Order of the First Front Army of the Red Army
to Prepare to Eliminate the Enemy Attacking
from Laicun
(Issued on July 24, 1931, at 11:00 P.M., from
Headquarters at Niujiaotang, Yinkeng, in Yudu)

I. Up until today, the enemy's situation is as follows:
A. Chen Mingshu's troops (Jiang, Cai, Han, Luo) are fighting against our
Fifth Independent Division along the Futian, Shuinan, and Baisha line.¹
B. Sun Lianzhong's troops (Hao, Tang, Guo, Li) are fighting against our
Ninth Division along the Shaxi and Dajinzhu line.²
C. Zhu Shaoliang and Xu Kexiang are in Nanfeng, Zhou Hunyuan is in
Ganzhu and Guangchang, Mao Bingwen is in Baishui and Xingpi, maintaining
communication lines between Chen, Luo, Zhao, and Wei.³
D. Zhao Guantao's division has entered Kanchaigang, Ningdu City, Tiantou,
and so on; Wei Lihuang has entered Ruijin.⁴
E. The two divisions under Chen Cheng and Luo Zhuoying entered Ningdu
on the 19th, and on the 22nd divided into two routes.⁵ One route advanced to
Qingtang and the other to Youshuping. On the 23rd, the enemy in Qingtang
advanced to Gulonggang, and the enemy in Youshuping advanced to Laicun,
each of these two routes consisting of one division. Tomorrow (the 25th) the
enemy in Gulonggang will advance toward Qiaotou, and the enemy in Laicun
will certainly advance toward Ping'anzhai.

Our source for this order is Jiangxi dangshi ziliao, Vol. 19, pp. 66-67.
1. Chen Mingshu was the commander of the Right Wing Army Group of Nationalist
army forces assembled for the Third Encirclement Campaign. The other officers named
were commanders of First Army units subordinate to Chen.
2. Sun Lianzhong at this time commanded the Second Army under Chen Mingshu;
some of the other officers mentioned were Sun's subordinates, and others subordinate to
the Third Route Army of Shangguan Yunxiang (also part of Chen Mingshu's forces). This
order seems to have conflated these various units.
3. Zhu Shaoliang commanded the Third Army in the Nationalist army's Left Wing
Army Group (under the general command of He Yingqin); the other officers mentioned
were his subordinate division commanders.
4. Zhao Guantao commanded the Nationalist army's Sixth Division; Wei Lihuang
commanded the Tenth Division.
5. Chen Cheng commanded the Second Route Army (and concurrently that army's
Fourteenth Division) under the Left Wing Army Group; Luo Zhuoying commanded the
Eleventh Division within Chen's army.


II. Given that the enemy is deeply mired in panic and fatigue, this front army has
determined first to wipe out the enemy attacking from Laicun, and then to turn in the
direction of Qiaotou to eliminate the second section of the enemy's troops.

III. Our army's offensive dispositions toward the enemy in Laicun are as follows:
A. Under the command of Peng Dehuai, the troops of our right wing (the
Third Army Group and the Fourth Army) should set out tomorrow (the 25th),
wait until the enemy in Laicun has moved to the vicinity of Gewa, and then use
the Third Army Group to attack the enemy's rear from the Laowuchang line and
the Fourth Army to attack the enemy's left flank from the Lipowa and Datian line.
To prevent enemy forces in Sanliao from coming to the aid of Gewa, a force of one
regiment of the Third Army Group should guard Longshan so that enemy troops
cannot pass, and a small unit must also be dispatched and located around Liuminba
so as to make every effort to block any enemy attempts to cross the river.
B. The Central Army (the Twelfth Army) sets out on the 25th, and after establishing contact with the left wing of the Fourth Army, it will arrive at Gewa by way of
Qiaobei to take up position and launch a frontal attack on the enemy forces.
C. The left wing troops (the Seventh Army, the Thirty-fifth Army, and the
Seventh and Eighth divisions of the Third Army) are under the command of Li
Mingrui.⁶ With the Seventh Army located at Meiwu, the Eighth Division should be
stationed at Pibalong to pin down the enemy troops in the direction of Gulonggang
so that they will be unable to provide reinforcements. The Thirty-fifth Army is to be
located at Ping'anzhai to assist all units, and the Seventh Division is to be located
around Zhongzhou to pin down the enemy in Gulonggang.

IV. General Headquarters is near Ping'anzhai and Qiaobei.⁷
It is so ordered.

Commander-in-Chief Zhu De
Political Commissar Mao Zedong

6. Li Mingrui (1894-1932), a native of Beiliu in Guangxi, was an officer in the National
Revolutionary Army who had joined the Communist Party in 1930 and became head of the
Red Seventh Army. This force relocated to the Hunan-Jiangxi border area in late 1930, and
fought in this region until being ordered east of the Gan River to join the First Front Army in
July 1931.

7. These are locations in northern Yudu xian. It was in this area (probably in Ping'anzhai)
at about this time (one source says on July 23) that the Twentieth Red Army, which had been
centrally involved in the Futian Incident, was disarmed, disbanded and its officer corps violently purged under circumstances mentioned in the Introduction. Possibly the Thirty-fifth
Army, mentioned in the preceding paragraph, was also purged at about this time. The heading
for the present document gives the village of Niujiaotang, in the Yinkeng area of Yudu, as the
site of the First Front Army Headquarters on July 24. A present-day map of the area shows
that the town of Yinkeng itself is about five kilometers from Ping'anzhai; about two kilometers
from Ping'anzhai is a small village named Niujiaowan. The first two characters of this name
are identical with the "Niujiaotang" mentioned in the heading, and the two names may very
well in fact refer to the same place. In any event, this document places Mao in close proximity
to the Twentieth Army at the time of its dissolution.