It Is Advisable To Fight the First Battle in Southern Shandong
with the Aim of Annihilating the Enemy’s 26th Division[1]

(December 25, 1946)

Chen and Su:

The southern Shandong campaign has a bearing on the situation as a whole. If this battle is won, there will be ways to recover even if all the cities in northern Jiangsu are lost. You must concentrate the 1st, 6th, 8th, 4th, 9th and 10th Divisions, the 1st Column, the Garrison Brigade and other units, and allow the necessary time for making dispositions and preparations, so as to fight a battle of annihilation bigger than the one in northern Jiangsu. For the first battle, it seems advisable to fight the three brigades of the 26th Division, because this division is the main force in southern Shandong, and once it is wiped out the over-all situation will improve; if we attack Feng’s troops[2] first, we may not be able to solve the southern Shandong problem for the time being. What should actually be done will be decided by you in the light of the concrete conditions.

The Military Commission

Youshen

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[1] This was a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and addressed to Chen Yi, Commander and concurrently Political Commissar of the Shandong Field Army, and Su Yu, Commander of the Central China Field Army. After the campaign in northern Jiangsu, the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army decided to consolidate the rear by concentrating the 1st Column, the 8th Division, the 1st Division, the 4th and 9th Divisions of the Central Shandong Military Area Command and the 10th Division of the Southern Shandong Military Area Command — 27 regiments in all — to form two groups, one on the right and one on the left, with the aim of wiping out the main force of the reorganized 26th Division and the 1st Fast Column of the enemy, which were stationed along the line from Hsiangcheng to Pienchuang (now Tsangshan) east of Tsaochuang, Shantung Province, and then exploiting the victory. The campaign in southern Shandong was launched on January 2, 1947, and by January 4 the enemy had been completely wiped out. Then the troops were swung westward and, between January 9 and 20, Yihsien (now Yicheng) and Tsaochuang were captured and the remnants of the enemy’s reorganized 26th Division and his entire 51st Division were wiped out. In all, over 53,000 enemy troops were annihilated.

[2] Feng’s troops, the reorganized 59th and 77th Divisions under the command of Feng Chih-an, Commander of the 3rd Pacification Zone of the Kuomintang army.