Do Your Best to Capture Jinzhou within
About Ten Days
(October 3, 1948, 7:00 P.M.)
To Lin [Biao], Luo [Ronghuan], and Liu [Yalou], and for the information of the
Northeast Bureau:1
After sending the telegram today at 17:00,2 we reconsidered the question of
your direction of attack. We firmly believe that you must absolutely not waver
from the fixed plan. You must not abandon Jinzhou without a fight and attack
Changchun instead. Apart from the reasons mentioned in the earlier telegram, if
you were to change the plan and capture Changchun, your next step would still
be to attack Jinzhou and Jinxi. At that time: First, not only will the number of
enemy troops in Jinzhou and Jinxi certainly not have decreased, but they may
have increased by a unit. If so, this will increase the difficulty of attacking Jinzhou
and Jinxi. Second, because Changchun exists at present, the enemy in Shenyang
does not dare to disregard Changchun and concentrate on reinforcing Jinzhou.
You can take advantage of the enemy forces being in Changchun to pin down all
or at least a part of the enemy forces in Shenyang for the next ten to twenty days
(this timing is very important). If you capture Changchun first, then when you
attack Jinzhou and Jinxi as the next step, the situations in Jinzhou and Jinxi will
have changed to make them more difficult to attack than at present. Moreover,
the Shenyang enemy will be able to turn out in full force to reinforce Jinzhou.
As such, the threat you will face in attacking Jinzhou and the reinforcements
will be greater than they are now. Therefore, we do not approve that you change
your plan again. We believe you should concentrate your energies on capturing
Jinzhou within about ten days. In addition, you should amass the necessary forces
to eliminate four to five divisions of enemy reinforcements from Jinxi while you
are attacking Jinzhou. Provided that you can capture Jinzhou, you will gain the
Our source for this telegram is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 5, pp. 37–38, where it is
1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Military Commission.
Lin Biao was commander of the Northeast Field Army, Luo Ronghuan was political commissar of the Northeast Field Army, and Liu Yalou was chief-of-staff of the Northeast Field
Army.
2.  The earlier telegram stated that the plan to capture Jinzhou should not be changed.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-154

advantage in this campaign. On the other hand, capturing Changchun would not
help you gain an advantage, and it would make the next step even more difficult.
We hope you will give careful thought to this point, and we hope to receive a
response from you.
The Military Commission

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