Organize a Field Army to Conduct the Jin-Pu Campaign[1]

(October 19, 1945)

Luo and Li, forward immediately to Chen and Li, and inform the Central China Bureau:

Apart from doing everything possible to organize the sea crossing[2] from Shandong, the Jin-Pu Campaign[3] to be organized by Chen and Li is a matter of overall strategic importance. It is hoped that Chen and Li will plan meticulously and organize a field army of at least 35,000 to 40,000 men to seize a section of the railway at an appropriate location between Xuzhou and Jinan and expand the occupied area to the north and south. Then choose the right moment to wipe out one or two divisions of Chiang Kai-shek’s troops and fight a good initial victorious battle. After that, successively defeat the diehard troops one by one, and prepare to annihilate 40,000 to 50,000 diehard troops in order to resolve the problem. In addition, assign the Bohai Military District the task of coordinating with Central Hebei to occupy a section of the railway between Dezhou and Tianjin and resolutely wipe
out the Chiang troops advancing north. This shall serve as a secondary direction of operations.

--- Notes

[1] This was a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to Luo Ronghuan, commander and concurrently political commissar of the Shandong Military District of the Eighth Route Army, and Li Zuopeng, director of the Staff Office, to be forwarded immediately to Chen Yi, commander of the New Fourth Army, and Li Yu, deputy political commissar of the Shandong Military District, and to inform the Central China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

[2] This refers to the operation in which troops of the Shandong Military District of the Eighth Route Army crossed the Bohai Sea to march into the Northeast.

[3] In October 1945, taking advantage of the fact that the main force of the Shandong Military District of the Eighth Route Army had marched into the Northeast and the New Fourth Army units entering Shandong had not yet arrived, the Kuomintang troops advanced northward along the Jin-Pu Railway from Xuzhou, entered Jinan under the cover of Japanese and puppet troops, and together with the puppet troops occupied the railway line and some towns in the Lunan Liberated Area. Their aim was first to control the Nanjing-Jinan section of the Jin-Pu Railway and then to push toward Beiping, Tianjin, and the Northeast. In order to cut the Jin-Pu Railway, prevent the Kuomintang troops from advancing northward, and strive to wipe out part or most of them, the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee ordered the main force of the New Fourth Army advancing north into Shandong and part of the main force of the Shandong Military District to form the Jin-Pu Front Field Army and organize a campaign between Xuzhou and Jinan on the Jin-Pu Railway. The campaign was officially launched on October 18, and by January 13, 1946, a total of more than 28,000 Kuomintang troops had been wiped out, over 200 kilometers of the railway had been brought under control, and the overland route for the Kuomintang troops to advance into Tianjin and the Northeast had been cut off.