The Capture of Ji'an
(August 13, 1933)
The matter at hand was the attack on Ji'an. Ji'an had been attacked eight times
and this was now the ninth time.
The date was October 4, 1930.¹
On that day, before the moon had completely set, our troops had already
moved in. Gunfire was heard from the direction of the Zhenjun Mountains,
which were in the northwest corner of the city.² Next, shooting began in the
Luozi Mountains to the north of the city. Our Fourth Army was advancing in
these two directions. Contact was also made on Shen'gang Ridge, to the south
and southwest of the city; here the units were from our Third Army. We encircled Ji'an. The red flags that were not visible at night all appeared together as
soon as the red sun emerged in the east. The intense sounds of rifle, machine
gun, and mortar fire were even noisier than the setting off of firecrackers to
celebrate the New Year. Many red flags appeared on the second line. They were
those of the countless Red Guards and Young Pioneers, all of whom were lying
prostrate, because the enemy's mortar shells were flying over their heads. There
was the sound of something or other astir in the sky, and in less than a minute,
the enemy's red-tailed planes appeared. Several big bombs fell in the vicinity of
our General Headquarters, but no one was hurt. In order to seize the positions on
the Zhenjun Mountains, fierce fighting was underway there. Part of the troops in
the Luozi Mountains broke into the city through the enemy's weak points. Un-
fortunately, they retreated again. The reason was that the enemy transferred some
troops from the southwestern positions and launched a counterattack against us.
The fighting lasted a whole day. Our Twelfth Army arrived and reinforced the
positions to the west of the city. It was getting dark and there was a lull in the

This article was first published in Hongxingbao (Red Star), August 13, 1933. On this
occasion, Mao used the pen name "Ziren," which he had often employed in the 1920s (see
Volume II of this edition, p. 155, note 5). We have taken as our source the text as
reproduced in Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 325-29.

1. As noted in Volume III, the capture of Ji'an recounted in this essay took place
following the Red Army's retreat from its abortive attacks on Nanchang and Changsha
during the summer of 1930, and shortly before Guomindang armies launched the first of
the encirclement campaigns.

2. As there are no significant hills or mountains within the actual built-up area of the
city of Ji'an, this phrase should be interpreted to refer broadly to the general northwest
vicinity of the city.


battle. We were preparing for a night battle to finish off the enemy and break
into the city.
The enemy chieftain was called Deng Ying. When our Red Third Army
failed to capture Ji'an for the eighth time, the Nanjing dog government issued an
order commending him, stating that he had rendered the greatest of services to
"bandit suppression." Thereupon, he became swollen with arrogance and believed that he, big brother Deng, far surpassed not only Yang Chisheng, Yang
Ruqian, and Li Wenbin, but also chieftains such as Zhu Peide, and even had
two or three times the power and prestige of Zhang Huizan, at that time commander-in-chief of "bandit suppression," and Fatty Lu, who held the command
of the Nanchang garrison. He drank spirits, gambled, and in front of the local
bullies, bad gentry, capitalists, pastors, and Catholic priests beat his chest and
boasted that he was a hero. These local bullies, bad gentry, capitalists, pastors,
and Catholic priests even believed what he said. On the one hand, there were
Warlord Deng's bold speeches, and on the other hand, they had actually seen the
solidity of the defenses of Ji'an City-the fortresses, trenches, and wire entanglements. With all these precious things to restrain the iron fists of the Red Army,
they must have thought they could definitely survive for a few more days! To
their surprise, the Red Army suddenly launched a large-scale encirclement and
fierce offensive. On this day of the 4th, all the lily-livered warlords, capitalists,
local bullies, bad gentry, pastors, and Catholic priests were frightened to death,
and there were people everywhere running around chaotically in the streets.
When someone said they were coming from the south gate, they fled toward the
north gate, and when someone said they were coming from the north gate, they
fled toward the south gate. When part of the Red Army forces from the Luozi
Mountains actually fought their way in, the whole city was in even greater
turmoil. On that day, the masses of the workers in the city were seized by a
special kind of excitement. Many of them clenched their fists, waiting for the
moment to beat up the reactionaries. Warlord Deng issued an order forbidding
anyone to go to the river banks, including even the capitalists, local bullies, bad
gentry, pastors, and Catholic priests. Armed soldiers were standing on the banks
of the river, and all the ships were gathered together in one place near the dock.

3. Deng Ying was, in 1930, the commander of the Thirteenth Division of the
Guomindang Ninth Route Army. For Mao's order of October 3, 1930, launching the
assault on Ji'an narrated here, see Volume III of this edition, pp. 546-47.
4. Yang Chisheng and Yang Ruqian were division commanders; Li Wenbin was a
brigade commander.
5. At this time, Zhu Peide was the commander of the Guomindang First Route Army.
6. Zhang Huizan was, in October 1930, commander-in-chief of the "bandit suppression" campaign in Jiangxi. On December 30, 1930, he was captured by the Red Army, and
on January 28, 1931, he was executed (see Volume III of this edition, p. 471, note 4, and
pp. 731-32).
7. The reference is to Lu Diping, who in 1930 was also the chairman of the Jiangxi
Provincial Government.


Even if a local bully knelt down in front of Warlord Deng, begging to be allowed
to flee on a ship, he could not succeed. Petty Warlord Deng Ying really made a
show of facing life and death together with the city of Ji'an.

In the pitch dark night, the Red Army launched new attacks and broke into the
city from the direction of the Zhenjun Mountains. Then Warlord Deng himself
led some of his troops to slip away by river. Others who could not escape handed
over their guns. Not a single village bully, bad member of the gentry, capitalist,
pastor, or Catholic priest got away. From that moment on, Ji'an City had fallen
into the hands of the Red Army and the Soviets. Then on the next day, a big
contingent of the masses entered the city bearing red flags, and the organs of the
Communist Party and the local soviet also entered the city. The workers and
countless members of the impoverished masses of the city rushed into the streets
to give the Red Army a warm welcome. At this time, local bullies, bad gentry,
pastors, Catholic priests, and reactionary capitalists were being captured in large
numbers. Capturing them was like capturing pigs and sheep. They were led in
lines here and chained in strings there. Immediately afterward, there were many
days of incessant mass rallies! Expand the Red Army! Mass rallies of workers'
representatives! Mass rallies of the soviets! Mass rallies of the Communist Party!
Let the masses from various xian come to visit Red Ji'an! All these thunderous
and spectacular activities turned Ji'an City into a new world.

According to the views of the responsible comrades of the Red Army, the
lessons from the capture of Ji'an this time are as follows: (1) The capture of Ji'an
was only possible after rejecting the positions of the Lisan Line (which opposed
the attack on Ji'an and advocated an attack on Jiujiang; they held that to attack
Ji'an before attacking Jiujiang would ruin the high tide of the Chinese revolution). The occupation of Ji'an this time had great political significance. Not only
did it have an extremely great impact throughout the whole country, it also had
direct significance for the Futian Incident, in which the uprising by the AB Corps
was put down and victory was achieved in the first revolutionary war.⁹ For the
capture of Ji'an dealt the first political blow to the AB Corps, and at the same
time, the forty-day occupation of Ji'an caused great psychological and material
losses to the enemy's offensive.¹⁰ (2) There were military deficiencies during the

⁸. Regarding the Li Lisan Line and Mao's attitude to it, see Volume III of this edition.
⁹. I.e., in the fight against the first "Encirclement and Suppression." Party documents
from the 1928-30 period reveal that Ji'an was considered to be a major headquarters of AB
Corps activity. One persistent (but almost certainly erroneous) tradition has it that during
the Red Army's occupation of Ji'an evidence was uncovered implicating the father of Li
Wenlin, an important regional Party leader and factional opponent of Mao, in AB Corps
activity, a discovery which helped precipitate events leading to the Futian Incident. See
Averill, "Origins of the Futian Incident," p. 103 and passim; Ch'en, "Futian Incident," p.
11.
¹⁰. For Mao's contemporary analysis of the situation during the occupation of Ji'an,
see the Resolution of October 26, 1930, in Volume III of this edition, pp. 574-89.

battle of Ji'an this time. For example, the forces were not fully concentrated
before launching the attacks. At that time, only the Fourth and Twentieth armies
were concentrated. The Third Army had not yet entirely caught up, and the
Twelfth Army was one day's march away, so they successively entered positions
around the city of Ji'an only subsequently. Had the attack been delayed for one
day, all the forces of the Army Group would have been concentrated there to
carry out the encirclement and attack simultaneously. Then we could have
avoided the situation in which part of the Fourth Army moved into the city, and
the enemy was still able to transfer some troops from the western part of the city
and stage counterattacks to drive our forces inside the city out of it, so that we
could not capture all of Deng Ying's troops during the daylight hours on the 4th.
This is one point. Next, the plan to launch an attack on the night of the 3rd was
also inappropriate, because it was a positional war, the enemy had strong fortifications, and the Red Army was not familiar with the terrain. So there should
have been a period of probing and scouting, for only thus could manpower be
deployed appropriately and points of attack selected. Then we could have
avoided the situation in which the troops were moved into positions that were
later found to be inappropriate but could not be changed. New arrangements
could not be made till the night of the 4th, and this was also a reason why the
city could not be entered during the daytime and Deng Ying's entire force could
not be wiped out. Besides, the Third Army Group was not deployed at the Xia
River in Ji'an, but was positioned at the Qing River far away from Ji'an, thus
making it possible for Deng Ying to escape by boat. These military defects and
errors were the result of underestimating the enemy, and believing that the
enemy only had four regiments and that we would not have to use much of our
force. This erroneous viewpoint allowed the enemy's whole force to escape. This
is a good lesson.