(May 28, 1950)
Agree to the various principles 121, and the establishment table may be drawn up accordingly.
Mao Zedong
May 28
Chuan
This is Mao Zedong’s comment on the report of Nie Rongzhen, Acting Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government, dated May 28, 1950.
[2]


Nie Rongzhen’s report stated:
“In order to ensure that, from October of this year until the start of the campaign to attack Taiwan, the total number of personnel supplied within the military system truly does not exceed four million, yesterday we specially convened the chiefs of staff of the various military regions and Luo Ruiqing, Teng Daiyuan, Xiao Jinguang, Liu Yalou, Li Tao, Yang Lisan, Xiao Hua, Xiao Ke, and others to conduct an overall study of the construction of the navy, air force, public security forces, etc., and the troop strengths of the various regions, and to consolidate the opinions based on the discussions on organizational issues over the past few days. The key points are hereby reported:


(1) The public security forces shall be drawn at 4.5 percent of the total four million, totaling 180,000 personnel.


(2) The Railway Corps shall retain approximately 18,000 personnel, still designated as the People’s Liberation Army, wearing military uniforms and treated according to the military supply system, but outside the total of four million, with expenditures covered by the operating expenses of the Ministry of Railways; in essence, it shall serve as a railway engineering unit.


(3) The navy currently has over 38,000 personnel. It is estimated that it must expand to 55,000 personnel before the attack on Taiwan.


(4) The air force originally had 57,000 personnel. Before the operations to attack Taiwan, it must expand to 126,402 personnel.


(5) The proposed distribution of the four million personnel is: East China 990,000, Central South 987,000, Southwest 788,000, Northwest 590,000, North China 290,000, Northeast 90,000, and those directly under the Military Commission and the navy and air force 265,000.


(6) Organization shall be divided into two types, wartime and peacetime, based on the amphibious operations to attack Taiwan and our existing equipment and production conditions. Wartime organization shall, as far as possible, ensure the full complement of troops and firepower required for the operations to attack Taiwan. For other units not participating in the operations to attack Taiwan, no distinction shall be made between field and local forces; organization shall be unified, the principle being to retain the framework while reducing personnel, retain special arms while reducing riflemen, and retain cadres while reducing soldiers.


(7) Peacetime organization equipment: company level, 9 light machine guns, three 60mm mortars; battalion machine gun and mortar company, 6 heavy machine guns, four 82mm mortars; regiment level, four Type 92 infantry guns, four 12cm mortars; division level mountain artillery battalion, 12 guns. Field howitzers shall be organized into regiments, and anti-tank guns shall be organized into regiments and battalions for mobile attachment.


(8) The structures of departments at all levels of command, political, and logistics shall be unified to facilitate top-down professional guidance. The principle for organ organization is to be horizontally broad and vertically short, reducing hierarchical layers, with more officers and fewer soldiers.


(9) It is planned that the Mobilization Planning Department shall be replaced by the People’s Armed Forces Department. Preparations shall be made for the transition from the militia system to the conscription system. People’s armed forces departments shall be established within headquarters at all levels.


(10) As for the designations of field armies and corps, except for East China, which shall form a field army for the attack on Taiwan, the rest shall be abolished. Provincial military districts and military sub-districts in old base areas shall retain compact and efficient structures to facilitate commanding and training the public security forces and militia.


(11) The hierarchical levels of the troop supply system are proposed to be five levels: the Military Commission, first-level military region, division, regiment, and company.


(12) The specific establishment tables shall be drawn up immediately after the above principles are approved.”