The Red Army Bridge at Shaozhai

The Red Army Bridge at Shaozhai

The Red Army Bridge at Shaozhai is a classic red tourism attraction.

The Red Army Bridge at Shaozhai in Liping is actually a wooden bridge made of fir. To the south, it connects to the airport, and to the north, it leads to the picturesque Shaozhai village. Beneath the bridge, the water sparkles blue, while women on the bank wash clothes. The green mountains and clear waters blend with the blue sky and morning glow, creating a stunning view along the Bazhou River. I’ve crossed the Red Army Bridge at Shaozhai so many times—I really can’t remember how many.

In my memory, the first time I crossed the Red Army Bridge was during the Dragon Boat Festival fifteen years ago. Back then, I was with ten literary friends, including Pan Nianying and Ma Ge. We commemorated Qu Yuan and honored the martyrs who sacrificed heroically here in a very primitive way. We stripped naked and jumped off the wooden bridge into the rushing waters of the Bazhou River, collectively diving underwater for a minute of silent tribute. Our diving tribute startled everyone around, especially the young women and wives walking across the bridge. They retreated in surprise to the riverbank, covering their eyes with their hands but occasionally peeking through their fingers at our primitive act of remembrance. However, that raw and unfiltered diving tribute has remained a story people here still talk about to this day.

This year’s Dragon Boat Festival, we returned to the Red Army Bridge again to pay tribute to Qu Yuan, to the martyrs who bravely gave their lives here, and to the compatriots who perished in the “5.12” earthquake. This time, we didn’t perform the diving tribute—just a long, silent moment of mourning.

After the moment of silence, we sang “Evening Song of the Fishing Boats” together with the boatmen along the Bazhou River, expressing our grief for Qu Yuan. We sang the grand chorus “Ten Farewells to the Red Army” with the Dong girls, conveying our nostalgia for the Red Army. We sang “Go China, Go Wenchuan” with the students of Shaozhai, offering our condolences to those lost in the earthquake. These Dragon Boat Festival songs blended together like a hundred-year-old jar of Dong glutinous rice wine, aged in our hearts, intoxicating and thrilling, making our blood boil. When I opened my enchanted eyes and looked around at the green cliffs, the golden waves of rice fields stretching across the northern bank, and the beautiful scenery of Shaozhai, I was suddenly struck with the feeling: “Travelers on the bridge gaze at the splendid view, as if stepping into a dreamlike paradise.” Of course, this feeling is directly tied to the breathtaking landscape and the moving songs before me. It stirred our imagination, reminded us of the ancient, enduring flames of war here, and inspired us to unite even more, never forget the disaster of the earthquake, and love our great Chinese nation even more deeply.

The Liping Prefecture Annals record: During a Dragon Boat Festival in the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Empire was troubled by uprisings from southern indigenous tribes, leaving the nation unsettled. Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang could not sleep at night and ordered Prince Chu, Zhu Zhen, to lead hundreds of thousands of troops to Liping to suppress the Dong peasant rebellion. Led by Wu Mian, the rebel army fought bravely, seizing the southern river mouth of the Shaozhai wooden bridge to block the Ming army from crossing. The battle at the river mouth was fierce, with heavy casualties on the Ming side. A local elder told us: back then, two armies armed with spears and broadswords clashed violently at the Shaozhai river mouth. The fighting was brutal, with corpses strewn everywhere and rivers of blood. Over eight thousand soldiers from both sides died. Deep in a cave in the Shaozhai mountains, remnants of the soldiers’ bones can still be found today. The people now living in Upper Shaozhai and Lower Shaozhai are descendants of those who stayed after the Ming army drove out the indigenous tribes.

The indigenous people left—vanished without a trace. The six-year-long war waged by the Ming Dynasty in the Dong region left deep regret among the people of Liping, as it was a catastrophic disaster for the indigenous tribes. The war robbed them of their homes and loved ones, forcing them to wander in exile. About four kilometers from the Red Army Bridge at Shaozhai lies a place called “Shiwanping” (Ten-Thousand-Mu Flatland), a name that also originates from the war. In the Qing Dynasty during the Guangxu reign (1876), the Taiping rebel Shi Dakai stationed his troops here and engaged in a fierce battle with Qing forces. Both sides suffered over one hundred thousand casualties, hence the name “Shiwanping” (Ten-Thousand-Mu Flatland).

This wooden bridge at the Shaozhai river mouth once saw the passage of an army of over thirty thousand Red Army soldiers. This Red Army unit was part of the forces that left their revolutionary base in the 1930s after the Fifth Encirclement Campaign and chose the Long March. During the Long March, the reactionary Kuomintang employed economic blockades, aerial bombings, and strategies of encirclement and pursuit, trying to annihilate the Red Army. On December 13, 1934, amid snow and rain, the leaves along the Bazhou River were coated with ice. To prevent the Red Army from crossing, the Kuomintang destroyed the wooden bridge entirely. On the 15th, the Red Army vanguard entered Liping and eliminated the enemy within the county. On the 18th, the Central Politburo held the Liping Conference, where Mao Zedong proposed altering the Red Army’s direction—abandoning the plan to join forces with the Second and Sixth Corps of the Red Army in western Hunan, and instead advancing toward Guizhou and Sichuan. This military strategy gained strong support from the conference leaders. After resting for several days in the ancient city of Liping, the Red Army High Command ordered the vanguard to build a wooden bridge over the Bazhou River, 22 kilometers from the county seat. The Red Army drove away over four hundred Guizhou troops gathered at Shaozhai, mobilized the local people to donate fir beams and doors, and worked through the night in the freezing Bazhou River to construct a wooden bridge over one hundred meters long and one meter wide. Between the 19th and 20th, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and other Red Army leaders and soldiers successfully crossed this wooden bridge and advanced toward Ao Market, Jianhe, and the Guizhou-Sichuan region.

After crossing the Red Army Bridge, I thought: the Red Army Bridge is not just a simple fir bridge. It is a bridge of life forged with blood, embodying the spirit of national revolution—a bridge from victory to victory. It is a bridge of life that carries us forward on the footsteps of our martyrs, as we honor and remember them.