Area]). What has been decided in accord with previous laws and decrees before
this order goes into effect remains in force. There should be no reversal of
verdicts.
Chairman Mao Zedong
We Agree with the Decision to Take
Ganquan and Yichuan
(December 17, 1935, 9:00 P.M.)
[Peng] Dehuai:
1. We agree with the present dispositions. The one regiment of the First
Army Group that is going to attack Ganquan may set out at once, employing
resolute but clever and flexible means, and we anticipate that they will capture
Ganquan within about seven days. The main force of the First Army Group may
set out from its present location on the 21st, advance to the Longquanzhen area
of Yichuan,¹ and begin work. It should take Yichuan when the occasion offers.
The main force of the Fifteenth Army Group may also set out on the 21st,
advance to the area between Niuwuzhen and Longquanzhen, and begin to work.
The future direction of expansion for both army groups is straight south, but they
should first turn Luochuan and Yichuan Red, and speed up the recruitment of the
Red Army.
2. The entire Twenty-sixth Army should proceed northward at once, in cooperation with the cavalry regiment, under the command of Liu Zhidan² and Song
Renqiong,³ and carry out the task of wiping out Jing Yuexiu.⁴
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 410-12, where it is
reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1. Longquanzhen is located in the western part of Yichuan xian.

2. Liu Zhidan (1902-1936), a native of Shaanxi, joined the Chinese Communist Party
in 1925, and was a member of the Fifth Class at the Huangpu Military Academy in
1925-26. In the period from 1929 to 1933, he struggled to organize guerrilla operations
in Shaanxi. He and his comrades finally succeeded in 1934 in establishing the
Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Revolutionary Committee, which subsequently gave birth
to the Shaanxi-Gansu Provisional Soviet Government. In 1935, Liu was the commander
of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Red Armies, which, as noted above in the
Introduction, welcomed Mao and his comrades on their arrival in the Northwest at the end
of that year. In early 1936, he played a leading role in the "Eastern Expedition" to Shanxi
Province, and was killed in action there.

3. Song Renqiong (1909-), a native of Hunan, joined the Chinese Communist Party
in 1926. He spent the years 1930-1934 in the Jiangxi Soviet Republic, and participated in
the Long March as political commissar of the Red Cadres' Regiment, which guarded Mao
and the other Party leaders. In January 1936, he became political commissar of the
Twenty-eighth Red Army. He participated in the Eastern Expedition, and assumed
command of the Twenty-eighth Army after Liu Zhidan was mortally wounded.

4. Jing Yuexiu (1878-1936) was a native of Shaanxi. At this time, he was deputy
commander of the Third Defense Area of the Guomindang Northwest "Encirclement and
Suppression" Headquarters, and commander of the Eighty-sixth Division. He died on
February 1, 1936, as a result of the accidental discharge of his own pistol.