Horrid Story of Sack of Lungyen by Communists 1
At no period of Chitiese history has the country been free from robber bands and it is doubtful if at any period these have been more numerous or more daring than those that infest several districts now, In one particular the bandits of to-day seem to oni-Herod their predecessors. There is nothing of the gallantry of Robin Hood about: the wretches who now make life unbearable for the people of the districts which they infest. Even White Wolf, who swept back and forth across Honan and the northern part of Anhui several years ago, was gentleman of the road compared with Chu Mao, who haunts the Borders of Fukien and Kuangtung. His band not only robs the people, but takes a delight in inflicting une nameable tortures on captives, He. has recently captured the important city of Lungyen, in Fukien, and the atrocities he inflicted on his captives recalls the horrible pictures we had in 1927 when the Communists, for a short time, had possession of the two cities of Haifengiuh in Kuangtung. These learned their trade from the reports of the terror of the Cheka and, possibly, bettered the methods of their instructors, It is likely that the remnants of that band of reprobates have joined up with this Rew terror and are infection the band with their Bolshevist Brave but Useless Defence the ety shouting," Down with the May 26 the brigands approach-
government" and. such like. cries, They also urged the farmers to join the Communist league and. accom= pany them in an attack on the city, On the two following days they at: tacked the city' being helped by:
contingent of country people mall defence force within the Sates, assisted "by a volunteer merchant corps, beat them off. They retreated, gathered up reinforce ments of roughs from the neighbour. ing villages and returned to the ate tack on the 30th, Again they were driven back with the loss of tome thirty men. On the Brd of the press ent month they returned, accom. panied by a larger band' of Chu Mao's veteran raffans, and the ity had to be abandoned by the armed force inside. The rabble at once set
enced to loot and killed right an tothe buildings they' had. come left without mickey. aad Unspeakable Tortures They took a ferdish pleasure ti torturing those they were about slay. "Some were disembowelled, some hanged, sone drowned, some brained, some shot. 'They. beheaded tone and some they buried alive They dismembered others at' the Joints and some they cut in small Pieces before killing them, They out the breasts off women and killed others with nameless torture that cannot be written of, They took, special pleasure in burning. books shops and the bortes of prominent People. That they" pilfered the money shops and banks goes without saying; altogether the loss to: the ily. must be in the neighbourhood of $10,000,000 Tease that were For tunate enough to escape fled into the county and must number several tens of thousands, This is certainly the most terrible calamity that has befallen the dis trict within the memory of the sidest living inhabitants. And. the worst that the band is still large.
have "withdrawn to. their stronghold in the hills where they will riot for atime on their gotten gains, selt or kill off such of their captive: As are not redeemed when they are ready to take the road again, and then they' will swoop down on some other defenceless town and make of it such a shambles ae they have left behind in Lungyen. of which the people had been ignor= ant, Gen Li Hsin is not his own master, for the Yunnanese on number his Kueichow troops by, i= is said, 20 to 1. Te probably now regrets having disturbed the peace of the province, since he is not in 4 position to restore order-even in {bis sity and robberies ate not me ment has. been fete frequent, although the new govern:
been here for half a outlook is not at all either for this sity or for the province in general. 4
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.