in southern Jiangsu has been constantly harassed by Leng Xin; the troops under
Guan Wenwei in northern Jiangsu have been harassed by Han Deqin; the troops
under Luo Binghui in eastern Anhui and Peng Xuefeng north of the Huai River
have been oppressed by Li Pinxian. In Pingjiang and western Henan, said army's
rearguard personnel and wounded officers and soldiers were on repeated occasions murdered in cold blood; there have been the widely known Pingjiang massacre and Queshan massacre. The wife and small children of Zhang Yunyi, said
army's chief of staff, were arrested and held in confinement. These are all actual
incidents that have taken place over the past few years and are still fresh in people's
memories. Things have become further aggravated in the past few months. Large-scale offensives have been launched in northern Jiangsu, eastern Anhui, Central
Hubei, and so on, under the name of "bandit suppression," and there has long been
a foul atmosphere throughout the whole Yangzi and Huaihe area. On top of all
this, on October 19 of last year He Yingqin and Bai Chongxi sent a telegram, as
general and deputy general chiefs of staff, to Commander Zhu [De] and Deputy
Commander Peng [Dehuai] of the Eighteenth Group Army and to army commanders
Ye [Ting] and Xiang [Ying] of the New Fourth Army, ignoring actual facts and
stressing what they called army politics and army discipline, in order to compel all
units of the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army to gather north of the
Yellow River by a fixed deadline. Taking into consideration the interests of the
whole nation, Zhu, Peng, Ye, and Xiang agreed to move the New Fourth Army
troops stationed south of the Yangzi northward and gave their reply in the telegram of the 9th. By the end of December, Army Commander Ye [Ting] and others
of the New Fourth Army had made all necessary preparations for moving the
troops. Just as they were about to set out, unexpectedly the Guomindang's organs
for shaping public opinion all over openly disseminated the news that these troops
were moving north, an act tantamount to giving away secrets to the enemy. At the
same time we heard that the authorities issued orders to Gu Zhutong and Shangguan
Yunxiang to attack, and told them to "round up the whole gang in one fell swoop
and capture alive Ye and Xiang." Outwardly, however, they said they had ordered
all troops to assist in the passage, that no obstacles would be created, and so on.
Believing that the word of the responsible authorities was to be trusted, on the 4th
of this month Army Commander Ye and others resolutely began the move of approximately ten thousand men of the New Fourth Army's headquarters and its
troops. It was altogether unexpected that they should be attacked just after they
had begun their move. When they reached the area of Maolin Village, between
Jingxian and Taiping, they suddenly met with a large-scale encirclement and attack by Tang Yunshan's Fifty-second Division, Rong Jiwu's 108th Division, Duan
Maolin's Seventy-ninth Division, Fan Ziying's 144th Division, Zhan Zhongyan's
Fortieth Division, Tian Zhongyi's New Seventh Division, and Wang Jingxiu's
Tenth Division, a total of more than seventy thousand men, all under the command of Gu Zhutong and Shangguan Yunxiang, who advanced separately and
attacked together. Army Commander Ye and his men were forced into battle in

haste and had to try and find a way out while in the midst of fighting; at the same
time, they sent a telegram to the authorities demanding an explanation. Throughout the seven days and nights in which these troops were surrounded and engaged
in bloody battle, the authorities maintained the fiction that they had questioned Gu
Zhutong by telegram about what was going on and the lie that they had ordered Gu
to lift the siege and offer passage. In fact they had instead secretly ordered their
forces to carry out the plan of rounding up and annihilation. By the 13th, the fierce
battle had gone on for eight days and nights, and our New Fourth Army, which
was attacked while following orders to move northward, had run out of ammunition and food supplies and was sacrificed completely, thereby fulfilling the goal of
the authorities to round up and annihilate! Yesterday, on the 17th, the Military
Commission of the national government formally issued a general order declaring
the New Fourth Army to be traitorous and directly acknowledging that the southern Anhui New Fourth Army's forces had been exterminated, that said army's
commander, Ye Ting, had been wounded and captured, that Deputy Army Commander Xiang Ying was in flight and was being apprehended, that the New Fourth
Army's designation had been cancelled, that Ye Ting would be handed over to a
military court for trial, and so on. With this grand and stately document, their true
colors of plotting to destroy the anti-Japanese forces have been revealed nakedly
before the people of the whole country. It just so happened that on that same day,
the 17th, Japan's Domei Press sent a startling dispatch from Nanjing. Said communication is summarized as follows: "The Chongqing government has issued a
strict order for the Communist forces in the areas south of the lower reaches of the
Yangzi to move north of the river before December 26. To make the Communist
forces move north of the river sooner, the chief commanding officer of the Third
War Zone has started to surround and attack the New Fourth Army and the other
Communist armies near Dongliu. Some of the Communist forces have retreated
north of the river in disorder on the 10th from near Digang. Since the 14th, the
various troops of the Japanese Army have also mounted attacks on the New Fourth
Army near Xuancheng and Jintan, and the pacification forces of the 'National
Government' are assisting the Japanese Army in battle." At this point, the true
story of a tragedy, that of a huge scheme to wipe out the anti-Japanese troops and
destroy dissident forces, has become clearly known to all. What was called "moving north within the deadline" was actually nothing other than a trap to snare our
army into encirclement to be annihilated. What was called "army discipline and
state law" was but an excuse for designating them as traitors and handing them
over to the court after the round-up and annihilation. All their glib and high-sounding
talk in the past about strict army discipline and sacred laws of the state amounts to
no more than a lie to cover up their destruction of the dissident forces and murderous schemes. The New Fourth Army is an anti-Japanese army and its move north
was an action taken in compliance with orders, yet it met with the tragic fate of
being rounded up and annihilated. Where, then, is army discipline? And what of
the laws of the state? There is really no room for argument here, as the one who


gave the order is the one who violated it and the one who made the laws is the one
who trampled upon them.
Just when the New Fourth Army south of the Yangzi was being brutally attacked and exterminated, the authorities again ordered Tang Enbo, Li Pinxian, Li
Xianzhou, Wang Zhonglian,2 and Han Deqin, with troops of more than two hundred thousand men, to mount a large-scale offensive against the New Fourth Army
north of the river. Thus the plan of "striking them all in one fell swoop" was not
limited to the areas south of the river. In the Northwest, at the same time, the
troops surrounding the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region also numbered more
than two hundred thousand men. The special agents organ in Xi'an, in addition to
blockading and harassing the administrative office of the Eighth Route Army, a
few days ago actually seized the water carrier for the office and coerced him into
going back and putting poison in the drinking water. Meanwhile, the military police department in Guilin compelled the administrative offices of the Eighth Route
Army and the New Fourth Army to retreat immediately. As for Communist Party
members and other progressive elements in various places throughout the country, they have long ago started making investigations and namelists in preparation
for another "strike at them all in one fell swoop," so are they not probably just
about ready to get down to it?! Judging from these various facts, the past tragedy
of the civil war might be repeated, and there is a possibility that the valiant cause
over the past three and a half years of the national war against Japan could be
abandoned in midstream. The shameless crime of annihilating the New Fourth
Army in southern Anhui is but part of the entire scheme that has been exposed and
only the beginning of the open fulfillment of the entire scheme of the pro-Japanese
conspirators and the anti-Communist diehards to replace the War of Resistance
with civil war, and to replace unity with splitting. This crime of boosting the enemy and absolute lawlessness will not be tolerated by the hundreds of thousands
of our Communist Party members, nor by the hundreds of thousands of officers
and men of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, and neither will the
soldiers and civilians and patriotic fellow-countrymen throughout the nation, and
all who champion justice throughout the world, sit back and do nothing. We appeal to all patriotic soldiers and civilians and fellow-countrymen all over the nation, and we call upon fair-minded people throughout the world who sympathize
with the cause of the Chinese nation's liberation to unite as one and struggle together toward the following goals:
1. Severely punish the chief culprits who plotted to exterminate the New Fourth
Army troops in southern Anhui!
2. Set free all captured officers and soldiers of the New Fourth Army and protect the lives and safety of Army Commander Ye and other military and political
cadres!

3. Offer compensation to the New Fourth Army officers and men killed and
wounded in southern Anhui, and to their families!
4. Stop the war of suppressing the Communists waged by hundreds of thousands of troops in Central China!
5. Demolish the anti-Communist blockade lines in the Northwest!
6. Stop the criminal acts of brutally murdering and arresting Communist Party
members and other patriotic personages all over the country, and release all patriotic political prisoners!
7. Eliminate He Yingqin and all other pro-Japanese elements!
8. Oppose all schemes and plots that undermine the War of Resistance and that
undermine unity!
9. Strictly reorganize the battle array against Japan and carry the War of Resistance against Japan through to the end!
We are convinced that the majority of the soldiers, civilians, and fellow-countrymen from all parties and factions as well as those without party affiliation will
value the destiny of the nation and country above all else, stand with us on the
same frontlines to oppose the small number of pro-Japanese elements and other
scum of the nation and frustrate their shameless scheme of fighting internally and
pacifying externally and of capitulation and selling out their country. The Chinese
nation is faced with the most serious crisis since the start of the War of Resistance.
We Communists as well as the majority of soldiers and civilians throughout the
country understand full well the responsibility we should assume and the measures we should take in this adverse and perilous situation.

Circular from Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and
Wang Jiaxiang Concerning the
Circumstances of Chiang Kaishek's
Orders to Attack Us in All War Zones

(January 18, 1941)

1. Chiang Kaishek has declared: "Zhu [De] and Ye [Jianying] have not obeyed
the orders to move the troops under their command, so we should combine the
forces of the Party, the government, and the army and compel them to submit.
Only we must prevent these forces from fleeing helter-skelter toward the Dabie
mountains and western Henan, which would upset the overall situation. We should
stay clear of the difficult and cope with the easy, stay clear of the main force and
strike at the weak points, and find opportunities to destroy them," and so on.
2. He Yingqin has declared: "The New Fourth Army south of the Yangzi, defying orders, has not moved northward, and Commander Gu [Zhutong] has received
orders to send troops to destroy it altogether. It is estimated that more than ten
thousand have been killed and more than two thousand captured. Ye Ting, commander of said army, was wounded, and Xiang Ying, its deputy army commander,
killed in battle. Strict defense should be mounted against the alien army's retaliating from Shaanxi and Shanxi," and so on.
3. Chiang has ordered all war zones to start an extermination campaign [against
us]. Li Zongren has appointed Tang Enbo commander-in-chief of the northern
Huaihe zone, Li Pinxian commander-in-chief of the southern Huaihe zone, Wang
Zhonglian commander-in-chief of the Central Hubei zone, and Feng Zhi'an¹ commander-in-chief of the western Xiangyang zone, and ordered them to start attacking and to finish up within two months.

To Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi from
Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Wang Jiaxiang
Concerning Political, Military, and
Organizational Measures That
Should Be Adopted

(January 19, 1941)

(1) The overall policy of the Central Committee will be sent separately. (2) Food
is being collected in the border areas. (3) Under present conditions it is very
difficult to expand munitions factories. The construction of a third acid factory
is under negotiation.¹ (4) Chiang's plan is to defeat our forces one by one, attacking the New Fourth Army first and then the Eighth Route Army. No attack is
likely for now in the northwest, and we have no reason to rouse Hu Zongnan's
attention, so no new military deployments shall be made in the border areas. (5)
In North China, please follow the steps prescribed in our original plan, except
that the urgency is to be increased. (6) In Central China we plan to carry on
protracted guerrilla warfare, on the principle that it is to our advantage and to the
disadvantage of the anti-Communist forces. (7) By declaring the New Fourth
Army rebels and putting Ye Ting on trial, Chiang Kaishek seems to have made up
his mind to break with our Party. The background influence seems to be mostly
from Germany and Japan. We have decided to take the necessary political, military, and organizational measures. Politically, we shall fully expose Chiang's
scheme (though making no mention of his name for the time being). Refer to the
editorial and the statement made by the spokesman of the Chinese Communist
Party in *Xin Zhonghua bao* on this. Only a defensive posture will continue to be
taken so as to mobilize the masses of the people under the slogan of persisting in
the war against Japan and opposing the civil war. Militarily, we shall first fight
defensive warfare and fight our way, when necessary, to Gansu and Sichuan.
Organizationally, we plan to make preparations to remove our various administrative offices.

--- Notes

Our source for this text is *Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan*, Vol. 6, p. 287, where it is reproduced
from *Wannan shibian*.

1. Regarding Feng Zhi'an, see above the text of November 4, 1940.


Our source for this text is *Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan*, Vol. 6, p. 289, where it is reproduced
from *Wannan shibian*.

1. This sentence is not altogether clear, but it apparently refers to the preparation of acids
to be used in making explosives.

2. At this time, Wang Zhonglian (1903– ) was the commander of the Eighty-fifth
Army.