To the Special Committee of Shenfu and Wang Zhaoxiang:
Comrade [Peng] Dehuai:

1. The Japanese bandits are attacking Yanmenguan. Our First and Second Front
Armies have already moved to northern Shanxi to engage in the War of Resistance.
Yan Xishan is now caught in an unresolvable contradiction: if he refuses to fight a
battle, he will be unable to respond to the popular masses in Shanxi, while if he
does fight, there is no guarantee whatsoever that he will be victorious. Your judgment that he will give up Pingxingguan, and that his determination to fight a decisive battle at Shahe is wavering, is absolutely correct. None of his subordinates
has resolution, and his troops have lost their fighting capacity. It is possible that he
will be forced to fight a decisive battle in the area of Yanmenguan, Pingxingguan,
and Shahe, but the general trend will not remain favorable for long. Regardless of
who wins this decisive battle, the situation in Taiyuan and all of North China is
extremely precarious. It seems that a few comrades still do not have a clear understanding of this kind of objective and inevitable trend, and are led astray by the
present temporary situation. If this kind of view remains unchanged, like Yan
Xishan, the Red Army will fall into a passive position, in which it can only go
through the motions of defending itself, and will take a beating and be crushed one
by one. Today the Red Army plays no deciding role in any decisive battle. Nevertheless, there is one excellent kind of warfare at which the Red Army is particularly adept, and in which it can definitely play a deciding role, and this type of
warfare it is good at is truly independent and self-reliant guerrilla warfare in the
mountainous regions (not mobile warfare). In order to carry out such an overall
policy, strategically there must be powerful forces positioned on the enemy's flanks,
primary importance should be given to creating base areas and mobilizing the
masses, and we must disperse our forces, rather than laying emphasis on concentrating them for combat. We will not be able to conduct mass work if the stress is
on concentrating our forces for combat, nor can we concentrate our forces for
fighting if the emphasis is on conducting mass work; we cannot accomplish both

2. Zhaoxiang and other comrades should prepare to lead the main force to leave
Wuzhai and Shenchi within five days, and support the Second Front Army in promoting the anti-Japanese guerrilla war. You should leave a third of your forces,
plus local armed forces, to defend the soviet areas and the ferries.

3. Notify us quickly regarding your preparations.

Mao [Zedong]

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 53-54, where it is reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives. It also appears in Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 2, pp.
19-20.