The Long March
—a *qilü*

October 1935

The Red Army fears not the trials of the distant march,
Ten thousand waters, a thousand mountains—mere trifles in our eyes.
The Five Ridges winding stretch, rising and falling like gentle ripples;
The majestic Wumeng Mountains roll by like balls of clay.
Warm are the cloud-topped cliffs where the Gold Sand River beats,
Cold are the iron chains across the Great Crossing Bridge.
What delights us most is the thousand-li snow on the Min Mountains—
And after the three armies have crossed, every face beams with joy.

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[1] *Qilü* is the abbreviation for *qiyan lüshi* (seven-character regulated verse). *Qilü* is a form of regulated verse, generally consisting of eight lines, each with seven characters; the last character of the even-numbered lines rhymes in the level tone, while the last character of the first line may or may not rhyme, but the same rhyme must be used throughout; the level and oblique tones within and between lines must follow strict rules, and the middle four lines conventionally employ parallelism.

[2] The Long March: In October 1934, the main force of the Central Red Army set out from the Central Revolutionary Base on a major strategic shift. Passing through eleven provinces—Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan, Xikang, Gansu, and Shaanxi—they smashed repeated enemy encirclements, pursuits, and blockades, overcame countless military, political, and natural perils, marched 25,000 *li*, and finally reached the revolutionary base in northern Shaanxi in October 1935. This poem, along with “Niannujiao: Mount Kunlun” and “Qingpingyue: Mount Liupan,” was written at the time of the Long March’s victory.

[3] “The Five Ridges winding stretch, rising and falling like gentle ripples”: The Five Ridges—Dayu, Qitian, Mengzhu, Dupang, and Yuecheng—stretch continuously (“winding”) across the borders of Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, and Guangxi. In October 1934, the Central Red Army set out from Fujian and Jiangxi, advanced along the mountain paths of the Five Ridges on the borders of these four provinces, broke through the enemy’s blockade lines, and marched westward. “Rising and falling like gentle ripples” means that the precipitous Five Ridges, rolling and undulating, appeared in the Red Army’s eyes as mere tiny ripples blown across the surface of water.

[4] “The majestic Wumeng Mountains roll by like balls of clay”: The Wumeng Mountains stretch between Guizhou and Yunnan, imposing and grand (“majestic”), yet in the Red Army’s eyes they seemed no more than rolling balls of clay.