Three Red Army Forces Unite; Long March Ends

In September 1935, after the main force of the Central Red Army broke through Lazikou, the leadership learned from newspapers at Hadapu, Gansu, that there were Red Army forces and a base in northern Shaanxi, and the Central Committee decided to go there. The troops were reorganized as the Shaanxi–Gansu Detachment of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, with Peng Dehuai as commander and Mao Zedong as political commissar. On 19 October 1935 the Central Committee led the Central Red Army to Wuqi in the Shaanxi–Gansu revolutionary base and joined the northern Shaanxi Red Army, ending the Central Red Army's Long March of a year and 25,000 li (about 12,500 km). The Central Red Army had left with over 80,000 men and reached northern Shaanxi with only a little over 7,000. In November the Red Army won the Battle of Zhiluozhen, laying a foundation for the Party to place the national revolution's base in the northwest. Meanwhile Zhang Guotao led the Fourth Front Army south into Sichuan and Xikang, was badly defeated, and was forced to abolish his rival “Central Committee”; in July 1936 he marched north together with the Second Front Army formed from the Second and Sixth Army Groups. In October 1936 the Second and Fourth Front Armies joined the First Front Army at Huining and Jiangtaipu (now in Xiji, Ningxia), Gansu, marking the end of the Long March. The Long March was a great miracle in human history: with firm ideals and tenacious will the Red Army overcame countless hardships, preserved and tempered the revolutionary core, moved the revolution's base to the northwest and laid the foundation for the War of Resistance and the revolution's victory. Mao Zedong said: “The Long March is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding machine.”