Ye [Ting] and Xiang [Ying]:

We are in receipt of your telegram of early morning on the 5th. It is not advisable
that you stay long in Maolin. As soon as you have found out about the situation in
the area around Xuancheng and Ningguo, it would be appropriate to move eastward. It is to your advantage to break through the encirclement lines of the diehard
armies before they have completed their deployment.

Mao [Zedong] Zhu [De]

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, p. 608, where it is reproduced
from Mao's handwritten manuscript, preserved in the Central Archives.
1. It is indicated by a conventional character that this telegram was dispatched between 7:00
and 9:00 A.M.