The Situation of the Enemy in Yihuang and
Le'an and Our Army Battle Dispositions
(August 15, 1932)
To the Central Bureau and for transmission to the Central Committee:
I. Regarding the guiding principles of our northward operation, see the previous telegram. The First Front Army of the Red Army has already arrived in the
vicinity of Zhaoxie and Dongshao on the 15th.


2. The situation of the enemy: One division of Sun Lianzhong's forces is divided
between Yihuang and Le'an. One division is stationed in Chongren and Fuzhou.
Mao Bingwen's division of the forces under Zhu Shaoliang is in Nanfeng. Wu
Yunjie's division is in Nancheng. Xu Kexiang's division is in Qizhong. One brigade
of Wu Qiwei's division is in Yongfeng, one is in Jishui and Ji'an, and another is in
Zhangshu and Xin'gan. Chen Cheng's Eleventh Division is in Ji'an; the Fourteenth
Division has gone back to Taihe. The Fifty-ninth Division is in Xiajiang and Anfu,
The Forty-third Division is in Suichuan and Taihe, and the Twenty-eighth Division is
in Wan'an and on the western bank of the Gan River. There is also a report that the
Fifty-second Division is going back to Ji'an. The five divisions of Zhao Guantao's
forces are in northeast Jiangxi; in the northwest are Tan Daoyuan's forces and five
divisions of the HW1811 army. The eight divisions of the Hunan army in southern
Jiangxi and Guangdong have not moved as yet.


3. Our army has decided to take swift, resolute, and secret action, attacking
first Le'an and Yihuang and wiping out the greater part of Sun Lianzhong's
forces. Taking advantage of this victory, we will attack Nanfeng and Nancheng
and wipe out Zhu Shaoliang's forces. Thus we will open up one side of eastern
Jiangxi and seek to consolidate our position as we strike westward at the reinforcements of the Chen and Wu divisions, so as to put us in a more advantageous position for taking the key cities in the lower reaches of the Gan River
and creating the conditions for seizing Nanchang.


4. Now our deployment is already complete and the battle will begin tomorrow morning. We hope that, with one victory after another, our goals will be
achieved, and moreover that our operations can be coordinated with those of the
Red Army in the whole country.


Zhou Mao Zhu Wang
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. I, pp. 277-78, where it
has been reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.