With intimate knowledge of the actual conditions, Deng Xiaoping wrote many articles and speeches full of original ideas, demonstrating his ability as a strategist to grasp the overall situation and tackle complex problems. He put forward a series of specific policies and tactics for struggle against the enemy and enunciated the far-sighted principle of accumulating strength by all possible means to prepare for a strategic counter-offensive and for reconstruction after the war. A a meeting held by the Party School of the Northern Bureau of the Central Committee to mobilize party members for the rectification movement, he delivered a speech in which he gave a high evaluation to the Party's leader Mao Zedong, systematically explained Mao Zedong Thought -- Marxism-Leninism as applied to conditions in China-and declared that the Party should take it as a guide.

During the anti-Japanese war Deng returned to Yan'an briefly on three occasions: in September 1938 to attend the Enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee; in July 1939 to attend the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and to marry Zhuo Lin (a revolutionary comrade working there) in August; and in June 1945 to attend the First Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee, to which he had just been elected.

For 13 long years of war Deng Xiaoping and Liu Bocheng worked in close co-operation, and the two became fast friends. Later, Deng Xiaoping said: "People used to say that Liu and Deng were inseparable, and we did feel inseparable in our hearts. It was always a great pleasure for me to work and fight alongside Bocheng."

Decisive Years

After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the Kuomintang reactionaries, in defiance of the strong desire of the entire nation for peace and reconstruction, launched a large-scale civil war with the intention of eliminating the Communist Party and the revolutionary forces under its leadership. Under the command of Mao Zedong, the army and the people in the liberated areas rose in resistance. This was the War of Liberation, a war of decisive importance in the history of China's democratic revolution.

Before launching all-out civil war, Chiang Kai-shek engaged in peace negotiations with the Communist Party, While at the same time stepping up war preparations and provoking incessant local fighting. At that time Deng Xiaoping was Secretary of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Bureau of the Central Committee and concurrently Political Commissar of the Shanxi-Hebei-shandong-Henan Military Command, of which Liu Bocheng was commander. Located in the central plains and crossed by the Beiping-Hankou, Tianjin-Pukou and Datong-Puzhou railways, the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Liberated Area was of great strategic importance, as it blocked the Kuomintang troops' advance towards the liberated areas of north and northeast China. Accordingly, this area became the Kuomintang's first target.

In September 1945 Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping directed the famous Battle of Shangdang, in the changzhi area in southeastern Shanxi. In this battle their troops defeated all the 13 divisions of Yan Xishan's army, numbering more than 35,000, which had intruded into the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Liberated Area. Having thus consolidated their rear, they immediately marched east to intercept the Kuomintang troops that were advancing north along the Beiping-Hankou railway. At the Battle of Handan they routed two enemy armies and won over another, putting out of action a total of more than 40,000 Kuomintang army's attack on the liberated areas, greatly strengthened the position of the Communist Party in the negotiations in Chongqing and played an important part in hastening a cease-fire agreement.