Peiping, Sept. 22.
A decisive test of is imminent in North China as the Japanese Army prepares ai further drive agaifist the Chinese positions along the Peiping-Hankow and Tientsin-Pukow railway zones. Japanese successes have hitherto been gained at the expense of lightly-armed Chinese troops, only four divisions of whom belong to the Central Government. Hostilities are expected to enter a new phase when Nanking throws aeroplanes, tanks and heavy. artillery into the fray.
Nanking's main defence line stretches between the railways fifty tiles south of Paotingfu and Tsangchow. The Chinese are reported to have prepared elaborate entrenchments cleverly concealed among the woods and millet fields around Paoting-fu, which- the Japanese have heavily bombed preparatory to a general attack, for which the Japanese have formed up on a twelve-mile front north pot Paotingfu—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.