There were two methods; you fight your way and I’ll fight my
way.
Whatever the military logic, it can be reduced simply to these two
sentences.
What is you fight your way? He seeks me out to fight but cannot
be found, thus ending abortively.
What is I’ll fight my way? We concentrate a few army divisions and
brigades, and eat him up.
Everything is
divisible. Since imperialism is a thing, it
also is divisible, and can be eliminated piece
by piece.
Chiang Kai-shek’s 8 million-man armed force is also a thing which
can be eliminated piece
by piece.
This is known as smashing the enemy one by
one which is the logic expounded in ancient books
of Europe and China.
It is very
simple, and has no profound logic at all.
There are certain modern sciences which require a longer time to
learn, such as guided missiles and atomic bombs which must be
researched and manufactured.
It does not take long to train soldiers in the use of weapons. One
month is enough to train artillery troops.
Several months or at most a year is enough to train drivers and
aviators.
The principal thing is to train on the battlefield. During
peacetime, training should be conducted at night.
During wartime, learn by fighting. Haven’t you said that you have
read my articles?
These things may not be very useful, but there are two principal
lines: you fight your way and I’ll fight my way.
The sentence I’ll fight my way may be divided into two more
sentences: if I
can win, I will fight; if I cannot win, I will run
away.
Imperialists are
most afraid of this method.
If I can win, I
will eat you up; if I cannot win, I will run away,
making it impossible for you to find me.
In the beginning, we used guerrilla warfare in both offensive and
defensive operations.
The basic method was guerrilla warfare.
When we were fighting Chiang Kai-shek, we moved from small battles
to large battles.
Later, we used 300,000 troops to wipe out his 500,000 troops.
We used three
fingers to bite off his five fingers.
We were a minority, so how could we eat them?
We did it
piecemeal. The result is that we swallowed
them.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_40.htm