Guizhou Province - The Luding Bridge 泸定桥

A section of the iron chains from the Dadu River deserves particular attention. The hard-won victory over the Luding Bridge has already become a household story in China. The bridge was a structure of twelve heavy chains, which supported wooden planks. It stretched between two mountains over a chasm thousands of feet deep through which the Dadu River rushed in a white-foam torrent. When the reached this precarious bridge the Red Army found that the boards had been removed—only the thirteen iron chains swayed in the wind over the gorge, of which nine iron chains are juxtaposed 并列 and the other four are used as handrails on both sides. The net span of the bridge is 100 meters; the net width of the bridge being 2.8 meters, and the surface of the bridge is 14.5 meters during dry season. The bridge was built between 1705 and 1706 during the Qing Dynasty. Furthermore, on the opposite side, in the village of Luding, enemy forces covered the bridge approaches with gunfire. Under cover of the massed fire of their comrades, twenty-two men, led by a company commander named Liao, made their way hand-over-hand across the iron chains, in the teeth of heavy enemy fire. Each man carried a Tommy gun, a braod sword, and twelve hand grenades, which they used as best they could while trying to hang on the chains. Behind them came another company of troops who laid new planks on the bridge. When the first group reached the far side, a great wall of fire arose at the bridgehead: the enemy was trying to burn the chain supports. The assault squad hesitated only for a moment and then plunged into the fire to fight their way into the village of Luding. Other forces soon followed them and at last both bridge and village were secured. Many were hit, others died hanging onto the bridge and the merciless Dadu River swallowed up even more. The assault squad was ever afterward to become legendary as the Twenty-Two Heroes of Dadu. The main army was now free to make its way to the northwest. The bridge is listed as one of national key relics to be preserved by the Chinese Government.

Even today, people take off their hats or bow when arriving at the river. They are saluting a group of people who displayed human bravery at the highest level. Today’s generation have difficulties understanding what king of strength it took to accomplish such heroic deeds. Harrison E Salisbury in his “The Untold Story—Long March” found the answer. It was the just cause of liberation all those people from poverty and oppression that spurred the Red Army’s spirit. The courtyard museum emits a sense of tranquility, but the history it reveals is a mix of heroism and tragedy, strategy and miscalculation, loyalty and treachery, destruction and creation.

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