The appointment of Marshal Peng to the Kansu Tupanshin ts the quid pro quo for agreement to the Tecrrangement of the Ki Anhui" posts, The General "has never _uccopted the Tupanship of the North-western Prontiers Defence, and after his many protestations, could not very well do s0 without considerable lose face. His new appointment of much significance in giving point to his claims as the super-tuchun of China's Northwest, The old headquarters, Kalgan, was too near the territory of his rival. From his future base at Lanchow, he hopes to be able to carve out sphere of influence sweeping eastward from the borders of Chinese Turkestan right up to the Peking-Hankow railway, and stretching southward from the Gobi to the fringes of the Yangtze zone. But he has yet_many problems to settle before he can bring the various commande thee sections under hi First, he has to propitiate the Mohammedans, who do not tolerate anything but the slightest suggestion of overlordship, and who cannot put too much trust in the man who tore up the agreement which ensured them of favourable treatment ax well as the ex-Emperor Hsuan Tong. All the time he has been at Kalgan he has been engaged in this task. Ma Fu-hsiang, Feng's nominal right-hand man in the oversee ship of the Northwest, is a Mohammedan Ma, but he is not on the best of terms with the Kansu clans, having mixed up too much in Chinese politics. He is also an expert fence-rider, and has a keen appetite for the fruits of euch levies as opium taxes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.