The Guiding Hand: Captivity for Christ in China
by Rudolf BosshardtAbout the book:
As the first book on the Long March by a Westerner, it is a memoir by a Swiss British missionary who travelled with the Red Army for more than 500 days after he first came across the soldiers in 1934. It was first published in 1936 under its original name, The Restraining Hand: Captivity for Christ in China, which was later changed into the current one, The Guiding Hand: Captivity for Christ in China, in 1978. This was the first book on the Long March written by a foreigner who participated in the historical event.
About the author:
Rudolf Alfred Bosshardt (1897-1993) was a British Protestant Christian missionary in China whose Chinese name was Bo Fuli. The circumstances surrounding his presence in the Long March are unique. He and his wife came across the Red Army in Southwest China's Guizhou province in Oct 1934 when the latter had just started the Long March.
General Xiao Ke of the Sixth Corps decided to keep Bosshardt with the unit as he did not want to risk their secret military maneuver becoming public by allowing the missionary to go.
Bosshardt's well-known contribution to the Red Army is his translation of a French map.
At that time, the army was relying on nothing but a small map torn from middle school geography textbook. So a detailed map measuring one square meter was undoubtedly very valuable for the troops, but there was a small hitch: It was in French, a language none of the soldiers knew.
This is where Bosshardt's help proved to be invaluable as he knew French well and also bit of Chinese.
With the help of the map and Bosshardt's information, leaders of the Six Corps decided to head towards the western part of Central China's Hubei province through the eastern part of Guizhou province to join forces with the Third Corps.
