Tsingtao, Mar, 21.
About 3000 Chinese soldiers have been slain in a series of engagements with Japanese forces pressing upon Tangtowchen, about 16 kilometres north-east of Lini, according to field dispatches received here to-day.
Tangtowchen is being used by the Chinese troops as one of their last defence centres in this part of Shantung. Following their defeat in several battles with the Japanese forces in areas surrounding that town they left 3,000 bodies on the fields, the reports stated.
The Chinese troops at Tangtowchen. comprise the 38th, 39th, 40th and 180th Divisions under Gen. Chang Chih-chung, former garrison commissioner of Nanking and Shanghai, and were said to number as many as 40,000. They have suffered heavy losses at the hands of a comparatively small Japanese force.—Domei,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.