Mobile Warfare

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Mobile Warfare is the correct English term for Mao Zedong's main military methods. For the general topic of military mobility, see maneuver warfare.

The achievements of Mao and the Communists in the Chinese Civil War are normally referred to as Guerrilla warfare. But he himself made a distinction between Mobile Warfare (yundong zhan), Positional Warfare (zhendi zhan) and Guerrilla warfare (youji zhan).

Mao had a regular army that was far too big to hide, but made a point of conceding territory and avoiding battle until he was ready to fight.

The most notable example was the Long March, in which Mao marched in circles in Guizhou until he had confused the vastly larger armies pursuing him, and was then able to slip through Yunnan and Sichuan. A sensible comparison would be Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, though he was never outnumbered to the degree Mao regularly was.

These military methods were part of the military-political strategy of People's war, which aims to win the support of the local population.