The Kuo Min Nows Agency issues! the Nationalist appreciation of th the River during the Inst fow weeks. Now that their apportionment according to the plan} the Military Council has been} completed, the order for a general] offensive is issued to-day. With the} Northwestern Army, 100,000 strong, coming eastward by two routes to] Heuehow and Tainin, hot on ths cols of the fleeing Shantung. Chihliites joining in, this combi force of 300,000 strong should have no difficulty with the already routed mongrel horde of Shantung bandits} and mercenary Russians."
The capture of Shantung will hem in Fengtien this side of Shanhai-Kuan, "Exhausted in the recent fight] with Shans (Shans! remains as yet undefeated; Chochow still dons the colour of the Nationalists in <pite of Fongtion's superior artillery!) fiwolated, and hedged in a geogratically indefensible position, Fengtien will be foreed to fall back on their retreat in Manchuria, the only alternative, should they choose to Tesista. stubbornly, being total an General Feng's recent victory in Honan, therefore, is of the utmost} significance. If Honan should have succumbed to the attack of the Shantung-Chihliites, a wedge cutting right through the Nationalist territory, with Fengtien as base and the! would: have teen formed by the Northern.. Militarists.. The danger} to the Nationalist cause of euch an eventuality cannot be exaggerated.
The military phase of the Nationalist Revolution will be completed with the conclusion of this campaign. General Yen has for the present only to hold out against the attack of Fengtien, which in view of the defeat of its ally in Honan, is expected to redouble its effort to settle with Shansi. There is every reason to believe that General Yen can amply take care of the situation; the geographical impregnability of the province, and the fact that Chochow 4s still in Shansi's hands should all point to such a probability.
So far as the bank of the Yangtze is concerned all that is required is to hold Tang Song-chi in check, preventing him from coming into line with his "new friends." With Canton threatening his rear, and the Nanking army advancing steadily upriver, Tang is having no breathing]
unself, to say nothing of offering help to the Shantung-Chibli-Fengtien combine—Kuo Min.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.