After 384 days of hard trudging, Ed Jocelyn, 35, and Andy McEwen, 37, both from the United Kingdom, arrived at Wuqi County in Shaanxi Province on Nov. 3, 2003. Formerly Wuqi Town, the county was the site where, in 1935, the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ended the 12,500-kilometer Long March. The two British men became the only other foreigners to finish the entire route after Otto Braun, who was then the military adviser of the Red Army. Although it was 16 days later than their scheduled arriving time, the two were extremely excited. As soon as Jocelyn arrived at Wuqi, he called his mother and told her of his great undertaking.
In May 2000, when Jocelyn, a doctor of history, and McEwen made a tour in Guizhou Province, they were studying the revolutionary history of China, especially books about the Long March. In order to experience the hardships along the route of the Long March and to deepen their understanding of China and its people, they began preparation for their own long march, to be undertaken over 368 days.
On October 16, 2002, Jocelyn and McEwen set out in Yudu, Jiangxi Province, the starting point of the historic Long March.
Like the men of the Red Army, they crossed the Chishui River four times, crossed the Luding Bridge, climbed the Great Snow Mountains, and marched across vast marshlands. It was easy for Jocelyn and McEwen to cross the well-paved Luding Bridge on the turbulent Dadu River. In 1935, the bridge had been burned away by Kuomintang troops, leaving only 13 iron chains, and the Red Army was forced to cross the bridge under heavy fire.
During the whole journey, Jocelyn and McEwen maintained a simple diet and ate noodles very often, knowing the stories about of the Red Army, whose men ate wild herbs and nibbled boiled leather belts on their journey.
The Chinese people the two met along the route were simple, honest and kind-hearted and left a deep impression on them. They are grateful to the local people for their assistance and especially to the people who saved their lives.
According to Jocelyn, it was raining in torrents when they arrived in Wangmo County, Guizhou Province. They had to cross the Bayang River, but there was no bridge. Going around would take several days. To hurry on with their journey, they waded across the river. The current was so swift that the two, especially Jocelyn, who could not swim, fell into a very dangerous position and called for help. Upon hearing their call, five passersby, teenagers of the Bouyi ethnic group, jumped into the torrent and rescued them from drowning.
"Without these rescuers, we might still be in the Bayang River now," Jocelyn says.
One day, they trudged to the Yangjia Village in Guizhou Province and met Huang Congming. Although his family was not rich, Huang invited them to his house and entertained them with meals free of charge. Jocelyn says that Huang and his family entertained them as friends.
Along the route of the march, the two men visited 11 veteran Red Army men and 107 elders who witnessed the Long March, and took about 20,000 pictures.
"Traveling on foot along the route of the march is the best way for people to understand the spirit of the Long March and to study the history of the Red Army period," Jocelyn says.
They did not meet any language barrier in communicating with the local people, because they could find people everywhere who could speak standard Chinese. However, they found something both funny and annoying very often, as they asked for directions. Before they got any reply, they had to answer questions first, such as who they were, where they had come from and what they planned to do. When they asked how to go someplace on foot, they got a question in reply: "There are buses there and the ticket is very cheap. Why don't you take a bus?"
Carrying equipment weighing 20 to 30 kilograms and walking 30 to 40 kilometers per day, Jocelyn and McEwen felt exhausted every day, and each began to get sick. McEwen had no choice but to return to Beijing for a three-week treatment. Eventually, they triumphed over sickness and adversity and finished the entire length of the Long March.
(China Pictorial March 11, 2004)
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