Tingzhou Should Not Be Easily Given Up
(March 5, 1933)
Zhu, Zhou:
Yesterday evening, we held discussions with the Central Bureau and with [Ye]
Jianying and made the following decisions:
1. The enemy's Seventy-eighth Division and the right column of Zhang
Van's brigade will arrive at Liancheng.1 They are attempting to attack Tingzhou
to threaten the capital,2 and to cooperate with the operation of the enemy forces
in Jiangxi, while at the same time cooperating in the large scale offensive by
their left column from the three xian of [Long]yan, [Yong]ding, and [Shang]hang
against our Soviet Area. in an effort to destroy it.


2. Tingzhou is our basic stronghold in the southeast and should never be
easily given up. We now appoint Li Shaojiu as the commander of the garrison
troops in Ting[zhou] and Rui[jin], with the responsibility for the defense of these
two places. If the enemy advances, you should call on the broad masses and on
the armed forces in Ting and Rui to exhaust him and stop him, and never let this
enemy pin down the operations of our front army.


3. Reorganize the independent regiment in Ning[hua] and Shi[cheng] and
other armed forces into the Eleventh Independent Division and use it to threaten
and pin down this enemy from the northeast. Then rapidly reorganize it into the
Nineteenth Army and concentrate at least two thousand guns for use in a forceful
attack on the enemy troops that are still advancing on Yan, Yong, and Hang. No
matter what happens in Ting[zhou] and Lian[cheng], our Nineteenth Army must
fight resolutely in the zone of Chadi, Taiba, Baisha, Jiuxian, and Xinquan, and
strive for a great victory.
Mao


Xiang


Our source for this document is Mao Zedongjunslli wenji, VoJ. I, pp. 312-13, where it is
reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.
I. The Nationalist army's Seventy-eighth Division was commanded by Wang Sbounian. Zhang Van's brigade was the Ninth Brigade of the Nationalist army's Sixty-first
Division.
2. Tingzhou was the imperial-era name for Changting. The capital of the Chinese
Soviet Republic was Ruijin.