The following letters from our Peking correspondent have been delayed in transmission on account of the interruption of the railway service.
Peking, July 9.
President Hsu has just sealed and Promulgated a mandate under the coercion of Tuan Chi-jui which court-martials Wu Pei-fu, degrades Governor Tsao Kun, and incidentally puts the President himself in much the sonic unenviable position which Li Yuan-hung occupied after the dissolution of Parliament in 4917, The Anfu Club has won the first round.
Yesterday Tuan Chi-jui was illegally organizing a military expedition from troops over whom he had no authority with the avowed object of "punishing" a governor and a division commander who had been convicted of no offence against the nation. He was in the position of a rebel, and so long as the President resisted the pressure which Tuan brought to bear and stood resolutely for his convictions, Tuan Chi-jui remained a_ rebel. Had the President not capitulated he could have called upon the whole nation to protect him against the criminal tyranny of the Anfu Jeaders, and if they had fulfilled their threat of driving him from office, even the weaklings of the Chibli party would not have overlooked the opportunity to fall upon the Anfuites in all their strength and drive them from the capital, We Perrc—a (Leoat Baxprr.
Tuan and not from the President. If the proclaims himself the P: sident's champion, the protector democracy and the enemy of the militarist government which has gone a long way towards ruining China, just what can he do and how will his colleagues who have been giving him rather bashful support conduct themselves? It is upon these questions that Peking is speculating. There is no doubt that popular sympathy throughout the North as well as the South is with Wu. He has one of the best trained and one of the most reliable dies of men in China, and Wu has a mission. He believes in himself and has the courage of his sincere convictions, but he is not blessed with colleagues of his own type.
Lu Yung-ting and Tan Yen-kai are too far away to help. Wang Chan-yuan and Chen Kuang-yuan will do nothing unless they connive at Wu's downfall. Li Shun cannot move for fear of Lu Yung-hsiang and Lu Yung-hsiang—will remain neutral unless Li Shun moves troops. Shantung will be independent and neutral. And Chang Tso-lin has to overcome the decided disadvantage of Japanese disapproval before he can move his troops to Wu's support. It is reported in Peking that the Japanese have already given Chan; to understand that they will lod with disapproval upon any movements he may make. Of course, the-attitude of the other powers in this crisis does not count.
This mandate once signed and sealed puts Tuan in the position of the President's protector and the champion of the republic, Wu Pei-fu is now an outlaw and, unless he gives himself up to be tried by his enemies, his legal position is that of a hi He is ong recalcitrant mn commander against five divisions of picked troops commanded by China's! supreme military dictator.
Wu's} allies are a choice confederation of mutually suspicious weaklings. He is in the enemy's country and his possible reinforcements are far away.
Now what is he going to do? If! he bows before the Presidential mandate the Anfu Club will have registered a complete victory and the President, having shown his weakness when be had his enemies in the position of a clique of mutinous soldiers, and the whole of his constituency looking to him for a display of "firmness, Will be lightly discarded. Wu 2" Pei-fu's friends will proclaim his folly and desert him, or if they have been too deeply involved they will take refuge in the usual declaration of provincial independence.
Unfortunate m His Frrenps.
If Wu Pei-fu resists. If he accopts the challenge as one from Tus Cuasces or Harris.
One can conceive of a number of different division commanders coming to Wu's support, but no one of them has ever publicly declared himself for Wu, -however much his delegates may' have assured Wu's representatives of their sympathy. The only matter to be speculated upon with sound premises is the issue of a possible conflict between Wu Pei-fu's 18,000 men and Tuan's 50,000. If they fight—and this is very conditional, even in the event of an open declaration of war on Wu's part, everything will depend upon the outcome of the first action.
Tuan's men are not believed to be over loyal to his cause. A good many of then know that they are ranged on the side of the -Anfu Club and Little Hsu, and that they would not be there at all if it were not for Tuan Chi-jui's ige among their commanders.
moral will not be very high conflict with their fellow provincials—they are all natives of Chihli, Shantung and Honan—and if the first detachment turns to run then they will all run and every Anfuite in Peking will fly for his life. Then the President will pat Wu on the back and tell him what a brave boy he was to come to his rescue. If Wu suffers the first defeat, he will be beaten, the Chibli commanders will _—_ congratulate themselves on their caution and the venerable President will denounce the defeated rebel, Tuan Cursui's Forces.
Tuan now has at Nanyuan, where he is concentrating his ' troops ith one eye on the Kin-Han and he other on the Peking-Mukden, the 2rd Division of the National Defence Army, one regiment of the 1st Division of the National Defence Army, three regiments of the sth Division of the Regular Army, minus a few troops who are Scouting at Liuliho on the Kin-Han line, the 15th Division (Imperial Guard) and some engineers and transport men of the 13th Division of the Regular Army, At Peiyuan there are still three regiments of the Ist Divisi the National Defence Army and at Haitien the majority of the 13th Division still awaits orders. At Langfang on the Peking-Mukden railway is one Mixed Brigade of the National Defence Army and at Hsuanhuafu is another, Wu Pei-fu has, between Hsin yangchow and Paotingfu, the 3rd Division of the Regular Army, the Ist and 2nd and 3rd Chihli Mixed Brigades and a reserve Brigade, Machang, south of Tientsin, Tsao Kun has the 4th Chihli Mixed Brigade and at Tehchow, the arsenal town in northern Shantung, the 5th Chihli Mixed Brigade. In Paotingiu, Tsao Kun has only his bodyguard Wu Pei-fu's possible military supporters, from among whom in a protracted conflict he might draw reinforcements, are the following—the 20th Regular Army Division, under Fan Kuo-chang, now in Hupeh on the Yangtze; 16th Mixed Brigade, now in Hupeh on the Yangtze; the under Feng Vu-hsiang,
27th and 28th Regular Army Divisions under Chang Tso-lin, now in Fengtien; the 8th' Reorganized Honan Division, on the Kin-Han railway north of the Yellow River; Chang Hsun's old troops in the vicinity of Hsuchowfu, said to number about 9,000, and the 11th Division of the Regular Army, under Li Kuei-yuan, now in Hupeh on the Yangtze.
Lecartxos Quarren's Porvyarity.
In Peking there is still much excitement and the flight of prominent Chinese to the Legation Quarter still continues. General Tuan Chih-kuei has been appoint ed to rule Peking under martial law and is instructed to cooperate with Wu Ping-hsiang in keeping the peace. Foreign sympathies have all been with the party favouring Wu Pei-fu, and while many feel that to change the Anfu Club for a group in which Wu Pei-fu would simply figure as the daring reformer while such persons a8 Chang Tsolin, Chang Hsun and Lu. Yung-ting are among the major conspirators would not be 2 very marked change, but that any change in this season would be welcome. It would at least demonstrate to everyone's satisfaction that the Chinese had spirit
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.