Concentrate the Main Force to Annihilate the Enemy’s 35th Army[1]

(April 4, 1948)

Yang, Luo, Yang, and Geng, with information to Nie and Xiao[2] and the Central Working Committee:

Your telegram of the 3rd[3] has been noted. You should concentrate the main force to annihilate the 35th Army coming from the west for reinforcement, then continue to expand in Suiyuan[4] to draw the enemy in the east to come west for reinforcement, and destroy them one by one.

The Military Commission

2400 hours, the 4th

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[1] This is a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee to Yang Dezhi, commander of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Field Army, Luo Ruiqing, its first political commissar, Yang Chengwu, its second political commissar, and Geng Biao, its chief of staff.

[2] Nie and Xiao refer to Nie Rongzhen and Xiao Ke, who were then respectively commander and concurrently political commissar and deputy commander of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region.

[3] This refers to the telegram sent by Yang Dezhi and Luo Ruiqing to the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee on April 3, 1948. The telegram stated: “We propose the following two operational plans: (1) Send the main force to Suiyuan to carry out a plan to capture all of Suiyuan. (2) After the 1st and 6th Columns capture Liangcheng, use part of the force to besiege Datong, concentrate the main force to strike the reinforcements; if the reinforcements are difficult to strike, then move to the eastern section of the Beiping-Suiyuan Railway.”

[4] Suiyuan, name of an old province covering the central part of today’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, abolished in 1954.