THE Long March is associated with Mao Zedong and the Red Army’s retreat during the Chinese Revolution. Facing decimation along the coastal cities, the Red Army embarked on a long tortuous journey fighting their way to northwest provinces controlled by warlords and Chiang Kai Shek’s garrisons until the survivors, a tenth of the original exodus, reached the caves of Yenan to rebuild the Red Army that would liberate China from Kuomintang rule and Japanese/western occupation.
The Long March of General Aguinaldo during the 1896-98 Revolution and Philippine-American War was of much smaller scale. This odyssey began in March 1897 after the Tejeros convention and the fall of Imus, the revolutionary capital. Mao’s series of interrupted marches involving several armies took 370 days, Aguinaldo’s, five years. Pursued by General Lachambre, Aguinaldo retreated to Naic where he consolidated the revolutionary government, thence to Maragondon, the highlands of Cavite down to Talisay, Batangas, back to Cavite where at Paliparan, he left behind his family, and took off with 400 men to the lake towns of Laguna and Morong. At Mt. Puray, his and General Licerio Geronimo’s troops routed the Spanish pursuers.