Su Yu’s Unit May Move South to Destroy Railways and Annihilate the Enemy[1]

(December 20, 1947)

Su, and inform Chen and Xie[2]:

I have just received a telegram from Chen and Xie dated the 20th at 14:00, proposing that your four columns move south to strike the Reorganized 3rd Division (two brigades), which has reached the vicinity of Minggang and is advancing due north toward Xin’andian, and then advance toward Xinyang. If you agree to move south, you may proceed to deploy operations accordingly. In this way, you should not be bound by the previously designated boundaries but maneuver toward the entire Beiping–Hankou Railway[3] and its flanks, with the objective of destroying the Beiping–Hankou Railway and annihilating several enemy brigades (hoping to annihilate five or six enemy brigades).

Central Military Commission

20th, 24:00

[1] This telegram was drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee and addressed to Su Yu, Deputy Commander of the East China Field Army.
[2] Chen and Xie refer to Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi, who were respectively serving as Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the Front Committee of the Chen-Xie Group of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army.
[3] The Beiping–Hankou Railway refers to the railway from Beiping (present-day Beijing) to Hankou, now a section of the Beijing–Guangzhou line.