Check the Enemy's 117th Division from the Sides and from the Front
# Date: 1935-11-22
# Source: en:MRP
Check the Enemy's 117th Division from
the Sides and from the Front
(November 22, 1935, 7:00 A.M.)

Ye:¹
1. It looks as if the 117th Division will attack Yangquanzhen, and it is hoped
that someone will be sent to command the battalion of the Twenty-seventh Army
in Qu'er, the local armed forces, and the two cavalry companies in an effort to
keep it in check from the sides as well as from the front. The organs in the rear
and the captive division must be moved promptly to Taotong and Zhaobasi.


2. Headquarters should be at Taohuabian. You are in charge of the work in
the rear and fighting the enemy in the east.


3. Check on officers ranked above company commander among the prisoners. Watch out in particular for Niu Yuanfeng.²


4. The troops we wiped out yesterday include three regimental and one divisional headquarters. One divisional chief of staff and one regimental commander
fled toward the soviet areas in the northeast; please notify the local [authorities
so as] to capture them.


5. Advise the provincial committee and the military area command³ to fight
in coordination with each other.
Mao

Our source for this telegram is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 386-87.

--- Notes

1. This telegram is addressed to Ye Jianying, chief of staff of the Red Army's First
Front Army.



2. Niu Yuanfeng, then commander of the 109th Division of the Second Route's
Seventh Column (57th Army) under the Guomindang Army's Northwest "Bandit
Suppression" General Headquarters, was killed in the battle of Zhiluozhen.



3. Refers to the Shaanxi-Gansu Provincial Party Committee and the Shaanxi-Gansu
military area command.