You Must Try to Rest between Battles
(July 30, 1947)
To Liu [Bocheng] and Deng [Xiaoping], and for the information of Chen [Yi], Su
[Yu], and Tan [Zhenlin]:1
	 1.	 We received your telegram of July 29th. We trust that our telegram of July
29th2 has reached you.
	 2.	 Your plan to annihilate another three to five of Wang Zhonglian’s3 brigades
and open up a southward route is very good. Before going into battle, take
at least ten days for rest and reorganization; more would be even better. In
view of the lessons learned in January and February when you fought continuously for forty days without rest to the point that you were unable to hold
out, this time in moving southwards you must try to rest between battles to
regain your strength.
	 3.	 If Chen [Shiju] and Tang [Liang]4 reach western Shandong, join with them
in one battle and then leave Chen and Tang on the northern route while you
take the southern route.
	 4.	 After the battle at Panlong on May 5,5 the Border Area Field Army (more
than 30,000 men) went to eastern Gansu and wiped out the main force of Ma

Hongkui’s6 Eighty-first Division and a regiment of Hu Zongnan’s7 cavalrymen, and then advanced to attack [Dingbian], [Anbian], and [Jingbian], and
Ma’s Eighteenth Division fled back to Ningxia. During this period, the main
force of Hu’s army carried out a guerrilla-style “mopping up” operation in
June from Ansai northward to the southern end of the Hengshan range, and
southward to Taibaizhen in Fuxian, and in July southward to the Central
Shaanxi Plain and then northward to Bao’an. Hu intends to head toward
Jingbian from Bao’an in August, and our forces will attack the enemy at
Yulin in August, luring Hu’s army to reinforce them and thus facilitating
Chen Geng’s8 exit from Tong[guan] and Luo[yang]. The border areas have
been ravaged by Hu’s army, and the people have suffered immense losses.
There is a shortage of food, and a drought as well, and the population has
been reduced to 900,000. Our army is scheduled to attack the enemy forces
in Yulin and then turn around at once to attack Hu, or else go to the Central
Shanxi Plain, or else go to the Xi[an]-Lan[zhou] Highway and coordinate
with Chen Geng and you.
	 5.	 The time for Chen Geng’s troops to set out can be fixed provisionally for
approximately August 20, but this can be postponed when the time comes,
depending on circumstances. This is for you to consider; notify us by telegram when you have decided.
The Military Commission

---

Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 4, pp. 160–61, where it is
reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
2.  See “Battle Assignments for Liu-Deng, Chen-Xie, and Other Units,” July 29, 1947,
in this volume.

--- Notes

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

3.  Wang Zhonglian was commander of the Guomindang’s Reorganized Twenty-sixth
Army.

4.  Chen Shiju was chief-of-staff of the East China Field Army, and Tang Liang was
director of its Political Department.

5.  In May 1947, the PLA’s Northwest Field Army annihilated more than 6,700 Guomindang troops under Hu Zongnan in Panlong, and seized large quantities of weapons,
equipment, and supplies.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-16

6.  Ma Hongkui was deputy director of the Guomindang’s Northwest Field Headquarters.

7.  Hu Zongnan was director of the Guomindang army’s Xi’an Pacification Office.

8.  Chen Geng was secretary of the Chen-Xie Group Front Committee under the Jin-JiLu-Yu Field Army.