You Are Expected to Be Prepared to Handle
Any Incident1
(April 18, 1946)
To all bureaus, and for transmittal to Ye [Jianying], Rao [Shushi], and Lin [Biao]:2
In his telegram of the 16th from Chongqing,3 Zhou [Enlai] states: On the surface Chiang [Kaishek] shows a desire to compromise, which is a ruse to fool the
people, while in secret he is making military arrangements for a huge conspiracy,
and his attitude after Marshall4 arrives is as yet difficult to determine, and so forth.
You are expected to prepare for all possible contingencies to deal with whatever
happens. The main persons responsible for each strategic area may not leave their
units without the permission of the Central Committee.
The Central Committee
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Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 169–70, where it is
reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Committee.
2.  Ye Jianying (1897–1986, native of Guangdong) was the Chinese Communist Party’s
representative in the Beiping Office for Military Mediation. Rao Shushi was the Chinese
Communist Party’s representative in the Twenty-seventh Group (Shenyang) of the Beiping
Office for Military Mediation. Lin Biao was commander-in-chief of the Northeast Democratic Allied Army.
3.  The telegram from Zhou Enlai stated that Chiang Kaishek remained two-faced and
it urged all parties to submit name-lists for the government and National Assembly and to
revise the draft constitution as soon as possible, while at the same time it called for secret
meetings. Chiang had instructed He Yingqin and Bai Chongxi to make military arrangements, and Chen Cheng (1898–1965, born in Lishui) had gone to Shanghai, which Zhou
found suspicious.
4.  George Marshall became a special envoy of the United States to China in December
1945 in an effort to mediate between the Guomindang government and the Communist
Party. He returned to the United States in August 1946 after declaring the failure of the
negotiations.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-113