After experiencing the failure of the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign, the Central Red Army decided to carry out a strategic shift and open up new revolutionary base areas. On the way north, the Xiang River became a must-pass road. In the face of the encirclement and blockade of the Kuomintang's 500,000 troops, in order to cover the smooth crossing of the central column, a very fierce battle occurred on both sides of the Xiang River, and the blood stained the Xiang River red, and the fierce battle was unprecedentedly fierce. At that time, Bai Chongxi blocked the Red Army with 30,000 troops of two armies in Guangxi, and more than 10,000 militia regiments rushed to build three lines of defense on the edge of Guangxi. He Jian of Hunan province ordered the red army to be pursued and intercepted by 8 armies in five routes, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Xue Yue, Zhou Hunyuan, and other 10 divisions of the army to pursue and intercept it, and the Kuomintang's 300,000 troops laid down a net of heaven and earth to encircle the central Red Army.
During the Battle of the Xiangjiang River, due to the deep contradictions and prejudices between the Gui clan and Chiang Kai-shek, they did not exert all their strength, but only attacked the tail of the Red Army. But it was also a fierce hand, and if it had been a fight for its life at that time, it was very likely that the Central Red Army would have eaten it at that time. At the Battle of the Xiangjiang River, bai Chongxi decided to release water by the Gui army, who was actually worried that the central army would enter Guangxi in the name of suppressing bandits. What Chiang Kai-shek did not expect was that the Red Army had reached an agreement with chen Jitang of the Cantonese army in advance that the well water would not violate the river water, so the Guangdong army could not contribute to the work, and Bai Chongxi also saw through Chiang Kai-shek's sinister thoughts, and Chiang Kai-shek intended to follow the Red Army into Guangxi's sphere of influence and thus control Guangxi. Bai Chongxi used the shortage of troops in guangxi's interior to return to defense as an excuse to withdraw the troops who had been ordered to block the Red Army along the Xiang River, resulting in a gap in the pocket array arranged by Chiang Kai-shek for a week, but the Red Army commander Li De did not seize this rare opportunity, and the troops walked too slowly.
The first and third armies were the vanguard, and the 8th and 9th armies covered the left and right flanks and advanced forward. The 2 columns formed by the central and central military commission organs and directly subordinate units were in the center, and at the beginning of the Long March, they thought that they were just moving, so they brought a lot of bottles and cans, and they were reluctant to throw anything away, and as a result, the marching speed of the central column was unusually slow. Other columns had to cover the central column to fight the blockade battle, but in the subsequent march, due to the large number of troops and organs, carrying a large number of bulky material equipment along the mountain road, it was crowded and slow to move. The Red Fifth Army, the rear guard of the Red Army, was attacked by the 43rd Division of the Xia Wei Department of the Gui Dynasty, and the Red Fifth and Eighth Armies rushed to the battle, retreated while fighting, and moved towards the direction of the Old Mountain Boundary. During the battle, the Fifth Red Army suffered considerable losses at Qianjia Temple. The 43rd Division captured more than 1,000 Red Army personnel at Qianjia Temple, and during the entire pursuit period, the regiment took in more than 1,300 Red Army personnel. The 1st Battalion of the 127th Regiment of the Gui Clan captured 500 Red Army men at Qianjia Temple and confiscated more than 300 rifles, while the central organs and the main force of the Red Army mostly crossed the Xiang River.
Lin Biao's first army and Peng Dehuai's three legions were escorted on the left and right sides, and Dong Zhentang's fifth army was responsible for the rear of the palace. At that time, when the Central Committee ordered the Thirty-fourth Division to stay behind to block the tail of the enemy, the telegram demanded that if it was surrounded by the enemy, it would disperse and break through to the Central Soviet Area to fight guerrillas. The regimental commander Dong Zhentang and Chen Shuxiang were extremely sad when they separated, knowing that they might be saying goodbye forever. Chen Shuxiang's desperate Thirty-fourth Division was the tail of the whole army. In order to stop the Kuomintang army, Chen Shuxiang's troops did not cross the river, and they launched a defensive position against the river embankment, and the Nationalist artillery fire overwhelmed the ground, and the Thirty-fourth Division suffered heavy casualties. The seriously injured can only wait for death without rescue, and the blood and water stumps flying all over the sky can be called a purgatory on earth.
But the Desperate Division does not retreat one step at a time, no one in this Red Army team has any intention of living, the troops have not written a suicide note or some sensational things, and entering the Desperate Division itself is a very glorious thing. For the sake of the main force of the Red Army, for the sake of their own faith, they constantly launched a charge against the enemy. By the afternoon, the troops were almost exhausted, they had not eaten food for several days, there were not many bullets, and their physical strength had long been exhausted. Some of the wounded pulled their hands and died with the enemy. The men and horses of a division were all killed in battle, the commander of the 34th Division, Chen Shuxiang, was shot in the abdomen, and there was no bullet in his hand, so the people surrounded him, of course, they wanted to catch him alive, Chen Shuxiang's bounty was 500 oceans, and he was about to be caught, Chen Shuxiang, who was covered in dirt, ripped off his intestines, and the Kuomintang female nurses present shed tears. After the heroic sacrifice, the angry enemy also cut off his head and hung it at the city gate for public display. After the bloody battle of the Xiang River, the Central Red Army was sharply reduced to 30,000 people. Blood stained the Shili Creek, did not eat Xiangjiang fish for three years, and the bottom of the river was full of corpses. "It's mainly about what's happening in this area.
The Central Red Army fought bitterly with the Kuomintang army for five days and nights, and finally crossed the Xiang River from Jeonju and Xing'an, broke through the four blockade lines of the Kuomintang army, and crushed Chiang Kai-shek's attempt to completely annihilate the Central Red Army on the Xiang River. If it were not for the slow march of the central column, the central Red Army would not have sacrificed so much. The great sacrifice of the Red Army also gave the Central Committee a great shock, which led to the later Zunyi Conference, which changed the command of the Red Army's top brass. It was only after this that the Red Army marched to victory.