Nov. 13.
Ocr Changsha correspondent reports to-day that Tan Yen-kai, the former Tuchun, or as then called Tutuh, of Hunan, has been driven from Siangtan. In all central and northern Hunan, therefore, the reigning Tuchun, Chao Hong-ti, appears to be supreme. Tan Yen-kai began his attack on Hunan about the beginning of August, entering the province by way of Chenchow. Nominally acting in the Sun Yat-sen interest, he seems to have had very little material help from that quarter, relying on his personal popularity in Hunan to gather force as he advanced; and this device served him so well that by September 15 he was at the gates of Changsha and everyone regarded Tuchun Chao's reign as over. By some means, however, Chao managed to retain the capital and there ensued several weeks of stalemate, exceedingly uncomfortable for civilians if not for combatants.
At the beginning of this month Chao Hong-ti, having got fresh munitions from Wu Pei-fu, made a sortie across the Siang river, and drove Tan's forces from their position; and this he has followed up with the recapture of Siangtan. It may here be mentioned that Tan Yen-kai is a Hunanese, the son ton, @ courageous act, we should freely admit, as Kuangsi forces under Gen. Shen Hung-ying had now rallied to Chen Chiung-ming, and Canton was a-most perilous place for any leader. Since then Kuangtung has been a cockpit, with the Chen Chiung-ming forces holding the western and eastern ends and Dr. Sun the centre. The extraordinary -expedienig which Dr. Sun has adopted to taise funds for his campaign, particularly the siege of. Waichow, even seizing and selling any property of which the owners could not show a title deed dating from the Ming dynasty, and also expropriating temples and monasteries, have been recently described in these cal-urnns in full. The discontent of the Cantonese is. naturally great, although it' would appear to be directed more against Dr. Sun's followers than himself. Meanwhile, so far from his campaign succeeding, General Chen Chiung-ming was recently reported to be again taking he offensive. Chen is described as a man of character and ability, well fitted to rule. But supposing he should once more succeed in turning the tables on Dr. Sun, would that bring peace to the South? No one with any recollection of Republican history in China can for a moment suppose so. Of other civil wars in this unhappy country, the story is too long of a former Viceroy of Canton;; and involved to trace here. For he attained the highest possible lit d der the Manchus, becoming a Hanlin at the te age of only twenty-five. An adherent of Dr. Sun, he was. Tutuh of Hunan from 1911 to:
1913, but was evicted by Yuan Shih-kai. Those who know him speak of him as a man of earn-astness and sincerity, and his name is associated with undoubtedly good work in his native province. But one cannot repress a suspicion that his late campaign was less associated with any scheme of national bearing than a case of Hunan for the Hunanese."'
Let us turn to other civil wars. On January 15 last, General Chen Chiung-ming, who had himself expelled Dr. Sun Yat-sen from Canton in June, 1922, was turned out by the aid of Yunnanese freebooters who had been called in by the Kuomintang, the latter having also suborned Chen's Kuangsi supporters. A month later Dr. Sun returned to Can-several months past General Pei-fu, has been invading Sze-Yang Sen, a lieutenant of Wu
chuan, and at one time very nearly got Chengtu in his grasp. But the chieftains of Szechuan, for all that they live at daggers' drawn among themselves when free of outside interference, unite automatically against. any invader threatening their preserves, and Yang Sen', having recently lost first Chungking and then Luchow, is a failure. Not that that means he will desist from his attempt. As regards affairs in Fukien, for the control of which South and North maintain a desultory struggle, we confess that we have given up attempting to follow the course of events.
Thus, apart from bandit activities, China can boast four separate civil wars of varying dimensions. Can any man in his senses say what end_ the combatants hope to serve? We™ can all imagine the sort of high-flown explanations that Dr.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.