Resolutely and Thoroughly Annihilate the Shi Yousan Troops[1]

(February 3, 1940)

Regarding the Shi Yousan troops, a policy of resolute and thorough annihilation should be adopted; the policy of striving to win them over is no longer applicable.[2]

[1] This is the main content of a telegram from Mao Zedong and Wang Jiaxiang to Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Liu Bocheng, and Deng Xiaoping.
[2] In late January 1940, the Kuomintang Shi Yousan troops, in Nangong, Weixian, Zaoqiang, Qinghe, and other places in southern Hebei, successively surrounded and disarmed two companies of the Eighth Route Army's Eastward Advance Column and one platoon of the Youth Column. They then besieged the 2nd Regiment of the Eastward Advance Column, the Qinghe County Contingent, and other units, and prepared to seize the anti-Japanese base area in southern Hebei.