The paper soldiers are dead sou They do not exist in actual life They a imply figures for pur- W poses of auditing. They are used to confuse the commanding generals and the great folk in Peking, Mukden, Kalgan and such high centres. A local commander applies for funds to feed, clothe and equip his army. He says that he has, let us say, 10,000 men. He may have any number below that but on paper it is 10,000 men, or approximately that. "In the approximation lies his profit. If he has 2,000 less, he gets the money' that it costs to feed, and of this known, except Wei-chun in Honan has not more than 50 per cent, well armed. Sun. Chuan-tang in Chekiang has built himself a very fine fighting force. Bei Bao-shan and Ma Ju-jen in Kiangsu have what they had clu ing the last war. Tt can easily be stated that this force is not as well-equipped as the Fengtien army.
for finances, these are about equal. Neither' side has much money. Those commanders who have The coolies in the army are the carriers, the camp followers, the extras, who in an emergency called soldiers. Most of th portation is not done by the soldiers themselves but by these coolies. Sometimes when a general says that he has an army of 10,000, he has 2,000 paper soldiers and 2,000 coolies who do not get equipment and whose clothes are not so expensive, There is a profit in this An Enormous Total Therefore, when the writer ready that there are between 240,000 and 800,000 troops in Honan, he is places" are uncertain have little money. Wu Pei-fu has almost no money.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.