Operational Policies for Troops
Entering Henan
(July 15, 1945)
To the Henan Regional Party Committee:
1. After our army entered Henan, it made distinguished accomplishments in
terms of fighting the enemy, mobilizing the masses, and building the Party and
administration. Your leadership is correct.
2. Your operational policy from now on is to defend on the west and attack on
the east and the south. (This means taking a defensive policy toward the area
occupied by diehard troops and an offensive orientation toward the area occupied
by the enemy.) In time you will completely integrate with Taiyue and Taihang on
the north, with units crossing the New Yellow River1 westward from Hebei,
Shandong, and Henan on the east, and the Fifth Division2 on the south. We can
then gradually recruit millions of the masses, expand the militia, guerrilla, and
main forces (if finances permit), and build up dependable military, political, and
economic foundations to make all preparations within one year for a major attack
by Hu Zongnan. If we do not take the time to finish the above tasks, our Party in
Henan will be defeated. We must anticipate this point.
3. You must rely on your current strength and self-reliance to complete the
above tasks. You must not hope for the center, Taihang, or Taiyue to provide
further assistance in military force, finances, or cadres. It is necessary and
beneficial to make the above tasks clear to all responsible cadres and to rely on
yourselves in concert with the people of Henan to solve all problems without
external aid.
4. You, of course, have various advantageous conditions to complete the above
tasks. Nonetheless, you will inevitably run into various kinds of internal and

external difficulties. You should anticipate and spiritually prepare for this. Then
you can implement various kinds of cautious, resolute, and appropriate steps and
implement various kinds of correct military policies, policies of resolutely
mobilizing the masses, financial policies based on rent reduction, interest
reduction, and the development of the public and private economy, and internal
policies of unifying the various parts of the army and the cadres, especially local
cadres, in order gradually to overcome internal and external difficulties.
5. You should establish close connections with the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Central Bureau (which will be established soon) and the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Border Region Party Committee and inform them and us of your various
activities.
The Central Committee
Notes

--- Notes

Our source for this document is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 442–43. where it is reproduced from Mao
Zedong’s handwritten manuscript.

1. On the New Yellow River, see above, note to the text of July 14, 1945.

2. Referring to the Fifth Division of the New Fourth Army, with Li Xiannian and Zheng Weisan as its
commander and commissar, respectively.