Opposing the First Great
"Encirclement and Suppression"
(To the Tune "Fisherman's Pride")¹

(Spring 1931)²

The trees all glisten red beneath the frosty skies,
The wrath of the heavenly troops³ soars to the Milky Way.
Longgang shrouded in mist, the countless peaks obscured,
All shout together,
"Up ahead, they have captured Zhang Huizan!"⁴

Two hundred thousand of their troops enter Jiangxi once more,⁵
Wind and dust billowing to mid-sky.
troops against the Communists; in the Second Campaign, the Guomindang forces numbered two hundred thousand.


Myriads of workers and peasants are called on to arise,
And to strive as one man,
At the foot of Imperfect Mountain is a riot of red flags.6

6. The name of this mountain is commonly given in transcription as Buzhoushan. The
meaning of buzhou is "imperfect." The Shanhaijing (Classic of Mountains and Seas), an
ancient and semi-mythological work with which Mao was familiar, also describes it as a
mountain in a remote area that was buhe, or "not whole." Since this imperfection may
have contributed to the mountain's collapse, it seems appropriate to translate the name.
(For a reference by Mao to the Shanhaijing, see Volume I of this edition, p. 45.) Mao
wrote the following note with reference to the last line of the poem:
As for the story of Gonggong butting his head against Imperfect Mountain:
Huainanzi, "On Astronomy," says, "In ancient times, Gonggong vied with Zhuanxu to
be emperor, and in a rage struck his head against Imperfect Mountain, thereby breaking
the pillars of the heavens and snapping the ties of the earth. The heavens tilted toward the
northwest, and this caused the sun, moon, and stars to shift in that direction too; the earth
sank in the southeast, and this caused water and dust to gather there."
Guoyu, "Chronicle of Zhou," says, "In ancient times, Gonggong departed from this
Way; he gave himself over to pleasure, lost himself in debauchery, tried to change the
course of a hundred rivers, to tear down high places and silt up low places, and thus
caused great harm under heaven. Great Heaven no longer blessed him, the common
people did not support him, disasters and chaos broke out together, and thus Gonggong
was destroyed." (Wei Zhao's commentary reads: "Palace Officer Jia [i.e., Jia Kuei of the
Latter Han dynasty] says, 'Gonggong was a feudal lord, a descendant of the Emperor
Yan [i.e., Shen Nong], of the Jiang clan. When Zhuanxu was on the decline, Gonggong
attacked other lords, and vied with Gaoxing for the throne."")
"Annals of the Three Emperors," Sima Zhen's supplement to the Records of the
Historian, says, "Toward the end of her (i.e., Nüwa's) reign, there was among the feudal
lords a certain Gonggong, who relied on cunning and punishment for his strength, ruling
as a tyrant instead of a king. (Attempting to) overcome wood [Nüwa's element, as the
sister of Fu Xi) with water [his own element), he engaged in battle with Zhurong.
Enraged upon being defeated, he smashed Imperfect Mountain by butting his head
against it, thereby breaking the pillars of the heavens and snapping the ties of the earth."
Mao's commentary: The versions are at variance with one another. I choose "On
Astronomy" in Huainanzi, where Gonggong is a victorious hero. Just look: "... in a rage
[he] struck his head against Imperfect Mountain, thereby breaking the pillars of the
heavens and snapping the ties of the earth. The heavens tilted toward the northwest, and
this caused the sun, moon, and stars to shift in that direction too; the earth sank in the
southeast, and this caused water and dust to gather there." Did he die or didn't he? It
doesn't say. It looks as if he didn't die Gonggong was actually victorious.


--- Notes

Our source for this poem is Mao Zedong shici duilian jizhu (Annotated Edition of Mao
Zedong's Poems and Couplets) (Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe, 1991), pp. 38-40
(hereafter Shici duilian).
1. As indicated in Volumes II and III of this series, much of Mao's poetry makes use
of the convention of "tune title" (cipai), a label traditionally attached to this form of
classical poetry. The conventional "tune title" relates to technical matters of meter and
rhyme, and has nothing to do with the theme of the poem in question.
2. This poem was written after the defeat of the Guomindang's First Encirclement and
Suppression Campaign against the Red Army, which took place from December 27, 1930,
to January 1, 1931, and just before the second such campaign was launched in April
1931. It is another of the poems first published together in the May 1962 issue of
People's Literature. (For the author's note accompanying them, see the note to Mao's
Autumn 1929 poem, "The War Between Chiang Kaishek and the Guangxi Warlords,"
Volume III, p. 190.)
3. As in his July 1930 poem, "From Tingzhou to Changsha," Mao employs here the
term tianbing, traditionally used to mean the emperor's army, or the army "with Heaven
on its side."
4. Zhang Huizan was the field commander of the main Guomindang force in this
campaign. His own division was located at Longgang.
5. In the First Encirclement Campaign, Chiang Kaishek had sent a hundred thousand