Telegram to Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi[1]

(August 21, 1946)

You should make use of the present time to swiftly capture Huo and Ling, and create a battlefield, so as to facilitate future operations.

[1] This is the main content of a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China concerning the situation in which the main force of Hu Zongnan’s Kuomintang troops, the 1st Division, the 27th Division, and other units totaling five brigades, were advancing northward. Subsequently, Chen and Xie commanded the 4th Column of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army and the troops of the Taiyue Military District, using a small force to block Yan Xishan’s troops moving south, while covertly concentrating the main force of three brigades between Linfen and Fushan, waiting for an opportunity to trap and annihilate Hu Zongnan’s 1st Division.