Make Political and Military Preparations for a
Great, Comprehensive Counterattack to
Rescue the New Fourth Army
(January 14, 1941)

Peng [Dehuai] and Zuo [Quan], He [Long] and Guan [Xiangying], Nie [Rongzhen]
and Peng [Zhen], Liu [Bocheng] and Deng [Xiaoping], Lü [Zhengcao] and Cheng
[Zihua],¹ Zhu [Rui], Chen [Guang] and Luo [Ronghuan], Hu [Fu, i.e., Liu Shaoqi]
and Chen Yi, Zhou [Enlai] and Ye [Jianying]:

1. Ye [Ting] and Xiang [Ying], following orders to lead ten thousand men of
the New Fourth Army northward, have been surrounded by seventy thousand men
sent by Chiang Kaishek in the area around Maolin, south of Jingxian. They have
been fighting a bloody battle for eight days and eight nights from the 6th to the
13th, and they are resolved to cast their lot with the whole army, live or die. Although one unit under Fu Qiutao did fight its way out of the smaller encirclement
lines during the night of the 12th, the main forces have not been able to break
through, and there is the danger of the entire army's destruction.
2. The Central Committee has decided to begin political and military preparations immediately for a comprehensive counterattack to rescue the New Fourth
Army and smash the anti-Communist high tide.
3. Aside from the fact that northern Jiangsu and Shandong have been ordered
to make all preparations immediately and await orders to annihilate Han Deqin
and Shen Honglie, and we have at the same time issued a circular telegram of the
most solemn protest and are in direct negotiations with Chiang Kaishek, all our
troops in North China must comply with the previous order² and organize reserve
forces in advance to prepare to meet the most serious incident.

Mao Zedong Zhu De Wang Jiaxiang

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 612-13, where it is reproduced from Mao's handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
1. At this time, Lü Zhengcao (1905-) was the commander of the central Hebei military
district, and Cheng Zihua (1905–1991) was the political commissar.
2. The reference is to paragraph 3 of the "Plan to Surround Han Deqin and Shen Honglie
in Reprisal for Chiang Kaishek's Massacre of the New Fourth Army in Southern Anhui,"
dated January 13 and translated above.