Expand Your Forces and Make the Capture
of the Whole of Hainan Island Your Goal
(October 30, 1946)
To Feng [Baiju], Huang [Kang], and Li [Ming]:1
We received your telegram2 of the 26th. Your views are very correct. You
should fight resolutely and expand the army and the Liberated Areas. Learn how
to assemble your main forces for mobile warfare. Strive to eliminate one battalion
or one regiment of the enemy forces at a time. At the same time, develop militia
and guerrilla forces to join your main forces in the fighting. You should make
the capture of the whole of Hainan Island your goal, with future development
toward the southern route.3 Your “repeated resolution to persist in self-defense
while counterattacking”4 is correct.
The Central Committee

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Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 534–35, 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. Feng Baiju (1903–1973, native of Hainan) was secretary of the
Central Committee’s Qiongya (now Hainan) Special Committee and also commander and
political commissar of the Qiongya Independent Guerrilla Column. Huang Kang (1909–
1995, native of Guangdong) was deputy secretary of the Central Committee’s Qiongya
Special Committee, and Li Ming (1910–1977, aka Lin Liming, native of Guangdong) was
head of the Political Department of the Guerrilla Column.
2.  The telegram from Feng Baiju et al. stated that following the retreat of the Dongjiang Column, the higher authorities had indicated that they should persist in fighting while
withdrawing cadres out by sea and evacuating personnel. Feng and the others unanimously
agreed that it would be difficult to follow these instructions due to the lack of secure harbors and boats, and it would lead to the total collapse of operations in Qiongya. They asked
the Central Committee for further instructions, agreeing to withdraw if the situation in
Guangdong and Hainan was considered hopeless, but they were willing to fight on if it
would be possible for them to survive in Hainan.
3.  The southern route refers to Guangdong’s Leizhou Peninsula region, the Lian River,
and Huazhou; and Guangxi’s Pubei and Qinzhou regions.
4.  This refers to the summary report on self-defense, submitted to the Central Committee by Feng Baiju, Huang Kang, and Li Ming on October 27, 1946.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-239