not push matters to extremes. Otherwise, "Chi Sun's troubles, I am afraid, will not come from Chuanyu but will arise at home";[5] in other words, the reactionaries will be lifting a rock only to drop it on their own toes, and then we will not be able to help them even if we would like to. We value co-operation, but they ought to set store by it, too. To be frank, there is a limit to our concessions; the stage of concessions is over as far as we are concerned. They have inflicted the first gash, and a very deep one at that. If they still care for their own future, they should come forward of their own accord and dress the wound. "It is not too late to mend the fold even after some of the sheep have been lost." It is a matter of life and death for them, and we feel obliged to give them this final piece of advice. But if they remain impenitent and keep up their wrongdoing, the people of China, having reached the end of their forbearance, will dump them on the muck heap and then it will be too late for repentance. As for the New Fourth Army, the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued an order on
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January 20, appointing Chen Yi as Acting Commander, Chang Yun-yi as Deputy Commander, Lai Chuan-chu as Chief of Staff and Teng Tzu-hui as Director of the Political Department. With more than 90,000 troops remaining in central China and the southern part of Kiangsu, the New Fourth Army, though subjected to pincer attacks by the Japanese aggressors and the anti-Communist troops, will certainly fight on despite all hardships and will never cease to render loyal service to the nation. Meanwhile, the units of its brother army, the Eighth Route Army, will not sit by and watch it suffer these pincer attacks, but will certainly take steps to give the necessary assistance -- this I can say bluntly. As for the statement made by the spokesman of the Military Council in Chungking, the only possible comment is that it is self-contradictory. While the Chungking Military Council stated in its Order that the New Fourth Army had "mutinied", the spokesman said that its aim was to move into the Nanking-Shanghai-Hangchow triangle in order to establish a base there. Now, suppose we accept what he says. Can a move into the Nanking-Shanghai-Hangchow triangle be regarded as a "mutiny"? That blockhead of a Chungking spokesman did not stop to think. Against whom would the New Fourth Army be mutinying in that area? Is it not an area under Japanese occupation? Then why should you prevent the New Fourth Army from moving into that area and try to wipe it out while it was still in southern Anhwei? Ah, of course! After all that is what loyal servants of Japanese imperialism would do. Hence their plan to mass seven divisions in an annihilation campaign, hence their Order of January 17, and hence their trial of Yeh Ting. However, I still say that the Chungking spokesman is an idiot, for without being pressed he has let the cat out of the bag and revealed the plans of Japanese imperialism to the whole people.
NOTES
[1]
The triple alliance refers to the tripartite pact between Germany, Italy and Japan signed in Berlin on September 27, 1940.
[p. 452]
[2]
The counter-revolutionary Order of January 17 for the disbandment of the New Fourth Army was issued by Chiang Kai-shek in the name of the Military Council of the National Government.
[p. 452]
[3]
These two notorious telegrams were sent late in 1940 by Chiang Kai-shek when he launched the second anti-Communist onslaught, and they were signed by
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Ho Ying-chin and Pai Chung-hsi, Chief and Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Military Council of the Kuomintang government. The telegram of October 19 contained outrageous calumnies against the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army which were fighting in the enemy-occupied areas and peremptorily ordered their units operating against the Japanese south of the Yellow River to be shifted to the north by a specified date. In the interest of unity for armed resistance, Comrades Chu Teh, Peng Teh-huai, Yeh Ting and Hsiang Ying, in a joint reply on November 9, consented to shift the troops in southern Anhwei to the north, at the same time rebutting the slanders. The telegram of December 8 signed by Ho Ying-chin and Pai Chung-hsi, which was a reply to the telegram of November 9, represented a further attempt to turn public opinion against the Communists.
[p. 452]
[4]
The blockade line in the Northwest was built by the Kuomintang reactionaries around the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region. From 1939 onward they pressed the local people into service and built five lines of blockhouses, stone walls and trenches. The line started from Ningsia in the west, ran along the Chingshui River in the south and terminated at the Yellow River in the east. On the eve of the Southern Anhwei Incident the Kuomintang troops surrounding the Border Region were increased to more than 200,000.
[p. 456]
[5]
The quotation is from Confucian Analects, Book XVI, Chapter I. Confucius made this remark when Chi Sun, minister of the state of Lu, was about to attack Chuanyu, a small neighbouring state.
[p. 456]