**Critique on the Report on Troop Adjustment and Reinforcement for the Korean Battlefield[I]**
(October 1951)

Agreed[.] Please have Zhou[3] and Nie handle it.

Mao Zedong

This is Mao Zedong’s critique on the report dated October 17, 1951, by Nie Rongzhen, Acting Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government.
[2] Nie Rongzhen’s report stated: Recently, the Volunteer Army has been extremely heroic and tenacious in blocking operations. Although a single position was hit by twenty to thirty thousand enemy shells and the fortifications were destroyed, under the heroic and tenacious fighting of all commanders and fighters, each position was contested back and forth more than ten times (up to fifteen times), inflicting extremely heavy blows on the enemy, with brilliant battle results. In view of the casualty situation of the Twentieth Corps and its relatively wide front (including the front of the Twenty-sixth Army, which is over seventy kilometers) and the fact that the Twenty-sixth Army has not had rest and reorganization for a long time, to guard against any contingency, it is suggested that one additional army be transferred to the Twentieth Corps sector to serve as a mobile force. Furthermore, to appropriately reinforce the Twentieth Corps and the Nineteenth Corps (including the Forty-seventh Army), it is proposed that thirty thousand of the new recruits already trained for over four months in the Central-South region be concentrated in the Northeast before the end of this month, ready to be deployed for reinforcement as soon as the enemy offensive is crushed. Zhou Enlai’s instruction on October 17: “It does not conflict with conserving troop strength. Whether appropriate or not, please request the Chairman’s instruction.”
[3] Zhou, refers to Zhou Enlai.