Yang and Su’s Column Should Replace Its
Losses and Then Leave for Jinzhou and
Shenyang
 (November 3, 1945, 3:00 P.M.)
To Liu [Bocheng], Deng [Xiaoping], Bo [Yibo], Zhang [Jichun], and Li [Da], and
for the information of Yang [Dezhi] and Su [Zhenhua]:1
	 1.	 We received your telegram of 3:00 P.M. on November 2, which pleased us
greatly.2
	 2.	 It is essential to rest and reconsolidate for ten days.
	 3.	 Yang and Su’s column should rapidly replace its losses, and it should add
as many as ten regiments, or 20,000 men. In ten days, it should leave for
Jinzhou and Shenyang and take part in the campaign of great importance in
the Northeast.
	 4.	 You should organize a new column to replace that of Yang and Su.
	 5.	 As regards the next operation, if it is easy to attack Li Zhengxian’s3 Sixteenth
Army in Gaoyi, then it will be politically most advantageous and also most
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 119–20, where it is
appears, under a different title, in Mao Zedong junshi wenxuan. Neibuben, p. 382.
helpful to support the campaign in the Northeast and to annihilate the enemy.
If it is not easy to attack this army but easier to strike to the south, go ahead
and do so. Please reconnoiter, consider this, and inform us by telegram.
The Military Commission

reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives. It also

--- Notes

1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Military Commission.
Liu Bocheng was commander of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan (Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu) Military Region, Deng Xiaoping was political commissar, Bo Yibo was first deputy political commissar, Zhang Jichun was second deputy political commissar and chairman of the
Political Department, and Li Da was chief-of-staff. Yang Dezhi (1911–1994, born in Liling
county, Hunan Province) and Su Zhenhua (1912–1979, native of Hunan) were commander
and political commissar, respectively, of the First Column of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army.

2.  The telegram from Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping stated that their army had annihilated the Guomindang’s 106th Division in its entirety (capturing the division commander)
and a unit of the 217th Division, while other portions of that division were surrounded and
being annihilated. Liu and Deng’s troops had also destroyed two units and the mountain
bombardment base of the Thirtieth Division of the Thirtieth Army and the headquarters and
four units of the Fortieth Army.

3.  Li Zhengxian (1904–1983, native of Zhejiang) was commander of the Guomindang’s Sixteenth Army.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-69