Preparing the Operational Plans
for the Eastern Expedition
(December 24, 1935, 9:00P.M.)
Peng [Dehuai] and Yang [Shangkun], Lin [Biao] and Nie [Rongzhen], Xu
[Haidong] and Cheng [Zihua], and Zuo [Quan]:1
1. The Central Committee has discussed the strategic orientation, operational
principles, and plans for action, and approved the report by the Military Commission. As regards the direction of the operations, it remains the same as we
decided in Dongcun.
2. The preparatory period is forty days, during which all the preparatory work
for the action must be completed.
3. We must carry out the following work during the next forty days:
a. Take Ganquan and Yichuan.
b. Turn the two xian of Yichuan and Luochuan Red.
c. The units at the front should try their best to expand the Red Army.
d. Launch a campaign of medical treatment. All the hospitals at the front as
well as in the rear should try to release half of their patients by the end of
January.
e. The rear should fulfill the plan of recruiting 5,000 men for the Red Army
(including those already sent to the front).
f. Strike a heavy blow at the enemy forces that are attacking us in the north.
Our Northern Route Army should set out at once.
g. The rear should prepare 200 local cadres who will set out together with
our troops, and the front should prepare 100.
h. The first class has graduated from the Red Army School, and the second
class is entering the school.
i. Prepare 300 platoon commanders to be employed in three months. The
Front Army is to set up a training battalion (200 from the First Army
Group, and 100 from the Fifteenth Army Group, choose good soldiers).
j. Start organizing Mongolian guerrilla units (there are already some leads).
k. Start organizing the cavalry brigade. Select men, horses, and weapons
from the units and organs at the front as well as in the rear. First organize
them into two companies of the second regiment, and ask Comrade Li De
to instruct them.
l. Organize the Twenty-eighth Army in the north and the Twenty-ninth
Army in the south, fill them up with independent regiments and battalions.
m. Expand the Red Guards and Young Pioneers to defend the localities.
n. Political preparation.
o. And many other things that will be taken care of by the rear. Seven of the
fourteen points mentioned above are the responsibility of the Front Army.
Please start carrying them out in practice, concretely and resolutely.
4. Please answer the following questions:
a. The concrete deployment and work plan of our units in Yichuan and
Luochuan.
b. Purchase more than 8,000 jin of cotton in ten days from the two xian of
Yichuan and Luochuan (if you add to this the 10,000 jin the rear is buying
just now, it will total 18,000 jin), and distribute it to the soldiers to make
quilts to protect themselves from the cold. Can you accomplish this or not?
c. Can the front itself make 1,000 sets of cotton uniforms? Can it make more
or not? How many can the Front Army Headquarters, the First Army
Group, and the Fifteenth Army Group each make?
d. We plan to select fifty good horses from the First Army Group (the men
and guns are already complete) and thirty good horses from the Fifteenth
Army Group (the men and guns are already complete) to come to the rear
to be organized into a cavalry company. Can you provide this number?
Can you add more?
e. Is Comrade Lin Biao on his way to the Central Committee?
Mao Zedong Zhou Enlai

--- Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 423-25, where it is
reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.

1. Yang Shangkun (1907-1998), a native of Sichuan, joined the Communist Party in
1926, studied in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1931, and went to Jiangxi in 1933. He
participated in the Long March and in the Zunyi Conference. At this time, he headed the
Political Department of the First Front Army, of which Peng Dehuai was the commander.
Regarding Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen, see the relevant note to the text of March 5,
1935. Regarding Xu Haidong, see the relevant note to the text of November 6,
1935. Regarding Cheng Zihua, see the relevant note to the text of November 23,
1935. Zuo Quan (1906-1942), a native of Hunan and a graduate of the Huangpu Military
Academy, had been an army commander in the Red Army during the Jiangxi period, and
participated in the Long March. At this time he was chief of staff of the First Army Group
of the First Front Army.