Deployment for Wiping Out the Enemy at Lazikou[1]

(September 16, 1935)

Peng:

1. According to a report just received from the Second Division, the enemy at Lazikou, approximately one battalion, is holding its ground and has not retreated. That place is a narrow defile, and we cannot advance unless we wipe out this enemy. In view of this, the Third Army and the Military Commission Column, except for sending one regiment to Daozhali to take over defense duties and construct fortifications, shall remain in place at Heila. We shall remain at Heiduo Temple[2]. All units are to await orders to set out.

2. According to a captured enemy telegram, Chieftain Yang[3] has dispatched a thousand cavalry to Heila to create disturbances. Please take note.

3. Each person is to gather eleven days' worth of provisions.

4. The Second Bureau is to speedily reconnoiter the two units under Wang and Hu.

Mao, Lin, Nie

16th, 24:00

[1] On September 12, 1935, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China convened an enlarged meeting at Ejie. The meeting adopted the "Decision on Comrade Zhang Guotao's Mistakes," pointing out that Zhang Guotao's opposition to the Central Committee's strategic policy of going north and his insistence on retreating toward the Sichuan-Xikang-Tibet border region were erroneous. The meeting decided to reorganize the main force of the First Front Army of the Red Army and the units directly under the Central Committee of the CPC and the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central Committee into the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. Subsequently, the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment approached Lazikou, a strategic pass on the Sichuan-Gansu border. This is a telegram from Mao Zedong, Lin Biao (commander of the First Column of the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment), and Nie Rongzhen (political commissar of the First Column) to Peng Dehuai, commander of the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment.

[2] Heiduo Temple, also known as Heiduo Si, is located in the eastern part of present-day Diebu County, Gansu Province.

[3] Chieftain Yang refers to Yang Jiqing, the chieftain of southern Gansu.