STRATEGY FOR THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR OF LIBERATION* September !, !($&
1. In the first year ’s fighting (from July last year to June this year), we wiped out 97 regular brigades, or 780,000 men, and puppet troops, peace preservation corps and others totalling 340,000 — altogether 1,120,000 of the enemy. This was a great victory. It dealt the enemy a heavy blow, created profound defeatism in the whole enemy camp, elated the people throughout the country and laid the foundation for the complete annihilation of the enemy by our army and for final victory. 2. In the first year’s fighting, the enemy launched a large-scale offensive against the Liberated Areas, using 218 of his 248 regular brigades, or more than 1,600,000 men, and nearly 1,000,000 men from the special arms (navy, air force, artillery, engineer corps and armoured units) and from the puppet troops, communications police corps and peace preservation corps. Our army rightly adopted the strategy of fighting on interior lines, and in order to hold the initiative at all times and places it did not balk at paying the price of over 300,000 casualties and of enemy occupation of large tracts of territory. Consequently, we succeeded in wiping out 1,120,000 enemy troops, forced the enemy to disperse his troops, steeled and strengthened our own forces, launched strategic counter-offensives in the Northeast, Jehol, eastern Hopei, southern Shansi and northern Honan, recovered large territories and liberated vast new areas. 1 3. In the second year of fighting, our army’s basic task is to launch a country-wide counter-offensive, that is, to use our main forces to fight our way to exterior lines, carry the war into the Kuomintang areas, wipe out large numbers of the enemy on the exterior lines and completely wreck the Kuomintang’s counter-revolutionary strategy, which is, on the contrary, to continue to carry the war into the Liberated 141
