Inscription on the telegram commending the units that wiped out the main force of Bai Chongxi[1]
(October 13, 1949)

To be read by Mr. Cheng Songyun[3].

Mao Zedong
October 13

Those wiped out were two divisions of the Seventh Army and two divisions of the Forty-eighth Army, at a place north of Qiyang. When these units were being wiped out, Bai Chongxi looked on without lifting a finger to help, retreating to Guilin, while his other armies withdrew to Dong’an, Lingling, and Lengshuitan, leaving the Seventh and Forty-eighth Armies to fight bitterly for four days until they were completely wiped out.

[1] Bai Chongxi was appointed Commander of the Central China Bandit-Suppression General Headquarters of the Kuomintang government in April 1949.
[2] This refers to the telegram of October 12, 1949, from Lin Biao, Deng Zihui, Tan Zheng, and others commending the Fortieth, Forty-first, and Forty-ninth Armies of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for wiping out the main force of Bai Chongxi.
[3] Cheng Songyun, also known as Cheng Qian, was formerly a general in the Kuomintang government forces. In August 1949, he and Chen Mingren led their troops in an uprising in Changsha. At the time, he was a member of the Central People’s Government Council and Director of the Hunan Provincial People’s Military and Political Committee.

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