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Silas "for the Aevoteue Photo me Shick. foe March 30 nook Pace, Seri, anntacns Sk Dern Peking, Feb. 23, With special trains waiting at Talyuantu to bring General Yen Hsi-shan and his staff to Peking, with the old administrative buildings being cleaned and repaired, and with the gathering here of a large crowd of there same time-servers 30 and office-seekers who deserted the old capital for Nanking in the spring of 1928, it become apparent that Peiping is likely soon' to. become again' Peking—the Northern Capital, the inner cles of politi ry life there is already who shall be Foreign Minister, who shall be Finance Minister, what title Yon Hsi-shan will have. For North China knows that it must soon be at war with South China—Peking fighting inst Nanking—Yen Hsi-shan against Chiang Kei-shek—the old order against the "Yon Hsi-shan is off the fen and is now astride the tige declares a poster widely plastered round this old city a few days ago, and indeed this seems. to be the ease. But the transition from' the comfortable (and profitable). fence to the raging tiger was not made without reluctance, for Yen, accord: ing to his local advisors, has hope Chiang, Kai-shek could be forced to resign, and that the men and ideas of North China could gain ascendancy 259-8701 without more bloodshed and,, more 310] waste of treasure.
Ten years ago—even five years ago—the series of remarkable telegrams and manifestoes directd against General Chiang would probably have-been successful. But} today General Yen is amazed and disgusted and angered to find that the old considerations of "face" are no longer all-powerful. The paper moves against the chairman of the Nanking Government have availed nothing except to arouse General Chiang's anger.
Hence the recent call to all elements of the Kuomintang, except} only the Communists, to mest at. Peking as a gort of People's Cor ference, and to declare Nanking aa illegal" and usurping authority fraudulently based upon the mandates of the "packed" Kuomintang Congtess held' at Nanking last March, Yen, alone, would not dare to} challenge the power of Chiang Kai shek, but to-day he has allies. First of all there are the Kuominchun forces. They must fight, or submit to Nanking, or starve, Th Kuominchun tried fighting in October and November of last year, but Yen did not help them, though at that time his armed intervention might have been decisively fatal to Nanking.
Now, by - clever political manquvering, it is not Yen who is helping the Kuominchun, but the Kvominchun who are helping Yen, and as a pledge of real ce-operation Yen has placed a portion of his forces in Honah under the command of General Han Fu-chu, General Lu Chung-lin, who has already left Sianfu and gone to Tungkuan, to direct the eastward movement of the Kuominchun, is intended to be the active field com-inlander of the Kuominchun and also of those ex-Kuontinchun forces which last summer "went over" to Nanking. Feng Vu-hsiang himself will stay in the background, and act as an Advisor or Elder States-with Lu Chung-lin without the loss face that would have been entailed man open return to Feng's personal command.
Shih Vu-san is another of Yen's allies. Hed Yen -moved against Chiang "Kai-shek when Shih Yusan staged his daring mutiny at Pukow in' December, the leadership would have been Shih's and Yen would have been a supporter, To-reversed—for has been Yen who has most demanded that Chiang Kaishek shall resign and go bros Much hinges upon the atti finally taken by General Chen yuan, the governor of Shantung. Yen's supporters here are at the manner in which propagandists are stressing Chen Tiap-yuan's pronouncement—of "loyalty to the Central Govern-for they know that the day before this pronouncement was given out the cautious Chen sent his family from Tsinanfu to Peking in two private At' present the Shantung governor, who does not want to bes the brunt of Nanking's attack, is declaring that he is for peace and will permit no warfare in his pro ince. This means that he will not permit Nanking's troops proceed northward along the Tien. tsin-Pukow Railway, and that, it Chiang Kai-shek persists in trying to strike at Tientsin by that route, Chen's Shantung forces will' fight against him.
'Ma Fu-hsiang, the Mayor of} 'Tsingtao, is held' to his sympathy with Yen when he refused to accept Nanking's prof-for of the governorship of Anhui province, and this is taken to meat that Ma's son's army will side with the North, and wilt join Shih Ya-san in trying to repulse Nanking's expected military thrust against Kaifeng.
The attitude of Marshal Chang Hsueh'liang is not all that Yen could desire. Young Chang: makes no secret of his dislike of the present Nanking regime, but he refuses, at this moment, to take Yen's: side actively, and under! present plans no Manchurian troops are to be sent south of the Great Wall, Train loads of kaoliang nay be shipped south from Mane churia's fat fields, and there will probably be shipments of military, in. short, does not want] to be the tail' to Yen's ambitious kite, but will carefully yada] its own indepen Marshal, it is said, hopes emerge as a'dominant figure if the campaign results in a. stale mate, or to become leader of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.