The General Policy for Dealing with the
Eastward Advance of Yan Xishan’s
Sixty-First Army1
(February 8, 1944)
Teng [Daiyuan] and Deng [Xiaoping]:
We have received your telegram of the sixth. (1) At present, we should strive to
obtain a peaceful political situation and not to create any disturbance. The
eastward march of the Sixty-first Army might be a provocative plan devised by
Chiang [Kaishek] and Yan [Xishan]2 to create an excuse to force us into a
conflict. (2) As for our general policy on dealing with this, apart from sending a
telegram to Yan requesting him to stop, you should order our forces in the Taiyue
area to tolerate them and not confront them. Send a letter to the Sixty-first Army
and ask them to take the entire situation into consideration and to withdraw. At
the same time, you should concentrate our forces at appropriate places to build
defensive fortifications. If they are determined to attack us, we will strike back in
the form of a counteroffensive, but try to avoid any conflict unless you have no
other choice. (3) All negotiations and military operations should be in the name
of the Dare-to-Die Corps rather than in the name of the Eighth Route Army. (4)
Please keep us continually informed of the situation there.
Mao, Zhu [De], and Peng [Dehuai]
Notes

Our source for this document is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 708–9, where it is reproduced from Mao
Zedong’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
1. This is a telegram sent by Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Peng Dehuai to Teng Daiyuan (1904–1974), chief
of staff of the Front Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, and Deng Xiaoping, political commissar of the
129th Division of the Eighth Route Army. Teng had been a Party member since 1927, a Long March veteran,
and a military leader in the base areas.
2. Yan Xishan (1883–1960) was at this time the commander-in-chief of the Second War Zone of the
Guomindang army.