Go All-out toward the Goal of Fighting a
War of Annihilation
 (January 5, 1947, 9:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M.)
To Chen [Yi] and Su [Yu], and for the information of Liu [Bocheng], Deng
[Xiaoping], and Tan [Zhenlin]:1
We received your telegram sent between 9 P.M. and 11 P.M. on the 4th.2
	 1.	 The thorough annihilation of the Twenty-sixth Division is wonderful and of
great comfort; orders will be given for officers and men of the entire army to
be cited.
	 2.	 The second step is to wipe out the four brigades in the two divisions of Feng
[Zhi’an]’s forces.3 We estimate that you may use the tactic of pursuit and
attack to deal with one section, but resolving the matter in its entirety and
recovering the Yi [county]–Tai’[erzhuang]–Pi [county]4 fortification line
may require more than a week.
	 3.	 After the above task is fulfilled, the entire southern Shandong army should
rest and recuperate for two or three weeks in the area around the Yi [county]–
Tai’[erzhuang]–Pi [county] line, replenish their ranks with new recruits,
recover from exhaustion, and prepare to fight again.

	 4.	 At this time, Xue Yue5 is certain to transfer around ten brigades from central
and northern Jiangsu as well as move several brigades from other places (for
example the Sixty-fourth Division, the Fourteenth Division,6 and so on). It
is estimated that a total of approximately fifteen brigades could be deployed
to guard the Longhai line and attempt to recover the Tai’[erzhuang]–Yi
[county] line; this would require about three weeks’ time.
	 5.	 After annihilating Feng’s forces, occupying Tai’[erzhuang] and Yi [county],
and allowing the troops to rest and reorganize, your task will then be to annihilate any enemy forces that appear on the Longhai railway or areas north
or south of it. When fighting on this railway, large armies can be spread out
to fight an even larger war of annihilation. At that time, you should amass a
troop strength of about forty regiments and make ample preparations so as to
wipe out five or six enemy brigades at one time.
	 6.	 Because of these considerations, after occupying Yi [county], Tai’[erzhuang],
and Pi [county], you must not rush to battle in Haizhou,7 or engage the
Seventy-fourth Division or the Eleventh Division in battle. Rather, it would
be better to have the troops rest and reorganize, consolidate your victory,
and lure the Seventy-fourth and Eleventh divisions (and possibly the Fourth
Division, the Forty-fourth Division, and others as well) northward into a
suitable area near you and then annihilate them.
	 7.	 The only way to recover lost territory in central and northern Jiangsu is to
lure the enemy northward and wage three or four battles of annihilation like
the ones we fought in eastern Suqian and southern Shandong. It will not do
to try to recover lost territory prematurely, before having annihilated the
enemy’s main forces; the aim of recovering the Yi [county]-Tai’[erzhuang]
line is to create a battlefield.
	 8.	 After wiping out Feng’s forces and occupying Yi [county] and Tai’[erzhuang],
for the purpose of creating a battlefield, consider annihilating the Fifty-first
Division, occupying Zaozhuang, and then sending an advance detachment
across the canal to control the Longhai railway. The entire Ninth Column
should go north of the Huai River to the areas of Sui[ning], Su[qian],
Ling[bi], and Si [county] and resume operations there. Pi [Dingjun]’s brigade8 should go to the Yan[cheng]-Fu[ning] area and continue operations
there. The Second Division,9 Second Column, and Seventh Division (twenty regiments in all) should also rest, regroup, and replenish their ranks, and prepare to participate in a new large-scale battle. The temporary loss or gain of
Shuyang is of little significance. In sum, the overarching objective is to fight
a major war of annihilation, and it is hoped that operations will be arranged
in accordance with this general policy.
	 9.	 Only one situation would cause us to abandon the above plan and adopt a
policy of moving southward at this time to recover lost territories, and that
is if Chiang [Kaishek] and Xue do not, in fact, move the enemy troops from
central and northern Jiangsu northwards to the Longhai railway and do not
move troops from elsewhere to the Longhai railway. But this sort of prediction appears somewhat premature at this time, as the Longhai railway lies
before us, and troops should be moved in order to defend this line.
The Military Commission

The source of this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 603–5, where it is reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
3.  Feng Zhi’an was commander of the Guomindang army’s Reorganized Fifty-ninth
Division and Reorganized Seventy-seventh Division.

--- Notes

1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Military Commission.
Chen Yi was commander and political commissar of the Shandong Field Army, and Su
Yu was commander of the Central China Field Army. Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping
were commander and political commissar, respectively, of the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu (Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan) Field Army. Tan Zhenlin was political commissar of the Central China
Field Army.

2.  The telegram from Chen Yi and Su Yu stated their intention to annihilate the Guomindang’s Twenty-sixth Division that day. It also stated they would strive to wipe out Feng
Zhi’an and then proceed to eradicate the enemy forces in southern Shandong and to create
a formation that threatened Xuzhou, after which they would fight the Guomindang army’s
Reorganized Seventy-fourth Division and Eleventh Division and attack Haizhou to reclaim
the lost territory to the south.

4.  Yi county (now Yicheng) and Tai’erzhuang are now under the jurisdiction of
Zaozhuang city, Shandong Province; and Pi county is in Jiangsu Province.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-256

5.  Xue Yue was head of the Guomindang army’s Xuzhou Pacification Office.

6.  According to the editors of Junshi wenji, this should be the Guomindang army’s
Reorganized Tenth Division, not the Fourteenth.

7.  Haizhou is an old name for what is now a district of Lianyungang city, Jiangsu
Province.

8.  Pi Dingjun was commander of the Thirteenth Brigade of the Central China Field
Army.

9.  According to the editors of Junshi wenji, this should probably be the Sixth rather
than the Second Division.