Editing Long March (section)

===Determining the direction of the Red Army===
After escaping Chiang's encirclement, it was obvious to Party leaders that Chiang was intent on intercepting what remained of the Red Army in Hunan, and the direction of the Red Army's movements had to be reconsidered.  The plan to rendezvous and join He Long's army in Hunan had become too risky. Mao suggested to Zhou that the Red Army change direction, towards Guizhou, where Mao expected enemy defenses to be weak.{{sfn|Barnouin|Yu|2006|p=58}}

A meeting at [[Tongdao]], close to the border of Hunan and Guizhou, was convened to discuss the direction of the Red Army on December 12, 1934.  Zhou endorsed Mao's proposal, encouraging other leaders to overrule the objections of Bo and Braun. Another dispute of the direction of the Red Army occurred soon after, once the Red Army reached [[Liping County|Liping]], in the mountains of southeast Guizhou. Braun believed that they should travel to eastern Guizhou, but Mao wanted to go to western Guizhou, where he expected KMT forces to be lighter and which borders [[Sichuan]], and to establish a base area there. In a meeting to decide the army's direction, Zhou sided with Mao, making Braun "fly into a rage because he was overruled in the debate." At the meeting it was decided that the Red Army would travel towards [[Zunyi]], in western Guizhou.{{sfn|Barnouin|Yu|2006|p=59}}

On January 1, 1935, the Red Army reached the Wu River. Bo and Braun again insisted the Red Army move back to western Hunan to join other Communist troops in the area, but their prestige had considerably declined by that point, and their suggestion was rejected. Even Zhou had become impatient, and proposed a new rule which was put into effect immediately: that all military plans had to be submitted to the Politburo for approval.  The movement passed, clearly depriving Braun of the right to direct military affairs. On January 15 the Red Army captured Zunyi, the second largest city in Guizhou. As Mao had predicted, the city was weakly defended, and was too far from Nationalist forces to be under immediate threat of attack.{{sfn|Barnouin|Yu|2006|p=59}}  By the time the Red Army occupied Zunyi, it was highly depleted, and counted little more than 10,000 men.{{sfn|Barnouin|Yu|2006|pp=60-61}} Zhou used the peace afforded in Zunyi to call an enlarged Politburo meeting, in order to examine the causes of the Communists' repeated defeats.{{sfn|Barnouin|Yu|2006|p=59}}