Women of the Long March

Just seventeen when they became lovers, Mao's second wife, He Zizhen was condemned to a life of loneliness after he tired of her. A strong young peasant who only wanted to be a soldier, Kang Keqing was called the Girl Commander. Married at seventeen to a man she didn't know, the illiterate peasant girl, Wang Quanyuan left him to fight alongside the Red rebels. This is the story, never before told in English, of these women, three of the thirty women who marched out of southern China with 85,000