Investigate the Roads and the Topography
in the Vicinity of Zhiluozhen
(November 6, 1935, 8:00P.M.)
Haidong:¹
1. The 117th Division has already arrived at Fu xian, but Dong Yingbin² has
made no moves yet.
2. Please pay attention to the following three matters:
a. Eliminate as quickly as possible the militia bandits in [the village of]
Zhangcunyi.
b. Direct two companies of guerrilla forces to Zhiluozhen to carry out guerrilla attacks on [the village of] Heishuisi.
c. Investigate the roads, topography, and conditions among the people in the
areas to the north and to the south of the Zhiluozhen region. Find out
whether the Hulu River can be crossed on foot, and report by telegraph.
3. We and the Twenty-fifth Army will remain in the same place tomorrow.
Peng [Dehuai] Mao [Zedong]
Our source for this telegram is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, vol. 1, pp. 380-81.

--- Notes

1. This telegram is addressed to Xu Haidong, commander of the Red Army First
Front Army's Fifteenth Army Group. Xu Haidong (1900-1970) was a native of Hubei.
After serving under Zhang Fakui during the Northern Expedition, Xu became a guerrilla
leader in the Eyuwan (Hubei-Henan-Anhui) area during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Eventually, he became commander of the Red Twenty-fifth Army, which was ordered to
North Shaanxi by the Party in 1935. There the Twenty-fifth Army joined forces with the
Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh armies, and together formed the Fifteenth Army Group.
As noted above in the Introduction, the Fifteenth Army Group had just welcomed Mao
Zedong to Shaanxi in mid-October.

2. Dong Yingbin (1894-1950) was a native of Liaoning. At this time he was
commander of the Seventh Column (Fifty-seventh Army) of the Second Route under the
Guomindang army's Northwest "Bandit Suppression" General Headquarters.