Agree to the Deployment of the Northern Expeditionary Army to Strike Enemy Reinforcements[1]

(January 7, 1936)

Liu and Song:

A. In order to provide ample room for maneuver in ambushing the enemy, we agree that our Northern Expeditionary Army should move toward Hanjiacha[2] and Shipaizi. If the enemy fortifications there are already largely completed, then the assault should be changed to a siege, in preparation for striking the enemy’s relief forces; if the enemy has already withdrawn, then advance directly on Hengshan to draw out enemy reinforcements.

B. When besieging enemy forts and towns, their lines of communication must be severed, so as to hasten the enemy’s dispatch of reinforcements. When striking enemy reinforcements, regardless of their size, the main force must be deployed to carry out a double envelopment on both flanks (naturally there must be a main assault direction), and the enemy’s line of retreat must be effectively cut off, in order to annihilate them in one stroke and let none slip through the net.

Mao and Zhou
7th, 9:00

[1] This is a telegram from Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to Liu Zhidan, commander of the 28th Army of the Red Army, and Song Renqiong, its political commissar. Beginning in December 1935, Jing Yuexiu, commander of the 86th Division of the Kuomintang army, led his troops in extensively harassing the northern part of the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area, attempting to raid Wayaobao and seize Ansai, Anding, and other places. In order to eliminate the enemy invading the Soviet Area and consolidate the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area, the Northwest Revolutionary Military Commission formed the Northern Expeditionary Army (also known as the Northern Route Army) with the 28th Army of the Red Army, the 78th Division, and a cavalry regiment. The Northern Expeditionary Army repelled the enemy’s incursions on the northern front and besieged Hengshan County town.

[2] Hanjiacha, a village located in the central part of Hengshan County, Shaanxi Province.