In retrospect it is easy to see! how the shadow of impending doom fell over Peking months before the final stroke, An normal number of shops went unkrupt at China New Year and) big foreign firms withdrew agencies which were running at dead loss, At the end of January overtures were made to the South for cooperation in secking treaty revision; early in February, when Mr. Edwardes, Acting Inspector-General of Customs, came south to try to reach a working agreement with the Nanking G ut for collection of the surtaxes, he cannot have without Peking's approval; and on March 5, Peking set up Commission to prepare for tariff autonomy. But on January 27 Nanking had publicly—prolined its refusal to recognize any act or appointment of Peking's. There was to be no compromise. On February 25 Chang Chung-chang of Shantung, the great drag on the Northern chariot, received a Dutch promotion as Tupan of Chihli and Sun Chuan-fang, reputedly the best Northern general, was appointed to the command along the 'Tien tsin-Pukou line. It was Sun who' actually opened the war, on April 10, driving southwestwards into Honan with the idea of cutting the Lung-Hai railway and rolling up Feng Vu-hsiang's right wing while the Fengtien armies drove at him from the north, The northern generals were most afraid of Feng and underrated Chiang's strength. Sun left his left flank insufficiently guarded; 17-19 he suffered a heavy t Tsining, one army being annihilated, and fell back with his remnants first on Taianfa thea on Tsinan, The latter place ulti-fell to the South on April 30. The subsequent "incident with Japan on May 3, blocking the Southern pursuit, enabled Sun to make his way by easy stages to Tientsin.
It will be convenient to finish with Peking before touching the Tsinan affair. The latter event drew from Chang Tso-lin on May 9 a poignant appeal to the South for a truce amd combination against foreign intrusions: he himself he said-had only warred upon Bolshevism which was no longer the foo; why should Chinese kill each other? He had given his troops orders not fight, in proof of his sincerity. This appeal like earlier overtures fell on deaf cars. Even now Peking's ease was by no means desperate. Its best armies wera still intact and victorious in the field.
They dealt a heavy blow Po to Feng Vu-hsiang at Changteh on May 19, another to Yen Hsi-shan of Shansi on May 30, But both victories were followed by until the vas armies were drawn [little circle round Peking. seems to be the fact that many Northern oticers and still more civilians were secretly in sympathy with the South and that
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.