The Task of the New Fourth Army Is Not
to Develop Toward the South But to
Sustain Its Present Base Area
(July 6, 1942)
Present Base Areas
Zeng, Lai, Chen, and Liu:1
Your telegram of the seventeenth has been received.
1. The July 7th Manifesto2 has been broadcast, and no doubt you have heard it.
2. Before long the present situation in the Zhejiang theater will pass and the
next move of the Japanese aggressors will be difficult to predict, but you should
be prepared to deal with the enemy’s “mopping up.” The task of our army is not
to develop toward the south but to sustain its present base area. This was made
clear in my last telegram replying to Comrade Chen Yi.
Mao Zedong
Notes
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, p. 680, which is based on the original text held in
the Central Archives.
1. Zeng Shan (1899–1972) was serving as the director of the Organization Department of the Party Central
China Bureau Committee. Lai Chuanzhu (1910–1965) was chief of staff of the New Fourth Army. Chen Yi

(1901–1972), a leading Chinese Communist Party general and Liu Shaoqi were the senior Party officials with
the New Fourth Army.
2. “Manifesto of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on the Occasion of the Fourth
Anniversary of the War of Resistance” was published on July 7, 1941; translated in Vol. VII, pp. 770–75.