This battle to cross the Xiang River was put as "an insane attempt" as this was a military disaster losing 30,000 men. According to Lui Po-Chen by now half of the troops had been either killed or wounded grievously.
The Red Army Troops suffered many deaths and injures this time not from other armies but from nature itself. Over the period of crossing the Great Snowy Mountains, July 1935, and High Grasslands, August 1935, many of the soldiers who survived the cold of the Great Snowy Mountains died of dysentery, which was when they had to change their usual diet of rice to barley. In the High Grasslands many soldiers suffered from the dysentery and after the seven day crossing the casualty figure was estimated to be at 32,000 of the 40,000 men.
On the 19th of October Mao Zedong led his troops into the city of Wuqi where they counted their troops present, a mere 5,000 completed the journey of the 100,000 that started, but on a whole including all the communists armies they suffered 150,000 to 170,000 fatalities of the approximately 200,000 that left Kiangsi. .
The Long March was a political victory because of Mao Zedong coming to power of the Communist Party and overall commander of the Red Army after the Zunyi Conference in January 1935. Mao influenced his men and was said to be "right all the time" by Zhuo Enlai. This may not seem to be a political victory but without Mao Zedong coming to power than the Long March would have never succeeded nor would have communism been spread throughout China. Because of the Red Army's admiration and respect to Mao Zedong and his many quotations, the thought of communism throughout china, usually by the peasants, was accepted. Mao's quotations include 3 Do's, 3 Don'ts, 3 Main rules of discipline, 8 rules for attention, 8 bad types of people, 2 supports, 2 defy's, 2 haves, 3 stresses, 8 evils, 2 whatever's, 3 principles of peaceful coexistence, 4 clean-ups, 4 olds, 10 fighting tasks, 3 great differences, 4 bigs, 2 appraisals, 5 things to stress, 4 things to beautify and 3 loves .
