Introduction, Mao soon discovered that Stalin's perspective on the Xi'an Incident was
very different from his.


7. The Chinese term is kou, literally, "kowtow."


Proposal That the Northeastern Army Assure
the Occupation of the Two Strategic
Key Points, Lanzhou and Hanzhong


(December 13, 1936, in the afternoon)¹


Elder Brother Li Yi:2


Regarding the overall military policy, we propose the following points. Please
consider them and give us a reply.


1. There is a great possibility that Liu Zhi will command the Henan group to
occupy Tongguan.3 It seems that you ought to bring this to the attention of elder
brother Yang Huchen and advise him to use his main force to block Liu's forces
firmly at Tongguan.


2. In order to assure the occupation of the two strategic points of Lanzhou
and Hanzhong and to keep Chiang's Gansu troops in two separate groups, we
propose that:
a. Yu [Xuezhong]'s entire army be used to consolidate the defense of
Lanzhou and carefully guard against attacks by Mao Bingwen and the
Northwest Supplies Brigade.
b. The two armies of Wang Yizhe and Dong Yingbin among our elder
brother's troops and the cavalry army be concentrated along the Pingliang-Huining line so as to push Chiang's troops to the one side of southern
Gansu, obstruct and stop the southward advance of Hu [Zongnan], Zeng
[Wanzhong], Guan [Linzhong], and Mao [Bingwen], and hand over to the
Red Army the task of defending Haiyuan and Guyuan.
c. The Red Army deploy its main force to the Haiyuan-Guyuan region and
use a powerful unit to follow Hu's troops in the Yuwang region so as to
coordinate our action with our elder brother's forces at Jingning and


We have translated this document from Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 681-82,
P.M.
where it is reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.



--- Notes



1. Here Mao indicates the time of day using a character which means between 3 and 5



2. I.e., Zhang Xueliang



3. Liu Zhi (1892-1971) was a native of Jiangxi and graduated from the Baoding
Military Academy. Beginning with the Northern Expedition, he served in many different
posts under the command of He Yingqin and Chiang Kaishek. On December 12, he had
been appointed chairman of a commission to reorganize troops in Jiangsu, Anhui, and
Henan.