For the Time Being, Do Not Engage in Battle
at Dongming
(May 21, 1946)
To Liu [Bocheng] and Deng [Xiaoping]:1
Siping has been lost. To avoid giving the diehards any excuse to launch a large-scale conflict, do not engage in battle at Dongming for the time being, but prepare to carry out intelligence gathering on places such as Dongming, Changyuan,
Kaocheng,2 Yongnian, and Liaocheng.
The Central Committee
5–7 A.M. on the 21st
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, p. 232, 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 of the Chinese Communist Party. Liu Bocheng was commander and Deng Xiaoping was political
commissar, respectively, of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region. On the
morning of May 20, 1946, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping sent a telegram to the Central
Committee in which they proposed  focusing on the main forces of the Seventh Column to
capture Dongming and expanding in the direction of Changheng. On the same day, Mao
Zedong drafted a telegram on behalf of the Central Committee agreeing to this measure
and inquiring into the possible conditions for Yongnian and Liaocheng. The telegram of
May 21 made changes to the original deployment for attacking Dongming and other places.
2.  Kaocheng county was combined with Lanfeng county to form Henan’s Lankao
county in 1954.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-151