Prepare to Shift to Exterior-Line Operations in May[1]

(January 24, 1947)

Comrades Chen, Rao, and the East China Bureau, with notice to Liu and Deng[2]:

We have ordered Liu and Deng to shorten the duration of interior-line operations to the end of April and to prepare to move into the Central Plains in May (including the period of rest and consolidation), thereby shifting to exterior-line operations. The East China side is also requested to proceed according to this plan, striving to resolve the main force of the Chiang army on the interior lines before May 1 and to complete all preparatory conditions for exterior-line operations (ammunition, new recruits, cadres, funds, etc.).

The Central Committee

Zijing

[1] This telegram was drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and addressed to Chen Yi, Commander of the East China Military Region and Commander and Political Commissar of the East China Field Army; Rao Shushi, Political Commissar of the East China Military Region; and the East China Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC.

[2] Liu and Deng refer to Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, who were then respectively Commander and Political Commissar of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army.