To Chen Yi and Su Yu[1]

(April 21, 1948)

To discuss operational matters, Comrades Chen Yi and Su Yu are requested to come together to the Central Working Committee in Pingshan for a meeting within the few days from Mao You to Mao Shi.

[1] In a telegram to the Central Military Commission on April 18, Su Yu stated: Our large corps operating far from rear bases cannot secure adequate coordination from the masses, find it difficult to maintain operational secrecy, face challenges in settling the sick and wounded, encounter supply difficulties, and cannot bring the combat effectiveness of heavy equipment into full play, which instead becomes a burden. The Fifth Army and the Reorganized 11th Division, being American-equipped heavy units, might be retained in the Central Plains to exploit their role. Chiang is unlikely to let the two main Guangxi clique divisions return to their lair like tigers set free; they may still remain in the Dabie Mountains. If our army's southward advance fails to draw these four strongest reorganized divisions southward, it would subject the Central Plains region to devastation and make recovery difficult. It is proposed that the three armies in the Central Plains rely on rear bases for operations, so as to obtain sufficient supplies of shells, explosives, and other materials, bring the role of existing equipment into full play, and annihilate large numbers of the enemy, striving to fight several relatively large-scale battles of annihilation in the Central Plains region (with the main battlefields to be in Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu and north of the Huai River, east and west of the Jinpu Railway). This is the main content of the telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee to Chen Yi and Su Yu, concerning Su Yu's suggestion to postpone the advance into Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi in order to concentrate forces and fight several major battles in the Huang-Huai region.