The Fighting at Yetai Mountain Has Expanded[1]

(July 25, 1945)

[Yan'an, July 25, via Xinhua News Agency] News from the Guanzhong sub-region: The fighting at Yetai Mountain has expanded. In addition to the 59th Provisional Division of the 36th Army, the frontal assault units of Chiang Kai-shek’s forces have added another division. According to a report from our scouts, the additional troops are units of the 16th Army transferred from the Henan front. Soldiers of the 36th Army who have fled to our side say they have many new types of weapons, sent by the United States, among which there is one called a rocket launcher; you must take note. Yetai Mountain is an important stronghold, which Chiang Kai-shek’s forces are determined to capture, so as to penetrate deep into the Guanzhong sub-region and secure a favorable position for an offensive northward. However, the morale of our army is high, and we will absolutely not permit any reactionaries to easily intrude and massacre the people of the border region. The entire populace of the Guanzhong sub-region has been swiftly mobilized to assist the defending troops in combat, delivering tea and water, carrying the wounded, with extraordinary fervor, and they are fully confident of defeating these reactionaries.

[1] This is a news dispatch written by Mao Zedong for Xinhua News Agency. On July 21, 1945, the 59th Provisional Division and the 2nd Cavalry Division under Hu Zongnan, Commander of the Kuomintang’s First War Zone, suddenly launched an attack on Yetai Mountain in Chunhua County, Guanzhong sub-region of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. On July 23, the 3rd Reserve Division was also thrown into the attack. When writing this dispatch exposing Chiang Kai-shek’s clique’s instigation of civil war, Mao Zedong also added the subtitle “Chiang’s Forces Using U.S. Rocket Launchers.”