Chongqing Situation Grave; Xiang Ying and Zeng Shan Should Not Leave the Army for the Time Being[1]

(December 18, 1940)

Comrades Ye and Xiang:

A. The situation in Chongqing is grave. Comrades Xiang and Zeng[2] should not leave the army for the time being.
B. Xiyi and some other personnel are to go north. Please make arrangements quickly.
C. Secret documents must be burned, and strict precautions must be taken against surprise attacks.

Mao, Zhu, Wang

December 18

[1] On December 9, 1940, Chiang Kai-shek peremptorily ordered all the New Fourth Army units south of the Yangtze River to move north of the river by December 31 of that year. On December 10, he sent a secret telegram to Ku Chu-tung, Commander of the Third War Zone south of the Yangtze, ordering him to wipe out the New Fourth Army units there if they failed to comply with the order to cross the river northward by December 31. This telegram was sent by Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Wang Jiaxiang, Vice-Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, to Ye Ting, Commander of the New Fourth Army, and Xiang Ying, its Deputy Commander.
[2] Zeng, i.e., Zeng Shan, then Deputy Secretary of the Southeast Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.