Laborious Advance Up Peking-Hankow Line Against Honan:
Reported Secret Alliance of Wu Pei-fu and Chang Tso-vent any movement of—Hupeh troops into Honan. General sent a telegram 40 Marshal Wu's: headquarters in Hankow. Wa im mediately called an emergency military council at Ch'a Chia-teng, and from this council the orders were issued which caused the despatch of the.six brigades into Honan, From Our Owx Wachang, Jan. 26.
Once more, the picees in the! Chinese kaleidoscope are shifting' themselves into a fresh figure, and each day now brings news of 2 more or less startling nature. At the beginning of last week, it seemed as though peace was at last] assured,—for a short time at any rate." Then your correspondent had to make a journey into the country which kept him away from the centre for three days. In the country, there are no newspapers, news travels slowly from mouth to mouth, and not much interest is taken in anything which happens further away than the next market-town. Consequently, it was a great surprise, on returning WuHan at the end of the week, to find that fresh movements of troops were on foot, and talk of fighting to take place in the neighbouring Prove of Honan wi on everyone's lips, study of the local Chinese! newspapers has revealed the! general development of events, but even now it is not quite clear what it is all about. Wu Wei-fu, instead of setting about the disbandment of his troops as was foretold a fortnight ago, has suddenly commenced forward movement into. Honat Yoh Wei-chun, the Honan Tapat is being attacked on several sides, and jis evidently in a precarious position. But whether he is! -|friendly to Wu, or preparing to resist the northward advance of the Hupeh troops, is by no means certain. There is much talk of Marshal Wu proceeding to Loyang. almost immediately, and of the setting up of a Provisional Government somewhere in Central China. Some of the items of rows which' have been published on one day have been contradicted on the next. But the general development seems, to have been as follows.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.