Various Policies after Taking Kaifeng
(June 19, 1948)
To Su [Yu] and Zhang [Zhen], Chen [Shiju] and Tang [Liang], and for the information of the Central Plains Bureau, East China Bureau, and Xu [Shiyou] and
Tan [Zhenlin]:1
After you take Kaifeng:
	 1.	 The occupying forces must protect and not confiscate all publicly operated industries, banks, shops, municipal government organs, hospitals, and
schools of Chiang Kaishek’s puppet government as well as all privately
owned industries, shops, and churches.
	 2.	 The people you may capture are limited to armed enemy troops and others
who raise weapons in resistance. Do not capture or arrest any other enemy
personnel of Party, economic, or cultural organs, the police, or the local gentry, landlords, and so on. Instead, command them to take responsibility for
maintaining order in the city. Of the personnel in the provincial government,
arrest only Chairman Liu Mao’en [1898–1981, native of Henan]. Do not
arrest anyone else.
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 4, pp. 487–88, where it is
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-127

	 3.	 Since we expect that we will not be able to continue occupying Kaifeng
at this time, our troops will withdraw soon after the initial occupation. We
will therefore adopt the above policies to show our leniency and to prevent
the city from being ruined. This will benefit us during our future permanent
occupation. Moreover, when news of these lenient policies spreads, it will
help us capture other large cities all over the country in the future.
	 4.	 Except for arms, ammunition, provisions, and other military goods that can
be used by our army, all public materials in the city will be protected and not
damaged.
	 5.	 Do not kill a single person, except for those who resist with weapons. This
goes even for spies; because of the difficulty in clarifying cases during the
present chaotic times, do not arrest and kill them.
	 6.	 Do not take away the weapons of the public security bureau or the police so
that they can maintain order after our army withdraws and they can prevent
robbery and destruction.
	 7.	 If the provincial government, Party, public security, and municipal government apparatuses have already disbanded and scattered in panic and it is
difficult to bring them back together, try to find middlemen, such as presidents of colleges, to organize peace preservation associations and to preserve
order.
The Central Military Commission

reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Military Commission.
Su Yu was acting commander and acting political commissar of the East China Field Army,
and Zhang Zhen (张震) was deputy chief-of-staff of the East China Field Army. Chen
Shiju was chief-of-staff of the East China Field Army, and Tang Liang was director of its
Political Department. Xu Shiyou and Tan Zhenlin were commander and political commissar, respectively, of the East China Field Army’s Shandong Corps. Due to enemy troops
secretly amassing in southwestern Shandong, the senior officers of the East China Field
Army sought approval from the Military Commission to alter their original plan to wipe
out the enemy’s reorganized Fifth Army in southwestern Shandong in order to quickly
deploy their troops in the Eastern Henan Campaign. Eight columns of the East China Field
Army, two columns of the Central Plains Field Army, and some of the forces of the YuWan-Su (Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu) Military Region united under Su Yu’s leadership captured
Kaifeng from June 17 to 22, 1948, annihilating the 40,000 enemy troops holding Kaifeng
and killing the commander of the Guomindang army’s reorganized Sixty-sixth Division, Li
Zhongxin (1912–1948, born in Changsha, Hunan). The PLA then withdrew from Kaifeng
and went on to attack the enemy forces around Suixian and Qixian, where they annihilated
more than 50,000 enemy troops.