The Enemy’s Attack on Linyi Is a Ruse to “Lure the Tiger Away from the Mountain”—Absolutely Do Not Fall for It¹

(October 31, 1946)

Chen, Zhang, Li; Su, Tan:²

(1) Any movement by the 2nd Column (Wei Guoqing³) can only be considered after the Liannan Campaign⁴ has concluded.

(2) The enemy, instead of forcing open the Jinpu Railway⁵ or severing the Longhai Railway, is attacking Linyi. Their objective is to draw our main force from northern Jiangsu northward to its rescue (luring the tiger away from the mountain), so as to first finish off northern Jiangsu, and then use the main forces from northern Jiangsu and central Jiangsu (over twelve brigades) to attack Shandong. We absolutely must not fall for this. (3) Yesterday, Liu and Deng wiped out one brigade under Liu Ruming and are now in the process of annihilating another.⁶ It is hoped that the southern Shandong front will deal the invading forces

one or two major blows.

The Military Commission

You Shi

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¹ This is a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, addressed to Chen Yi (Commander of the Shandong Military Region), Zhang Yunyi (Deputy Commander), Li Yu (Deputy Political Commissar), and others.

² Su and Tan refer to Su Yu and Tan Zhenlin, who were then serving as Commander and Political Commissar of the Central China Field Army, respectively.

³ Wei Guoqing was then serving as Commander and concurrently Political Commissar of the 2nd Column of the Shandong Field Army.

⁴ The Liannan Campaign refers to the operations striking south of Lianshui during the latter stage of the Central China Field Army’s First Lianshui Defense Campaign, which took place from October 19 to November 1, 1946. To crush the Kuomintang army’s assault on Lianshui and annihilate the enemy’s Reorganized 74th Division in the river-bend area south of Lianshui, the main force of the Central China Field Army struck south of Lianshui on October 30, first wiping out two battalions of the 192nd Brigade, the 575th Regiment, and the brigade headquarters directly under the enemy’s Reorganized 28th Division. On November 1, the Reorganized 74th Division collapsed entirely and retreated to Machang and Huaiyin, ending the campaign.

⁵ Jinpu refers to the Jinpu Railway, the railway line from Tianjin to Pukou, now a section of the Beijing-Shanghai Railway.

⁶ From October 29 to 31, 1946, the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army, with Liu Bocheng as Commander and Deng Xiaoping as Political Commissar, launched an offensive in Juancheng, southwestern Shandong, annihilating over 9,000 troops of the 119th Brigade of the Reorganized 68th Division and the 29th Brigade of the Reorganized 55th Division, both under the command of Liu Ruming, Commander of the 4th Pacification Zone of the Kuomintang’s Zhengzhou Pacification Headquarters.