Cycling tour through China | Christian Y. Schmidt's inglorious path to cycling fame

Martin, a good friend of mine, was celebrating his wife Chang's move from Hong Kong to the Chinese capital. It was one of those mild October nights typical of Beijing. The excellent Yanjing beer flowed freely, a joint was passed around now and then, and while German sinologists, Chinese painters, and Scottish IT experts danced in the living room, Volker and I sat in the courtyard where lamb skewers – yangrou chuan'r , as they were called – were being grilled in the Uyghur style.

Volker had returned from a long cycling tour in southern China, which he had led as a tour guide, and was already on his way back to Berlin. I had arrived from there the day before. Consequently, I was a bit jet-lagged, and the beer and some marijuana quickly made things worse. That was the moment Volker made the suggestion.

He didn't get straight to the point, though. First, he praised me and my books about China to the skies. I vaguely remember him talking about "humorous approaches to the Middle Kingdom," "off the cuff" and "cleverly arranged."

Finally, he stopped beating around the bush. "You're a pretty good cyclist yourself, aren't you?" "Well, sort of," I said. "I have to cycle a lot in my daily life because I don't have a car. But it's nothing compared to a fit, world-circumnavigator like you. You practically live in the saddle." Volker reacted as if he hadn't heard my qualification. "How about cycling the route of the Long March with me? From beginning to end?" That was the cat out of the bag. At first, though, I thought I hadn't heard correctly.

"You mean THE Long March that the Chinese Red Army marched in the 1930s?"

"Which one else?"

"Are you crazy? If I remember correctly, that was 25,000 li back then. That's..." Volker nodded: "...around 12,500 kilometers. At least that's what Mao claimed at the end of the march, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"Okay, let's say it's ten or nine thousand kilometers. The big question is still: Why? Why on earth would we do that?"

"Because nobody has ever done that before! At least no non-Chinese person. We would make cycling history and probably end up in the Guinness Book of Records."

"Maybe you. I'd end up in the morgue. Just so you know: I've never been on a bike tour in my life. And I'm twelve years older than you. I'll be sixty in two months. Besides, after a complicated femur fracture, my left leg is two and a half centimeters shorter. I suffer from high blood pressure and sleep apnea, meaning pauses in breathing while I sleep... I'd have to be completely insane to accept your, admittedly flattering, offer."

I don't remember exactly what happened next that evening. In any case, Volker continued trying to convince me of his crazy plan, while I steadfastly resisted him. However, I do remember quite clearly how, a few lamb skewers and beers later, the conversation turned to Otto Braun.

"If there were any reason at all," I interjected, "for me to endure this insane ordeal, it would be Otto Braun. Purely hypothetical, of course."

"You mean that German military advisor who was on the Long March? By the way, in Chinese his name is Li De , which means Li , the German, or also the virtuous Li ."

"That's exactly the one I mean!"

"I only know him from Chinese historical films: a Stalinist apparatchik who played a minor supporting role in the Long March and even then did everything wrong. A total loser."

But Volker had picked the wrong person with that flippant remark! On one of my many trips to China, I had once stumbled upon Braun's trail and subsequently delved more deeply into the life of the enigmatic German communist. That was quite some time ago, but a few things still stuck in my mind.

"Excuse me? Loser? Well, first of all, Otto Braun is the only foreigner who marched the entire Long March, the whole 12,500 kilometers..."

"...probably more like nine thousand."

"And secondly – ​​and now hold on tight to your wobbly garden chair – it was actually Otto Braun who ordered the Long March."

That had clearly hit home. Volker needed some time to find an answer.

"That was Mao! In the films I've seen, he was always the shining leader on the Long March, fearlessly forging ahead."

"No, he wasn't, even if Chinese historiography is reluctant to admit it and practically no one abroad knows it either. When the Long March started, Mao was not only ousted from power. There was even talk of leaving him behind in the guerrilla territory from where the communists set out on the Long March."

This too seemed completely new to Volker, and so I used his silence to elaborate a little further.

"Historians from all countries more or less agree that without the Long March, there probably would have been no People's Republic of China. Because if the communists hadn't embarked on this march back then – which was really nothing more than a slightly better-planned escape – they would probably have been destroyed by their civil war opponents, the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek. Right?"

"Yes, that's certainly true. All those who would later assume important positions in the People's Republic – Mao, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, and all the others – would surely have had their heads cut off."

"So. And that's precisely what Otto Braun prevented. They all survived, were able to win the civil war, and finally proclaimed the People's Republic in 1949. Therefore, without the German Otto Braun, the world would look significantly different today. The China we know today simply wouldn't exist."

The discussion went on endlessly after that, but a merciful fog descended on my mind – until a few weeks later when my phone rang. On the other end was Volker in Berlin, who seemed to be in a particularly good mood. "Hey, I'm really looking forward to hiking the Long March with you! I've already started making some initial plans." I was completely taken aback.

"Sorry, Volker. What are you talking about?"

"What? You don't remember? At the end of Martin's party, you were unstoppable. Otto Braun here, Otto Braun there. Without Otto, I'd forget about my Huawei phone. Without him, there would be no high-speed trains in China, no glittering skyscrapers in Shanghai, and certainly no Long March space rockets."

"Okay, and then what?" I had a bad feeling.

"When I dared to express even the slightest doubt about your theory, you only got more worked up. Finally, you shouted: 'If you don't want to believe me, then I'll just come along. Then I'll show you how important Otto Braun was for the Long March.'"

"Come on, you made that up..."

"Zero. You went for it when I suggested we make it official. And if you don't believe me: Martin made a video of our handshake. Should I send it to you?"

No, Volker shouldn't do that, because it was all embarrassing enough already. So, in a rather ignominious way, the long bike ride between Volker and me was arranged. It wasn't pure chance; quite a lot of alcohol and a little cannabis were involved. I felt a bit shanghaied , as an old sailor might say—haha, shanghaied in Beijing , I thought, how absurd—but ultimately, it was my own fault. In any case, it never occurred to me to break our promise. Once I've made a promise, I keep it; come what may, and regardless of the circumstances under which the promise was made.

Excerpt from the new publication "The Long Bicycle March" by Volker Häring and Christian Y. Schmidt. Ullstein, 368 pp., paperback, €19.99.