October 9 - Return of the Man in Black

Many of you have asked, 'Whatever happened to Lao Li?' Well he's back, bigger and badder than ever, now armed with a samurai sword he uses to intimidate local hoolies and obstructive officials.

Lao Li leads his people into the light. 'It's the Revolution,' he says when spirits are high. 'The Revolution isn't made in a day or two,' he says when tired.

Lao Li was recently interviewed by CCTV-7, the military channel. Asked what his biggest regret was, he said, "That I wasn't born in the great era of the land revolution!' I'm not sure if was joking, and neither were CCTV-7, who didn't broadcast his reply.

"A revolutionary soldier is always young" - so goes the old song, and so Yang Xiao often refers to Lao Li as "Revolutionary Youth". And here's another such youth making a surprise visit to the Long March - old New Long Marcher Andy! He showed up on National Day for a three-day march down memory lane, as we just happened to be on a section of the route where it merges with Long March 1.

As we appraoched Lazikou, scene of the final famous Long March battle, our squad expanded to nine. Lef to right are: Ed, Khampa, Lao Li, Andy, Li Feinan, Jiao Pei and Tracy Driscoll.

Tracy organised the team from Beijing, who also brought several bottles of Australian Red to wish New China a Happy Birthday. As reward, we let her sleep in Chairman Mao's bed - we were in the village of Wangzang, where Mao spent the night before heading to Lazikou, where his advance units were in a do-or-die battle with local forces.

Andy's not the Long Marcher he used to be. Khampa takes the strain.

After golf on the Grasslands, Andy brings cricket to Gansu. This forward prod is surely a good omen for the Ashes.

As the finish line approaches, we've started running into other people retracing the Long March. These three cyclists had been behind us all the way from Sangzhi, which they left on May 1, before catching us up in Ruo'ergai. They also plan to finish in Jiangtai on October 22. Feinan also joined us in Ruo'ergai and marched all the way to Lazikou.

The full New Long March team, reunited for the first time on the road.

This is Jiacuo, who has joined Lao Li's Long March and helped us out a lot on the road to Lazikou （which is why we gave him a book - YX says he looks so happy you'd think Chairman Mao gave him a book）. Jiacuo's home is in Wangzang, and Mao's former residence is occupied by Jiacuo's cousin, whose family was once the biggest landlord in the village. Mao always took the best digs.

Khampa takes a break from eating the flowers at the Lazikou memorial. At this point the Reds faced a tremendous obstacle. The pass here is narrow and steep-sided, and the enemy occupied the high ground. That the Reds could break through says everything about the relative hopelessness of their opponents, who clearly weren't that bothered about stopping Mao and his men moving into the northwest. They prepared no second line of defense and left the peaks unguarded, so a group of Miao climbers was detailed to work its way around the back and attack from the rear. The enemy fled almost immediately.

Lazikou is probably the best of the "Red Tourism" sites we've seen, but there are still too many fake fripperies such as this phoney pillbox, plus Maoist propaganda etched into the cliff behind.

The real thing - Liu Guiying, 89, was a member of a 4th Front Army entertainment troupe. She fell ill and was left behind about 40 kilometers before Lazikou. She married a local and has lived in the same village ever since. She is one of only two left-behind Reds surviving in the area （though in the Lazikou Museum she is listed as already dead!）.

More "Red Tourism" ads. Diebu County has put more effort into its revolutionary sites - including Lazikou - than anywhere else we've been.

And here, indeed, are the Red Tourists. This car belongs to a group from Lanzhou Daily who are following more in my and Andy's footsteps than the Red Army's. They set out armed with our book and even pirated our logo for thier own publication. We're still waiting for a cheque, or at least a commemorative mug, from the Tourism Bureau, as our original New Long March did most to make Red Tourism possible. As Lao Li said one night, before he read about our journey, he thought of the Long March as something beyond the reach of ordinary people, "but your Long March smashed this perception, not just for me but for most Chinese people."

This is the "People's Police Rewalking the Long March". They passed us in a convoy that had a cop car out front blaring on its loudhailer for everyone to "Get out of the way!". Locals fumed, "The Long March was about serving the people. Look at that lot, what kind of a Long March is that?" They said a lot more besides, but I won't get into that...