Zhu De led a column of survivors to Hunan to fight in the Autumn Harvest Uprising where they were defeated again.

[1] After the revolt, Mao Zedong organized the rebels into a guerilla army, establishing a revolutionary base area in the Jinggang Mountains.

In the winter of 1927, the CCP planned to conquer Guangzhou; however, the uprising failed and thousands of insurgents were killed by the Nationalist forces of General Li Jishen.

Mao Zedong and Zhu De led the organization and training of the Communist military,[4]: 283  including the Fourth Army, which totaled about 6,000 men in the summer of 1928 and fought in Jiangxi.

A Nanchang uprising survivor, He Long, also created an army in his hometown, with former government soldiers as the main fighting force.

In the late 1920s, the Communist forces lacked resources and relied on guerilla tactics such as hit-and-run operations to compensate for their material limitations.

By the summer of 1930, the Chinese Red Army had grown to more than 100,000 soldiers and had several base areas, such as in southern and northern Jiangxi, western Hubei, and eastern Hunan, among others.

Most of the Fourth Red Army's senior officers were killed by him, including Xu Jishen, Zhou Weijiong, and Xiaofang.

Similar movements also occurred in western Hubei; in the spring of 1931, Xia Xi took over He Long's army and killed most of his senior officers including Duan Dechang.

Most of the Nationalist forces' future generals participated in this battle such as Huang Wei, Du Yuming, Sun Li-jen, and others.

In the spring of 1933, the First Red Army defeated the Nationalist forces' fourth large-scale attack and eliminated two and a half of its elite divisions.

This caused Sichuan's warlord Liu Xiang to gather 200,000 troops to attack the Fourth Red Army in autumn.

In 1934, the Nationalist forces purchased new German weapons and launched a fifth large-scale attack on the Red Army's base area in Jiangxi.

During the same time, the Fourth Red Army defeated Liu Xiang's attacks, who lost more than 80,000 soldiers in battle.

Around the same time, roughly 21,000 soldiers from the Fourth Red Army attacked Gansu, wanting to find a way to the Soviet Union.

Because of this great failure, the Fourth Red Army's Commander in Chief Zhang Guotao was stripped of his military power.

The Red Army grew rapidly during the war, including through mass mobilization campaigns operating behind enemy lines.

[4]: 283  By the time the People's Republic of China was established on 1 October 1949, the PLA had 5.5 million personnel, primarily light infantry.

[4]: 283 In the view of the Communist Party, participation of the masses in the Red Army was significant beyond the direct concerns of manpower and material support.

[7]: 365  Academic Cai Xiang writes that the Red Army's ability to function in this way helps explain why despite the weak industrial base in revolutionary China, a proletarian party nonetheless successfully developed.

[8]: 307 In the article The Democratic Movement within the Army, written during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong discussed the Red Army's political work and stated, "Through the democratic movement under centralized leadership, we were able to achieve a high degree of political unity, improve lives, and improve military technology and tactics, which are our three main purposes.

After the uprising, the Nationalist Party strengthened its control over the army, making launching a military rebellion more difficult.

This issue became particularly prevalent when the First Red Army's Chief of Staff Zhu Yunqing was assassinated by a spy in a hospital.

In the spring of 1933, one of the red guards' officers killed 29th Army's commander Chen Qianlun and surrendered to the Nationalist forces.

Due to the lack of rifles, the Chinese Red Army was forced to use cold weapons such as broadswords, spears, sabres, and other melee implements.

Despite the overwhelming numbers of red soldiers, 1,000 opposing troops armed with rifles were able to defeat Zeng Zhongsheng's forces.

During the summer of 1930, Peng Dehuai's Fifth Army captured four 75mm mountain guns in Yuezhou, but they lacked the required ammunition.

[19] In the spring of 1931, the Fourth Red Army captured a Nationalist forces' reconnaissance aircraft in eastern Hubei.

Before the Fourth Red Army retreated from its base area, the aircraft was concealed by local farmers and was found again in 1951.