Issues Relating to the Current War Situation
and the Negotiations
 (October 10, 1946, 5:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M.)
To Zhou [Enlai] and Dong [Biwu], and for the information of Ye [Jianying]:1
We received your telegram sent on the 8th between 5:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M.
	 1.	 [Chen] Jiakang’s2 speech is excellent.
	 2.	 It can be clearly seen that all our current actions result from the fact that the
Guomindang is responsible for the disunity, and we are not.
	 3.	 Chiang [Kaishek]’s army is usually good at defense, but it is deficient in
offensive spirit. This reflects a contradiction between officers and soldiers in
the Guomindang army, and a lack of fighting spirit among the soldiers and
lower-level officers. Since we destroyed one regiment and one battalion of
their Sixteenth Army at the front near Huailai, their offensive force has been
blunted. Now, they are preparing to launch a second assault, transferring two
divisions of the Ninety-fourth Army (minus one regiment and one battalion)
from Mentougou to the areas south of Huailai as well as one of the two divisions of the Fifty-third Army from Yanqing to join the front at Huailai, while
at the same time bringing one brigade from the Northeast to concentrate its
forces at Changping and prepare a second assault. In addition, the Thirteenth
Army will attack Weichang and march toward Guyuan, and one unit of Fu
Zuoyi’s3 army will move to Zhangbei. Chiang [Kaishek] has proposed a tenday armistice solely for the purpose of facilitating their troop movements
and preventing us from launching a counterattack during these ten days.
	 4.	 The assault of Chiang’s army is about to reach its peak everywhere, and
after that he will not be able to attack again. We can then immediately seek out their weak points and destroy their vital forces. Thereafter, we will be
able to gradually shift to a counterattack and regain the places we have lost
(although in the immediate future we will lose a few more places). Such a
possibility has already clearly emerged.
	 5.	 In July, August, and September we destroyed a total of twenty-five brigades
of Chiang’s regular army (including Yan Xishan’s4 troops). In the next three
or four months, we must strive to destroy twenty-five more brigades.
	 6.	 The current negotiations are unrelated to military matters, and the question
of cooperation has not arisen. All you have to do is educate the masses and
make it very clear that we should not be held responsible for the disunity.
We must resolutely disclose the fraud carried out by the United States and
the Guomindang, and not urge Marshall and [John] Leighton Stuart5 to stay
when they talk about withdrawing from mediation. We should consider in the
near future withdrawing from the Office [for Military Mediation in Beiping]
(it seems better if we raise this point after winter, because neither side has
any intention of fighting major battles during the winter in the Northeast, and
the Beiping Office would still be of some use during this period).
	 7.	 The temporary armistice in the Northeast will continue for a certain period
because Chiang needs to move some of his troops to attack Rehe (one division of his Seventy-first Army) and the [Bei]ping-Sui[yuan railway] (his
mobile force plus one brigade). We shall now launch a retaliatory operation,
take Xifeng, and fight a few more battles. In the Northeast as a whole, however, we should continue to maintain a generally peaceful attitude. But do
not reveal any of this to outsiders.
A B6

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Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 517–19, 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 Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Zhou Enlai and Dong Biwu (1886–1975, native of Hubei) were
the Party representatives in Shanghai. Ye Jianying was serving as the Communist Party
member in the Beiping Office for Military Mediation.

2.  Chen Jiakang (1913–1970, native of Hubei) was a member of the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the Nanjing Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party and spokesperson on
current affairs for the Party’s Shanghai Office.

3.  Fu Zuoyi was commander of the Guomindang army’s Twelfth War Zone.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-234

4.  Yan Xishan was commander of the Guomindang army’s Second War Zone.

5.  George Marshall in December 1945 became a special envoy of the United States to
China in an effort to mediate between the Guomindang government and the Communist
Party. He returned to the United States in August 1946 after the negotiations were declared
a failure. John Leighton Stuart began serving as American ambassador to China on July
11, 1946.

6.  Here as elsewhere, we have substituted the letters A and B for the characters jia and
yi. Since our source indicates that Mao drafted this text on behalf of the Central Committee, A and B may stand for the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission.