Notification Regarding the Battle Experience
of Liu and Deng’s Army
(September 13, 1946)
To Zhang [Zongxun] and Luo [Ruiqing]; and for the information of Nie
[Rongzhen], He [Long], Chen [Yi], and Song [Shilun]:1
	 1.	 How is the campaign going? It is very much on our minds.
	 2.	 This time 50,000 troops under Liu and Deng2 attacked 9,000 troops from two
brigades of the enemy’s Third Division. The battle continued from dusk on
September 3 until the morning of September 6, and our forces finished off
one brigade, causing panic all along enemy lines. Another brigade was wiped
out by our forces in half a day as it tried to break through the encirclement on
the afternoon of September 6. In the morning of September 7, two brigades
of reinforcements from the Forty-seventh Division rushed to the scene and
we eliminated these two brigades in one day. In addition, we wiped out one
unit, respectively, in the Forty-first Division and the Seventy-fourth Brigade.
This experience tells us: First, it is necessary to first amass four to five times,
or at very least three times, as many troops as the enemy; at the outset, wipe
out one or two regiments of enemy troops to boost the morale of our forces
and stir up panic amongst the enemy; after this victory, wipe out a second
and third unit, eliminating them one by one. Never be too greedy and never
disperse our fighting forces. We have conveyed this point repeatedly in our
telegrams, but we do not know if you are acting in accordance with this
principle. Second, you must be prepared for five to seven days of fighting to annihilate and rout the enemy in the vicinity of Pingdiquan.3 This is because
you will have to eliminate the enemy unit by unit, and we reckon the enemy
to be tenacious. You should therefore set aside plenty of time to deal with
this enemy. If the enemy attempts to retreat to the west, then that will be a
different story.
The Military Commission

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Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 478–79, where it is
reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Military Commission to
Commander Zhang Zongxun (1908–1998, native of Shaanxi) and Political Commissar Luo
Ruiqing of the Datong Frontline Command. Nie Rongzhen was commander and political
commissar of the Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei) Military Region. He Long was com
mander of the Jin-Sui (Shanxi-Suiyuan) Military Region. Chen Yi was commander and
political commissar and Song Shilun was chief-of-staff, respectively, of the Shandong Field
Army.

2.  Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping were the commander and political commissar,
respectively, of the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu (Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan) Field Army.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-227

3.  Pingdiquan is the former name of what is now part of Jining city in Inner Mongolia.