Editing He Long (section)

===Early life===
[[File:He Long in traditional Tujia attire.jpg|thumb|left|150px|He Long in his youth]]
[[File:He Long1.jpg|thumb|left|200px|He in 1925.]]

He Long was a member of the [[Tujia people|Tujia]] ethnic group.<ref>Winchester 1</ref> Born in the [[Sangzhi]], [[Hunan]], he and his siblings, including [[He Ying (revolutionary)|He Ying]], grew up in a poor peasant household, despite his father being a minor [[Qing dynasty|Qing]] military officer.<ref name="Lew 11">Lew 11</ref> His father was a member of the [[Gelaohui]] (Elder Brother Society), a secret society dating back to the early Qing dynasty. A cowherd during his youth, he received no formal education.<ref name="WH28">Whitson & Huang 28</ref> When He was 20 he killed a local government tax assessor who had killed his uncle for defaulting on his taxes.<ref name="L49">Leung 49</ref> He then fled and became an outlaw, giving rise to the legend that he began his revolutionary career with just two kitchen knives.<ref name="WH28" /> After beginning his life as an outlaw he gained a reputation as a "[[Robin Hood]]-like figure". His signature weapon was a butcher knife.<ref name="Lew 11"/>

Around 1918 He raised a volunteer revolutionary army that was aligned with a local Hunan warlord,<ref name="L49" /> and in 1920, his personal army joined the [[National Revolutionary Army]].<ref name="CW162">''China at War'' 162</ref> In 1923 He was promoted to command the Nationalist Twentieth Army. In 1925 He ran a school for training Kuomintang soldiers. While running this school, He became close with some of his students who were also [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) members.<ref name="L49" /> During the 1926 [[Northern Expedition]], He commanded the 1st Division, 9th Corps of the National Revolutionary Army.<ref name="WH34">Whitson & Huang 34</ref> He served under [[Zhang Fakui]] during the Northern Expedition.<ref name="L49" />

In late 1926 He joined the CCP.<ref name="CW162" /> In 1927, after the collapse of [[Wang Jingwei]]'s leftist Kuomintang government in [[Wuhan]] and Chiang Kai-shek's [[Shanghai massacre of 1927|suppression of communists]], He left the Kuomintang and joined the Communists, commanding the 20th Corps, 1st Column of the Red Army.<ref name="L49" /> 

The uprising was held in an Anglican Church. [http://en.81-china.com/product/330.html] Christian influences Chinese Culture, Hong Xiuquan. 

[https://academic.oup.com/hong-kong-scholarship-online/book/21433]

He and [[Zhu De]] planned and led the main force of the [[Nanchang Uprising]] in 1927. In the Nanchang Uprising He and Zhu led a combined force of 24,000 men and attempted to seize the city of [[Nanchang]], but they were not able to secure it against the inevitable Kuomintang attempt to retake the city. The campaign suffered from logistical difficulties, and the communists suffered 50% casualties in the two months of fighting. Most of He's soldiers who survived surrendered, deserted, and/or rejoined the KMT. Only 2,000 survivors eventually returned to fight for the Communists in 1928, when Zhu reformed his forces in Hunan.<ref>''China at War'' 147</ref>

After his forces were defeated, He fled to [[Lufeng, Guangdong]]. He spent some time in [[Hong Kong]], but was later sent by the CCP to [[Shanghai]], then to Wuhan.<ref name="L49" /> [[Chiang Kai-shek]] continuously tried to persuade him rejoin the [[Kuomintang]], but failed.{{cn|date=April 2024}}