
Chiang Kai-shek's forces were a thousand times their superior. For five
years, from 1930 to 1935, these Hakka peasants and the Red Army outmaneuvered
and defeated four successive campaigns against them. With the support of
the population, their superior mobility and their knowledge of the terrain
they defeated division after division of Chiang Kai-shek's best crack troops.
A missionary correspondent of the North China Daily News reported on August
19, 1931:
"......a strange thing that so many people are willing to undertake what
they know means death......".
Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) launched five campaigns of encirclement and annihilation
against the Soviet Republic. The first campaign was launched in December
1930 and was easily defeated by the Red Army in the following month in January
1931. As a result of it the Red Army captured their first radio set. The
second encirclement and suppression campaign was launched in the spring
in 1931 with equally unsuccessful and the Red Army captured 20,000 prisoners
and rifles. Three months later, Chiang Kai-shekJiang personally led the
third campaign against the Chinese Soviet with forces ten times bigger than
the Red Army. However, the Japanese saved the Red Army from being defeated.
On September 18, 1931 the Japanese Kwantung Army (關東軍) stationed in China'
s northeast (東北省 Manchuria) shelled Shenyang (審陽) city and launched
attacks in Jilin (吉林省) and Heilongjiang (黑龍江省) provinces. The Japanese
troops occupied the city of Shenyang the next day. Chiang Kai-shek called
off the campaign.
After having recovered from the shock of the Japanese attack on Manchuria
and Shanghai (上海) Chiang Kai-shek commanded He Yingqin (何應欽) a Dongguan
(東莞) Hakka general and Cheng Cheng (程誠) to led the fourth encirclement
campaign against the Chinese Soviet. The campaign lasted for eight months.
The battles reached the stalemate and a truce was made by both sides with
mutual consent.
In August 1933, Chiang Kai-shek launched the fifth campaign with a million
men and an air force of more than four hundred airplanes. Chiang Kai-shek
even employed two German military advisers who devised a tactic to throttle
the Chinese Soviet. Chiang Kai-shek's troops built blockhouses round the
Soviet territory. By the end of January 1934 they had built an estimated
total of 2,900 blockhouses. A tight economic blockade was imposed on the
Soviet area which was desperately short of salt, kerosene, medical supplies
and many, many essential daily items. The Red Army were defeated in battle
after battle. By June 1934 the territory under the Communists controlled
was reduced to only a few counties. Now the Red armies came to confront
the question of either to break out of the encirclement or sitting down
to await annihilation. It seemed that a breakout was inevitable. The decision
to evacuate the Soviet was made on October 2, 1934. Twelve days later on
October 14, 1934 the embattled Red Army began the Long March (長征). Many
Hakkas went with them. The Red Army chose to march through the Hakka villages
because they knew the Hakkas would help them.Along the trek they passed
through many Hakka villages where the villagers tried their best to help
the Red Army and many young Hakkas joined the ranks of the Red Army. The
Long Marchers trekked through 11 provinces and walked for 6000 miles before
they arrived in Shaanxi province (陜西省) in the North, near the Great Wall.
After fighting and marching for five months the Red Army arrived at a town
called Lu Ding (瀘定) in Sichuan province. The Red Army had to cross the
Luding bridge which was spanned by 13 iron chains. 200 feet below the bridge
was the Da Du River (大渡河).
It was here in 1864 where heroic Hakka Taiping army (客家太平軍), under
the command of Shi Da Kai (石達開), were massacred by the Qing Government
(清朝) troops . People said that at night one could occasionally hear the
souls of the dead Hakka Taiping soldiers wailed, lamenting their fate (please
refer to my posts on Zhu De and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom 太平天國 1851AD
to 1864AD), somewhere in the Forum.
All the planks on the bridge had been removed by the Chiang Kai-shek's troops
before the Red Army arrived. The Red Army men swung from the chains under
fire to cross and capture it from Chiang Kia-shek's troops who fled for
their lives after seeing the heroic actions of the Red Army. Eventually
the Red Army crossed the Luding bridge and did not suffer the same fate
as the Taiping Army did. The Red Army completed the Long March October
20, 1935. (On The Long March With Chairman Mao by Chen Chang-Feng 2nd edition
跟隨毛主席長征 by 陳昌奉 第二版)
Reference book:
The Morning Deluge (早晨的大洪水)
by Dr Han Suyin (韓素音醫生), a world renowned Hakka author.
[About Dr Han's books, please make a search in this Forum by typing Han
Suyin]
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
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