general Zhu De, Mao developed new guerrilla warfare tactics that drew the KMT forces deep into the hostile countryside, where they were harassed by peasants and destroyed by the Red Army. Mao married He Zizhen while in Jiangxi, after his first wife was killed by KMT forces.Chiang was determined to eliminate the Communists and in 1934 intensified his extermination campaign, surrounding the Jiangxi Soviet. Mao and his followers burst through Chiang’s blockade and began the 9600-km (6000-mi) Long March to the remote village of Yan’an in northern China. Along the way the marchers stopped at Zunyi, where top Communist officials met to discuss the CCP’s future. Those opposed to Mao’s plan of peasant revolt and Chinese military strategy were criticized, while Mao and his supporters gained power and prestige. The Zunyi Conference, as the meeting became known, was a crucial turning point in Mao’s ascendancy to CCP leadership.From his base in Yan’an, Mao led Communist resistance against the Japanese, who had invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937. Although the CCP temporarily allied again with the KMT to halt Japanese aggression, most resistance against the Japanese in northern China came from the Communists. The CCP skillfully organized the peasantry and built up the ranks of the Red Army. Mao further consolidated his leadership over the CCP in 1942 by launching a “Rectification” campaign against CCP members who disagreed with him. Among these were “returned Bolshevik” Wang Ming, who had studied in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and others, such as the writers Wang Shiwei and Ding Ling. Also while in Yan’an, Mao divorced He Zizhen and married the actor Lan Ping, who would become known as Jiang Qing and play an increasingly important role in the party after 1964. In 1945, shortly after Japan surrendered in World War II, civil war broke out between CCP and KM...
