Urging Du Yuming and Others to Surrender

To General Du Yuming, General Qiu Qingquan, General Li Mi, and the army commanders, division commanders and regiment commanders of the two army groups under Qiu and Li:

You have now reached the point where the mountains are exhausted and the waters spent. The Huang Wei army group was wiped out to the last man on the evening of the fifteenth, and the Li Yannian army group has turned and fled south — any hope you had of joining up with them is gone. Do you think of breaking out? The People's Liberation Army stands on every side; how would you break out? What have your breakout attempts of the last few days achieved? Even your aircraft and tanks are of no avail. We have more aircraft and tanks than you — these are artillery pieces and high explosives, which people call “native aircraft” and “native tanks”; are they not ten times more formidable than your foreign aircraft and foreign tanks? Your Sun Yuanliang army group is already finished; of the two army groups remaining to you, more than half the men are wounded or captured. Though you have forced into the ranks the many office staff, miscellaneous personnel and young students brought along from Xuzhou, how can such people fight? For more than ten days, under our layer-upon-layer encirclement and blow upon blow, your positions have shrunk greatly. You hold only that little ground — no more than a dozen li across either way — with so many men crowded together that a single one of our shells can kill a heap of you at a stroke. Your wounded and the families following the army cry out in misery around you. Your soldiers and many of your cadres no longer wish to fight at all. You who serve as deputy commanders-in-chief, army group commanders, army commanders, division commanders and regiment commanders ought to feel for the hearts of your subordinates and their families, cherish their lives, and find them a road to life without further delay — do not let them make any more such worthless sacrifices.

Now the Huang Wei army group has been annihilated entire, and the Li Yannian army group is fleeing toward Bengbu; we can concentrate forces several times your number to strike you. In the forty days of this campaign you have already lost Huang Baitao's ten divisions, Huang Wei's eleven, Sun Yuanliang's four, Feng Zhi'an's four, Sun Liangcheng's two, Liu Ruming's one, one division at Suxian and one division at Lingbi — thirty-four whole divisions in all. Of these, apart from the three and a half divisions that rose in revolt under He Jifeng and Zhang Kexia, the one division that revolted under Liao Yunzhou, the one division that came over under Sun Liangcheng, and the half divisions that came over under Zhao Biguang and Huang Zihua, the remaining twenty-seven and a half divisions have been annihilated entire by this army. The fate of the Huang Baitao army group, the Huang Wei army group and the Sun Yuanliang army group you have seen with your own eyes. You should follow the example of General Zheng Dongguo at Changchun, and the example set in this campaign by army commander Sun Liangcheng and division commanders Zhao Biguang and Huang Zihua: order the whole army immediately to lay down its weapons and cease resistance, and this army will guarantee the safety of your senior officers and of every officer and man. Only this is your one road to life. Think it over! If you think this good, act accordingly. If you still wish to fight a little more, then fight a little more — but in the end you are going to be dealt with!

Headquarters of the Central Plains People's Liberation Army

1948

The base text is the Wikisource version, five paragraphs. The salutation is 'General Du Yuming, General Qiu Qingquan, General Li Mi, and the regimental, battalion and company commanders of the Qiu and Li corps'; the addressee is the troops under Xuzhou, signed by the headquarters of the Central Plains People's Liberation Army.

The lost formations it lists total thirty-four divisions, some of which mutinied or defected; it also says the opposing positions are no more than a dozen-odd Chinese miles across, so one shell can kill a heap of men. The fighting days it records are forty, a time marker for the battle.

The last paragraph mentions the precedents of Zheng Dongguo at Changchun, Sun Liangcheng, Zhao Biguang and Huang Zihua as examples the other side may follow — the only surrender condition in the piece. This battle falls within the Huaihai campaign; the December date comes from common cataloguing.