Two famous photos of Zhou were taken during this critical time; one was taken before the Xi’an Incident and shows him traumatized, intense, bearded, with a stare of a thousand miles; most of the people he knew from the Long March were gone, dead or exiled; only 8,000 survived out of 85,000 who began. He had seen and lived through the unspeakable horrors of war.
The second photo, taken just a few months later after the Xi’an Incident, shows Zhou at peace, clean-shaven, with a look that penetrates from deep within.
