Editing Long March (section)

===Escaping Chiang's pursuit===

When the army resumed its march northward, the direct route to Sichuan was blocked by Chiang's forces. Mao's forces spent the next several months maneuvering to avoid direct confrontation with hostile forces, but still attempting to move north to join [[Zhang Guotao]]'s Fourth Red Army.<ref>Chang and Halliday suggested that Mao delayed the move into Sichuan in order to consolidate his power before joining the other parts of the Red Army, and that rather than facing direct attack from Chiang's forces, Chiang was herding the Reds into Sichuan. (Chang, Halliday, ''Mao, The Unknown Story'', pp. 135–162). The work, however, has been criticized for lacking strong evidence.</ref> While Chiang's armies approached Mao in northern [[Guizhou]] from three directions, Mao maneuvered out of the encirclement by [[Battle of Chishui River|crossing the Chishui River four times]]. Then, Mao led the Red Army, crossing the [[Wu River (Yangtze tributary)|Wu River]] and marching towards [[Guiyang]]. He feigned an attack to this city when Chiang was visiting. Chiang ordered his army in [[Kunming]] to move eastward to save Guiyang, but the Red Army turned towards Kunming immediately and entered Yunnan, where the Yangtze River was lightly guarded.

In February 1935, Mao's wife, [[He Zizhen]], gave birth to a daughter. Because of the harsh conditions, the infant was left with a local family.<ref>{{cite news | title = Mao's lost children |work=The Guardian | date = March 16, 2006 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/china/story/0,,1731887,00.html  | access-date = 2007-03-15 | location=London | first=Sun | last=Shuyun}}</ref>{{efn|Two Europeans retracing the Long March route in 2003 met a woman in rural Yunnan province said by local officials to be Mao and He Zizhen's long-lost daughter.<ref>George Mason University, History News Network: [http://hnn.us/comments/9444.html Woman wonders whether she is Mao's abandoned Long March daughter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927190120/http://hnn.us/comments/9444.html |date=September 27, 2007 }} (Retrieved 2007-03-15)</ref>}}

[[File:Luding bridge.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The Luding Bridge]]
The Communist forces were harassed by both the Kuomintang and local [[Warlord era|warlords]]. To avoid a fatal confrontation, Zhou and Mao maneuvered the Red army south and west, through Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan, feigning attacks on Guiyang and Kunming to disguise their movements. The First Red Army crossed the Yangtze (the section of [[Yangtze|Jinsha River]]) on May 9, 1935, finally escaping determined pursuit, but still had to deal with dangerous mountain passes at heights of up to 4,000 meters, rough climatic conditions, shortages of food, clothing, and equipment, and tribes of local ethnic groups hostile to Chinese encroachment.{{sfn|Barnouin|Yu|2006|p=61}} The Red Army had to capture river crossings defended by warlords and Nationalist troops. The most famous was [[Luding Bridge]], extolled in official history as an heroic triumph, although many historians now believe that the difficulty of the battle was exaggerated or that the incident was fabricated for propaganda purposes.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chang |first=Jung |title=Mao: The Unknown Story |publisher=Alfred A. Knoff |year=2005}}</ref>