Two Plans for Destroying Hu Zongnan and
Taking the Great Northwest
(July 4, 1947, 4:00 P.M.)
To Peng [Dehuai] and Xi [Zhongxun]:1
There are two plans still worth considering for destroying Hu Zongnan2 and
taking the great Northwest:
	 1.	 Chen [Geng] and Xie [Fuzhi]’s3 column will still, in accordance with the
original decision, come to the border area to annihilate a large number of
enemy forces on the internal line, and then go to the external line (southern
Gansu) to cooperate directly with the border area army group4 to complete
the task.
	 2.	 Take the following situations into account: Since the border area is sparsely
populated, there should be plentiful food and other supplies; the enemy
forces are weak in the Hebei-Henan-Shaanxi border area as well as in the
area extending west of the [Bei]ping-Han[kou] railway, north of Hanshui,
and south of Weishui; if we use Chen’s column in this region, it will certainly draw in one army from Hu’s unit (five to eight brigades), and if Hu’s
unit has one army in this region, the enemy forces in the border area will
be greatly reduced, creating a situation favorable for the border area army
group to destroy the enemy one by one; 120,000 men under Liu [Bocheng]
and Deng [Xiaoping]5 have crossed the Yellow River toward Longhai, so it
will also help Liu and Deng if Chen’s column opens new battlefields in the
Hebei-Henan-Shaanxi Border Region. However, the basic task of Chen’s
column is to cooperate with the border region army group to destroy Hu
Zongnan and take the great Northwest. This task will not change. Please consider which of the above two plans is preferable. Chen Geng’s unit will
arrive at the military ferry on the 7th (the unit is now still in Qu[wo] and
Yi[cheng], consolidating and awaiting orders), and will reach Xiaohe village6 on around the 12th or 13th after stopping at Suide for one or two days.
Will you both come to Xiaohe for a meeting after you reoccupy Yanchi and
your unit has been able to rest and reorganize for a while in that location? If
you agree on having a meeting, we may send He Long7 a telegram and invite
him to attend as well. The date of the meeting can be set for around the 13th.
Mao Zedong

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Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 4, pp. 125–26, where it is
reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1.  Peng Dehuai was commander and political commissar, and Xi Zhongxun was deputy political commissar of the Northwest Field Army.

2.  Hu Zongnan was head of the Guomindang army’s Xi’an Pacification Office.

3.  Chen Geng was commander and Xie Fuzhi was political commissar of the Fourth
Column of the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu (Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan) Field Army.

4.  Referring to the Northwest Field Army.

5.  Liu Bocheng was commander and Deng Xiaoping was political commissar of the
Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu Field Army.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-4

6.  Xiaohe village, located in southern Jingbian county, Shaanxi, was the temporary
location of the Central Committee.

7.  He Long was commander of the Shaan-Gan-Ning-Jin-Sui (Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia-
Shanxi-Suiyuan) Joint Defense Force.