Hankow, Apr. 18.
Reviewing the military situation, General Hsu Pei-keng, chief of the Intelligence Department of the Generalissimo's headquarters, declared today that so far as was known the Japanese had transferred about one division of the troops operating in north Shansi in the west Suiyuan area, along the Peiping-Suiyuan Railway, to Peiping.
The division had then been transported by train, via Tientsin and Tsinanfu, to Weihsien. on the Tsinanfu-Tsingtao Railway, for transportation in lorries to the Lingyi sector.
Three-thousand of these Japanese troops, he said, had arrived at the Lingyi front and had launched an offensive against the Chinese positions "without success."
General Hsu pointed out that th? Chinese forces were continuing: o harass the Japanese on the Peiping-Hankow Railway front in Shansi province, and also in Anhwei and Chekiang provinces, making it impossible for the Japanese to transfer troops to Shantung|for the new offensive.
He emphasized, however, that it was possible for the Japanese to send fresh troops from Japan proper and also from Manchuria. Such a step, he added, would "expose Japan to very grave dangers."
The Chinese command, General Hsu explained, were not minimising the importance of the forthcoming operations in southeast Shantung and preparations had already been completed in order to meet any emergency there,—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.