The retreat of four divisions of troops under Gen. Teng Hsi heo. pursued by men of three divisions, or really army corps, under Goa Lai, as already explained was py no means a rout, but was ordered owing to lack of ammunition, Gen. Teng fought a rearguard action all the way, expecting supplies of ammunition to arrive from his former chief, Liu Tsen-heo. These supplies apparently came to hand a few days after the retreat through here and when they bad only gone some 70 li, By that time the armies were in undulating country. There is one hill in par ticular just at that point which has been a favourite resort of brigands for some years. 'This hill Tong': men held when their supplies arrived and from that point began a terrific offensive, so that Gen. Lai jost at that place alone some 2,000 killed and probably as: many wounded. For the next few days the wounded where carried through here several hundreds per day—a most harassing sight. Gen. Lai seemed to have a most efficient Red Cross auxiliary. They had a field hospital near the front line where all the wounded were attended to and dressing stations organiza day's journey apart. This city was the first stage and there vere two more stages between here and Chengtu, where I should imagine all the hospitals are pretty Then began the retreat of Lai's men for two or three days. On the last day we had bullets flying all over the city. Two shells fell harmlessly in the city on the morning of March 21. As night came cen, the firing became more severe. Teng and his allies attacked from three sides and Lai was im some danger of being out off, but he kept up his defence until] 2 a.m., when he completely evacuated the city. Almost immediately,. Teng and his Men came in and before daybreak gnome of his troops had left in pursuit. It was now Lai's turn to fight rearguard actions and minor battles took place every few dt. his city fortunately escaped heavy bombardment.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.