For Comrade Ding Ling1
(To the Tune "Immortal by the River")
(December 1936)

Red flags on the walls flutter in the glow of the setting sun,
Waving idly in the West wind above the isolated town.
New figures come to Bao'an for a time.
A banquet is held in a cave,
To honor one just out of prison.

Who can compare with a pen so fine?
Three thousand crack troops armed with Mausers.
Battle plans lead to the East of the Gansu mountains.
Yesterday a literary young lady,
Today a warlike general.2

8. Bring to an end → Clean up
9. Humiliation → Dirt
10. Policies → Reactionary policy
This poem was first published in Xin Guancha no. 7 (1980). Our source is Shici ji, pp.
174-76.
—1937—
--- Notes

1. Ding Ling (1904-1986), original names Jiang Weiwen and Jiang Bingzhi, a native
of Hunan, had become known as a writer in 1928. She joined the Communist Party in
1932 and, as a result, was abducted in Shanghai by Guomindang agents, kept in prison for
a time, and then released on parole in Nanjing. In the summer of 1936, she left Nanjing in
disguise and made her way to Beiping, Xi'an, and Bao'an.

2. Asked by Mao after her arrival in Bao'an what she wanted to do, Ding Ling had
replied: "Join the Red Army!" She was sent to the front, not as a military commander, but
to work in the General Political Department.