Tokyo, Sept. 28.
Heavy rains are slowing up the Japanese advance across Honan province towards Sinyang on the Peiping-Hankow Railway, Lieut.-Gen. Seishiro itagaki, Minister of War, was reported having told his Cabinet colleagues yesterday.
Chinese troops under Gen. Sun Lien-chung defending this sector, he was stated to have declared, contained a large percentage of raw re-fruits, hastily assembled to bring up the strength of the depleted Chinese divisions concentrated there. These, he was reported to have said, had a numerical strength of from 800 te 1,000 men, or approximately one-sixth of the average normal strength of a Chinese division.
Chinese defences at Tienchiacheng, on the north bank of the Yangtze, Lieut-Gen. Itagaki was said to have continued, were strong. Several Chinese counter-attacks had been reported from that sector, but the defenders were now facing complete demoralization because of steady Japanese onslaughts, the War Minister was reported to have claimed.
On the southern Yangtze front, Japanese and Chinese troops were facing each other near Yangsin from a distance of about five kilometres, while no developments had occurred on the Tehan front, south of Kiukiang, according to the War Minister.—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.