party representative (何长工). They participated in a successful attack at Xincheng on a battalion of the Kuomintang's Jiangxi Army, killing the enemy commander and taking more than a hundred prisoners. In the spring of 1928 Yuan Wencai introduced the sister of a classmate, He Zizhen, to Mao Zedong. The couple began living together soon afterwards, much to the delight of Yuan. He cooked them a nuptial supper, apparently hoping that the partnership would commit Mao more strongly to the area's defence. Soon afterwards, he accompanied Mao Zedong to Lingxian county in southern Hunan province in aid of Zhu De. Jinggangshan had meanwhile been overrun by landlord militia and had to be reconquered. After Zhu De's soldiers joined the Jinggangshan base, they were merged with the existing forces to become the Fourth "Red Army". Yuan and Wang's 2nd Regiment was renamed the 32nd Regiment. Later in the year, Zhu De's 28th and 29th regiments crossed into Hunan. The 32nd Regiment was given the assignment of securing Maoping from the advance of the Kuomintang's Jiangxi units until his return. In January 1929, the bulk of the Red Army left Jinggangshan to establish a new base at Ruijin, leaving around 800 ex-Kuomintang troops under Peng Dehuai. Just after the New Year, it was agreed that Peng's men and the 32nd Regiment of Wang Zuo and Yuan Wencai should stay behind to defend Jinggangshan. Under intense pressure for about a week, Peng gathered together his three surviving companies and broke through the enemy blockade with heavy casualties. For the next year Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo survived with their men in the mountains and may have returned to banditry in their guerrilla warfare. The Kuomintang's repeated mop up operations against them proved to be futile because the communist forces only confiscated property from wealthy landlords, and distributing to peasants. As a result, such banditry was viewed positively by the local general populace, which refused to corporate with the Kuomintang forces. Prelude to downfall Jinggangshan and Jiangxi Soviet were not immune to the power struggles within the Chinese Communist Party in the early 1930s. Xiang Zhongfa and Li Lisan succeeded in rising to power under the direction and support of the Comintern and their extreme leftist policy inevitably effected all communist bases in China, including Jinggangshan. The extreme leftism of the new communist leadership included what Mao Zedong called military adventurism, which included attempts to