How the Yunnanese Were Defeated From Our Own Correspondent, Chengtu, Sept. 16.
Chengtu to all outward appearances, as just escaped a terrible disaster.
For two or three days, the people have stood in helpless expectancy of a catastrophe, that would equal if not out-rival the terrors of two or three years ago, when Loh Poh-chih and Tai Kan left the city in lames, -Possibly in all her history, Chengtu has had no worse lot of so-called robber-soldiers within her walls than during the las; month. When in June, after that exhibition of disunion and treachery Lit Chao entered Chéngta as Mili-among the Szechuanese Generals, tary Governor, under the aegis of the Yunnanese, he was supported by the men who terrorized the Yangtze in the neighbourhood of Wanhsien, for the last two or three years. These men were neither fish, flesh nor fowl, They were not Yunnanese nor Kueichow-ives and the Szechuanese would not recognize them. They were red bands, indicating their abject sub-we Szechuanese should be the slaves of the Yunnanese?
Lastly i was reported that Liu Tsen-ho's and Hsiong Keh wu's soldiers had arrived from the north and were going to besiege the city.
Tne Roreers Ture.
This news produced a panic. The so-called robber-soldiers threatened to loot and burn the city. The city gates were closed. Well for the city that through the advice of the Consular Body and also from some of the leading citizens, Lu Ch'ao was persuaded to get his robber-bands out of the city. This evidently "og done by strategy, as the sol_ diets went against their will, Once on the move, their march became a rout, and as far as the eye could seth. the principle that it seo, they fled when no man pur-1s safe to throw stones at a running dog, the Szechuanese soldiers fired from the city walls at the retreating enemy. The next morning the city was decked with flags. Why these flags was asked? Oh, was the reply, the Yunnanese were driven from the city, and Szechuanese soldiers have taken possession. What soldiers? "Don't know," was the reply, but ig was evident from every action that the people felt they had been saved from some terrible calamity na by @ miracle, To those who know how unstable the Szechuanese are and that at present there are no leaders who have the confidence of soldiers or
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.