Our Army in the Northeast Should Begin
Fighting in the Latter Half of September So
as To Coordinate with the Southern Line
 (August 29, 1947, 5:00 P.M.)
To Lin [Biao] and Luo [Ronghuan]:1
We received your telegram of August 18th.
	 1.	 The plan is excellent, and we are pleased with it.
	 2.	 We hope you will be able to begin fighting in the latter half of September to
coordinate with the southern line.
	 3.	 As for fighting new battles, it seems advisable to have one powerful army
unit attack the enemy on the Shanhai Pass–Shenyang railway and to have
another powerful unit of troops attack the enemy on the Chinese Changchun
line to disperse the enemy and crush him piece by piece. Whether to place the
focus on the Chinese Changchun railway or on the Shanhai Pass–Shenyang
railway is up to you to deliberate and decide.
	 4.	 We hope very much that by the end of April or the beginning of May of next
year you can begin waging war with three or four powerful columns on the
[Bei]ping-Sui[yuan] railway, first opening a breach between Zhangjiakou
and Beiping and transporting large amounts of ammunition for mountain
field artillery and TNT for each army on the southern line. For them it would
be like seeing clouds after a major drought.
	 5.	 The most arduous fighting is on the southern line, where they are facing
battle against 157 brigades of the enemy’s main force (there are seventy
brigades on the northern line, among which twenty-six are in the Northeast),
whereas most of Shandong and northern Jiangsu have already been occupied
by the enemy. The Central Committee must stay within the [Shanhai] Pass,
and I myself am also unable to leave for the time being.
Mao Zedong
The source of our text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 4, pp. 220–21, where it is reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
1.  Lin Biao was commander-in-chief and political commissar of the Northeast Democratic Allied Army, and Luo Ronghuan was deputy political commissar of the Northeast
Democratic Allied Army.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-29