Comrade Lin Ping:
1. We agree with every point you made in your telegram of November 11.
2. Please pay special attention to Xijiang and quickly develop toward Guilin and Liuzhou. This will allow you to contact units of the Hunan forces2 that are moving southward toward Guilin (keep this a secret from outsiders). This will make it easier to send cadres to you. Thus, you’d better send more troops and cadres to Xijiang. Your major direction of development in the future is toward Guangxi and Nanlu.3
3. Please ask those going to Qiongya to bring the Central Committee’s regards to Comrade Feng Baiju4 and the entire unit, and tell them that they have two tasks. First, to send capable units to expand toward Nanlu and to make contact with you. Second, to occupy all of Qiongya.
4. You should set up a large school to train military, political, and local work cadres. The term can be as short as a few weeks or as long as three to four months. They should be trained in groups, and most of them should be sent to Guangxi.
The Central Committee
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 735–36, where it is reproduced from Mao Zedong’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
1. This is a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong on behalf of the Central Committee to Lin Ping, the secretary of the Guangdong Provisional Work Committee and the commissar of the Dongjing Column of the Guangdong People’s Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Army.
2. Hunan forces refer to the First Independent Guerrilla Army of the Eighth Route Army, generally called the South Bound Detachment.
3. Nanlu refers to the Leizhou Peninsula of Guangdong.
4. Feng Baiju (1903–1973) was at this time commander-in-chief and commissar of the Guangdong Qiongya People’s Anti-Japanese Independent Guerrilla Column, generally known as the Qiongya Column.