On the Peking-Hankow railway. nothing really disastrous has happened, but the advance which, in Sun Chuan-fang's interest, should' have been an "avalanche" certainly, thas not developed. Conditions which those who advised against an offend sive anticipated have developed instead.
It may be remembered that the writer many weeks ago explained that the faction within the Fengtien party that opposed an offensive was persuaded that Chu Vu-pu's admi istration of Chihli had been so rotten that as soon as the Fengtien concentrations on the Kin-Han Tine were broken up and a general attack on Honan launched, the abused Sgrmers and citizens in west Chili would immediately arise as Red) Spears and play such havoc with communications that the disheartened Shansi army would be inspired to a fresh campaign against. the Fengtien flank and rear. The counter argument of the aggressive clement im the Fengtten advisership was that Peking was entirely misled by current reports of Feng's shortage of ammunition and money and that if the assault upon him were not immediate and business-like he would next year be sucha force as Fengtien could only face with tre-_ pidation. While it was most rebably reported from one source, said they, that he was making paper cartridges for his soldiers and was fon such bad terms with Wu-Han that his delegates could not stay there, it was known from equally reliable sources that he was bringing up from Hankow huge quantities materials for the manufacture} of munitions and had between three and four thousand employees at work in the Kunghsien arsenal, It was further argued that conserva tive advice was prevailing in Shansi and that Yen Hsi-shan could be reduced to perfect neutrality by al little preliminary campaign that would bottle him up behind—the Niangtzekuan pass for the duration of the campaign.
The Red Spears These arguments prevailed. The preliminary campaign towards Niangtzekuan on the Chengting-Taiyuan (Chen-Tai) Railway met} with half-hearted resistance, while a little activity from the Kirin troops in the north seemed to make the Shansi armies there genteful for the natural barriers of Yenmenkuan. So the big'southward push from Ha tan began on schedule time.
Chang River was duly crossed at Fenglochen and the most perfectly equipped army that has ever gone into the field in China swept on towards -Changteh and shortly i vested the place. Then the trouble in the rear began, as per the sche-ule of the pessimists. Although the Fengtien and Shantung commanders have long financed Red Spear forces supposedly totalling about 60,000 armed rustics and although the Red Spear organization is known to be bitterly opposed to Feng Vu-hsiang in Honan, bands of desperate yokels popped "up from nowhere behind the advancing force and commenced destroying bridges and culverts at such a rate that there was nothing for the "aval che" to do but fall back and readjust matters s0 that communications would be better sruanied, Yang Vu-ting knows his business, so he took this as n hint to bring still more pressure upon Shansi. to prevent the eruption of raiding! parties, enthased by the bad news, from the passes west of the line; so, while all the reports of Sun Chuan-fang's bad luck and Chang Chung-chang's hurried retreat north of Yenchow were being religiously deleted from incoming news reports, the local Chinese press was allowed to print quite accurate accounts of the Fengtien victories on the Chengting-Taiyuan line, A little adjustment then seems to have enabled the Fengtien forces to move up again upon Changteh, but this time it was no "avalanche" but cautious movement of the main body, with cavalry operating ahead. Dates are, as usual in Chinese warfare, too various to be worth quot-but it was about this time that Sun Chuan-fang got his quietus, The Kuominchun must have known that the "avalanche" had paused for} reasons other than their own opposition and then taken a chance upon attacking Chang Chin-yao' unlucky right wing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.