Capture Zaozhuang and Prepare to
Eliminate Ou Zhen’s Forces
 (January 17, 1947)
To Chen [Yi], Chen [Shiju], and Su [Yu], and for the information of the East
China Bureau:1
We received your January 16 telegram.2
	 1.	 We are very glad that you captured Qicun.3 It is essential to take a few more
days to capture Zaozhuang.
	 2.	 After capturing Zaozhuang, it seems appropriate to destroy the majority of
the fortifications but to leave some of them and assign troops to defend them.
Do things this way in Duo county4 as well. When you begin to launch attacks
on Ou Zhen,5 you can use these strongholds for defense against possible
attacks from Feng Zhi’an and Hu Lian6 to buy some time. After finishing the
fight against Ou Zhen, attack Feng and Hu.
	 3.	 Apart from the four regiments attacking Zaozhuang, the others have been
resting and reorganizing for a week, and the division commanded by [Tan]
Zhenlin7 has been resting and reorganizing for nearly a month. It will be
roughly one week to ten days before you can launch the campaign against
Ou. We hope you will seize this opportunity and make timely preparations.
As far as recruiting new troops to replenish your ranks is concerned, the
quicker the better.
	 4.	 You should make it your goal to wipe out six to eight brigades under Ou
Zhen. Assemble approximately forty-five regiments and convene a cadre
conference beforehand (it should last half a day to one day). Prepare to
engage in larger battles of annihilation with continuous multi-day fighting.
The Military Commission

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Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 620–21, 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 Military Commission.
Chen Yi was commander and political commissar of the Shandong Field Army, and Chen
Shiju (1909–1995, native of Hubei) was chief-of-staff. Su Yu was commander of the Central China Field Army.

2.  The telegram from Chen Yi et al. stated that on that morning, the division under
Ye Fei had captured Qicun, wiped out the headquarters and one regiment of the enemy’s
113th Brigade, captured more than 2,000 enemy troops of the rank of brigade commander
or below, and killed more than 500 enemy troops. At this time, the division under Tao Yong
(1913–1967, native of Anhui) was surrounding and annihilating the remnant enemy troops
defending Zaozhuang.

3.  Qicun is a town located in the middle of today’s Zaozhuang city, Shandong Province.

4.  Duo county is now Duocheng, Shandong Province.

5.  Ou Zhen (1899–1969, native of Guangdong) was commander of the Guomindang’s
Reorganized Nineteenth Army.

6.  Feng Zhi’an was commander of the Guomindang’s Third Pacification Zone and its
Thirty-third Army. Hu Lian (1907–1977, native of Shaanxi) was commander of the Guomindang army’s Eleventh Division.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-260

7.  Tan Zhenlin was political commissar of the Central China Field Army.