Long March, (1934–35), the 6,000-mile (10,000-km) historic trek of the Chinese communists, which resulted in the relocation of the communist revolutionary base from southeastern to northwestern and in the emergence of as the undisputed party leader. Fighting forces under (Jiang Jieshi) throughout their journey, the communist troops crossed 18 mountain ranges and 24 rivers to reach the northwestern province of . The heroism attributed to the Long March inspired many young Chinese to join the during the late 1930s and early 1940s.Between 1930 and 1934 Chiang Kai-shek launched a series of five military encirclement campaigns against the Chinese communists in an attempt to annihilate their base area (the ) on the border between and in southeastern China. The communists successfully fought off the first four campaigns using tactics of mobile infiltration and developed by Mao. In the fifth campaign Chiang mustered about 700,000 troops and established a series of cement blockhouses around the communist positions. The Chinese communist , which had removed Mao from the leadership early in 1934, abandoned his guerrilla warfare strategy and used regular positional warfare tactics against the better-armed and more-numerous Nationalist forces. As a result, the communist forces suffered heavy losses and were nearly crushed.In October 1934 the remaining 86,000 troops in the Jiangxi-Fujian border base—including administrative personnel and some 30 women—broke through the Nationalist lines at their weakest points and fled westward. Mao, at the time of the communists’ departure, was not in control of events; was the commander of the army, and was the political commissar of the party. The first three months of the march were disastrous for the communists: subjected to constant bombardment from Chiang’s and repeated attacks from his ground troops, they lost more than half of their army. Morale was low when they arrived in , in the southwestern province of , but at a conference there in January 1935 Mao was able to gather enough support to establish his dominance of the party., The Chinese government produced a movie in 2006, My Long March, [37] [38] relating personal experiences of a fictional participant in the Long March. The movie, released in celebration of the 71st year since the end of the march, was the second of three movies in the Axis of War movie series, retelling the events stretching from the Battle of , Long March, (1934–35), the 6,000-mile (10,000-km) historic trek of the Chinese communists, which resulted in the relocation of the communist revolutionary base from southeastern to northwestern China and in the emergence of Mao Zedong as the undisputed party leader..