Reply to Peng Dehuai’s Telegram[1]

(January 25, 1936)

The Standing Committee has considered your opinion and holds that advancing northward offers no way out.

The only course is to take Yan Xishan as the opponent, with the basic operational policy of advancing steadily and striking sure blows, developing along the Yellow River, and maneuvering to draw in Sun Chu[2] so as to achieve the elimination of the remnant enemy forces in northern Shaanxi. Rapid field advances deep into the enemy’s rear are to be carried out only when there is no risk of large-scale dispersal and withdrawal being cut off. At the same time, ensure that a second batch of boats is available for the return crossing of the river.

[1] This is the main content of the telegram sent by Mao Zedong and Luo Fu (Zhang Wentian) in reply to Peng Dehuai concerning the operational policy of the First Front Army of the Red Army.
[2] Sun Chu was then serving as commander of the Zhengtai Railway Protection Army of the Kuomintang’s Shanxi-Suiyuan Army, commander of the Third Defense Sector of the Northwest “Bandit Suppression” General Headquarters, and general commander of “Communist Suppression” in northern Shaanxi, leading five brigades of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army in a “suppression offensive” against the northern Shaanxi Soviet Area west of the Yellow River.