Our Current Policy in North and
Central China
(April 1, 1940)

To Zhu [De] and Peng [Dehuai], Yang [Shangkun], Liu [Bocheng] and Deng
[Xiaoping], Xu [Xiangqian] and Zhu [Rui], Chen [Guang] and Luo [Ronghuan],
[Peng] Xuefeng, Hu Fu [Liu Shaoqi], Xiang Ying, and Chen Yi:

Our present policy in North and Central China:
1. A certain party is currently amassing a large army north of the Yellow River
and in the Luliang mountain range. Our task is to exert every effort to ease relations with them and to avoid all words or actions that would be provocative to that
party. Our army will thus hold a strictly defensive line, of deep trenches and high
ramparts, and be prepared for any contingency. Toward military provocations exercise extreme patience and do not fire back. Write a lot of letters, leaflets, and
posters that are sincere, firm, and not provocative, with the objective of creating
good feelings that will stabilize our front and restore peace and tranquility in the
Shanxi and Hebei region. Military clashes are not to occur, unless approved by the
Central Committee.
2. A certain party is currently attacking the New Fourth Army in central Hubei,
eastern Anhui, and north of the Huai River. Our New Fourth Army should firmly
and in a planned manner carry out defensive warfare. In the eastern Anhui and
north of the Huai River areas, it must hold out alone for three months and await the
arrival of reinforcements before mounting a large-scale counterattack.
3. The task of our Eighth Route Army is to transfer enough forces to go south
into Central China to reinforce the New Fourth Army, to fight back the reactionary attacks, eliminate the capitulationist anti-Communist forces, and establish a
new great anti-Japanese base area. This base will include the areas north of the
Huai River, east of the Huainan railroad, north of the Yangzi River, and west of
Dahai. Its leaders and troop forces will be coordinated under the general direction
of Zhu and Peng. Its schedule will be divided into three periods. In the first period,
one main column by rapid march will arrive in eastern Anhui in about one month.
In the second period, the 344th Brigade must arrive in the vicinity of the Huai

4. Our troops in Jiaodong, in southern Shandong, must move actively to eliminate all the most reactionary capitulationist anti-Communist forces, to expand the
anti-Japanese base area, and while fighting hard to become the central force, they
must work hard to make contact with all units that will still cooperate with us
against Japan and even with those bad units that have not yet attacked us, and not
fire a single shot at them.
5. Both in North China and in Central China, the repeated instructions of the
Central Committee to take the offensive politically, to call together all friendly
troops, to oppose civil war, to support Chiang Kaishek and attack Wang Jingwei,
to unite in the War of Resistance, must be strictly followed.
6. The overall objective is to beat back the reactionary attack, to expand the
anti-Japanese forces, to overcome the threat of capitulation, and fight to turn the
situation around for the better.
7. Concrete arrangements should be planned in all places in accordance with
this general policy.

Central Committee and
Military Affairs Commission

--- Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 537-39, where it is reproduced from Mao's handwritten original preserved in the Central Archives.
River within two months. In the third period, quite a large force of troops (no
fewer than 15,000 men) must reach the Yangzhou environs in northern Jiangsu.
The total troop strength for periods one, two, and three must be between forty
thousand and fifty thousand, for this urgent great task to be accomplished.