Apparently the Southern army is getting under way slowly for its march to the North. The Kuo Wen News Agency reports the concentration of troops along the northern borders of Kuamgtung and Kuangsi, mentioning the presence there of aeroplanes as well as the provision of wireless stations. The first province to be invaded would be Hunan, but if this and other agencies are reliable in rheic information, entry thereinto will be merely a joining up with assured allies. Kuo Wen says the Cantonese have already supplied the Hunan forces with arms and ammunition, and the Dah Tong Bureau is still more definite, for it mentions the report to one of the Legations that Chao Hong-ti, the Hunan Tuchun, is on the point of joining the Southern army. General Chao's attitude will be most inconvenient for Wu Pei-fu. Wu had asked him to join in the Yochow conference, promoted to consolidate the Yangtze provinces, but because of his predilection for the South, Chao has telegraphed his inability to comply and is sending a substitute. This, says the Dah Tong Bureau, is the first step in the division between Hunan and Chibli, and as a consequence Chihli has adopted a humbler attitude towards Chang Tso-lin. So much for the movements and influences in the South. Meantime the plot is thickening in the North, for there seems unanimity in the belief that Marshal Tuan Chi-jui and Dr. C. C. Wu, Canton's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, have arrived at Mukden, the home of Chang Tso-lin, and one might imagine that they are already preparing to discuss how the spoils.are to be divided. All this is in accordance with what recent' events have indicated, and it is perfectly reasonable in the state of things to look to the Chihli faction being encircled. The position is net "pleasant for the Chihli_ group, and it would appear as if somebody were trying to make money out of its leaders, in their plight, for the Dah Tong Bureau now announces that two gentlemen have approached them offering to get the anti-North campaign stopped on payment of $1,000,000. They must either be optimists or practical jokers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.