(October 15, 1938)

To the comrades in the Hebei-Rehe Region, as well as Comrades Song and Deng:¹

1. You should persevere in the hard struggle in the Hebei-Rehe-Chahar Border
Region, create a base area, train backbone troops, be prepared for a protracted
[struggle], overcome all the difficulties you meet with in the course of development with the greatest determination, and fight to the end for the accomplishment
of the above tasks.
2. Consolidate the troops, use all effective methods to raise the confidence of
victory of the troops in a protracted War of Resistance, raise their conscious political discipline, and raise the political activism of the commanders. Establish the
work of the national salvation office and strengthen its leadership, accept the participation of all the soldiers in the company so that they will be able to assist in
work such as the management of education, enforcing discipline, and eliminating
the bad elements.
3. Develop the Party on a big scale, recruit progressive elements into the Party,
and set up Party branches and Party activity in the company, so that it becomes the
core leading the struggle in the company. Any neglect of the development and
work of the Party is most harmful to the current task of stabilizing and raising the
fighting capacity of the forces.
4. Under the present circumstances of a lack of cadres, you may transfer more
than one-third of the new troops to the area of eastern and western Zaitang² and
Wei xian, and assign them to the units of Yang Chengwu and Wang Zhen,³ who
will be responsible for consolidating and reorganizing them. Nie [Rongzhen] should
designate Yang and Wang's troops to take responsibility for screening during the
transfer, and Song and Deng should send out troops to cover and escort them.
5. Song and Deng's units, as well as the local forces left in eastern Hebei, should
be commanded and led by Song and Deng. On the basis of the aforementioned
tasks and principles of consolidation, you should sustain the long-term hard struggle
in the Hebei-Rehe-Chahar Border Region and create base areas. We may send a
few battalion and regimental commanders and ten company commanders to work
with you there.

Mao [Zedong]
Peng [Dehuai]
Zhu [De]
Wang [Jiaxiang]
Hu [Fu] [Liu Shaoqi]

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 414-15, where it is reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.
1. Song and Deng are Song Shilun and Deng Hua, who were at this time the commander
and political commissar of the Fourth Column of the Eighth Route Army.
2. These districts have now been incorporated into the city of Beijing.
3, Yang Chengwu and Wang Zhen were at this time commander and political commissar respectively of the First Branch Army of the Eighth Route Army in the Shanxi-Chahar-
Hebei Base Area, and of the Thirty-fifth Brigade of the 120th Army of the Eighth Route
Army.