Letter to Fu Zuoyi¹
(August 14, 1936)
For your inspection, honorable Mr. Chairman Zuoyi:

The renown of the heroic battle of Zhuozhou² has long sounded in our ears.
Moreover, now that we are situated close by, we admire it all the more. Recently
Li Shouxin and Zhuo Shihai³ have been pressing hard towards Sui[yuan], and
Prince De is not to be outdone by Puyi, so that the performance of the Mongolian
puppet régime is truly overbearing. How can anyone sleep soundly just next to
the bed of Japanese imperialism! You, sir, are a leader of the North; are you
willing to lag behind others in your patriotism? To protect Suiyuan, to protect the
Northwest, and to protect North China is your responsibility, sir, as it is also the
responsibility of the Red Army and of the people of the whole country. What is
of vital importance today is that if we retreat, we will perish, but if we resist, we
will survive; if we harass one another, we will perish, but if we fight for the
country we will survive. For several years now your younger brother and the rest
of us have been calling on people of all walks of life throughout the country to
unite as one in resisting Japan, and to organize a government of national defense
and a unified anti-Japanese army. Fortunately, the hearts of the people are not yet
dead, those who respond grow more numerous every day, and the light of resistance against Japan and striving for survival is beginning to dawn. Recently the
Red Army has become more concentrated, and its strength has increased. If you,
sir, can resolutely fight against Japan, your younger brother and the rest of us

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, pp. 43-44, where it is reproduced
from a copy in the Central Archives.
1. Fu Zuoyi (1895-1974), zi Yisheng, was a native of Linyi, Shanxi. At this time, he
was chairman of the Guomindang Suiyuan Provincial Government and commander of the
Guomindang Thirty-fifth Army.
2. The Battle of Zhuozhou refers to the battle between Fu Zuoyi's division from
Shanxi and Feng Yuxiang's forces at Zhuozhou, Hebei, from October 1927 to January
1928. At the time, Yan Xishan's troops were attacking Feng's army, and Fu Zuoyi, the
commander of the Fourth Division, led his troops to push toward Zhili (Hebei) Province
and occupied Zhuozhou. Under a fierce siege by Feng's army, Fu's division held the city
for three months.
3. Li Shouxin (1892-1970), a native of Inner Mongolia, had capitulated to the
Japanese in 1933. In May 1936 he became chief of staff of the puppet Mongolian
Military Government, and commander of the puppet Mongolian army's First Army, under
Prince De. Zhuo Shihai is Zhuotebazhapu, who was deputy commander of the puppet
Mongolian army.
4. Zhang Jinwu is a pseudonym for Zhang Jingwu (1906-1971), a native of Lin xian,
Hunan. At this time he was the Chinese Communist Party representative sent to North
China for United Front work.
5. Han of Shandong refers to Han Fuqu (1890-1938), a native of Hebei, who was at
this time pacification commander for Shandong Province. Fu of Suiyuan refers to Fu
Zuoyi; see the note to the following text. Yan of Shanxi refers to Yan Xishan; see the note
to the text of November 30, 1935.