Shanghai, Jan, 30, With 110,000 Chinese back in, the Soochow now enjoyed conditions probably nearest to normal of any frown, between Shanghai and Nan ing." @ Japanese Embassy spokes~ Iman said last night, The peace-time population of the "Venice of China" was placed at 200,000, "Basing his statements on the report of a Japanese consular oficial who returned from Soochow yesterday, the Epokesman declared that the. Peace extent, the position of the Chinese troops' onthe Peiping-Hankow Railway, a8 the capture of Hsuchowfu Would allow the victorious Japanese column tondvance westward along the Lunghai Railway in order to support the Japanese driving southward along the Peiping-Hankow Railway towards Hankow, the present nerve centre of. the Chinese Government, The Japanese occupation of the Lunghai Railway and the junction of the two diferent Japanese armies the Peiping-Hankow Railway would practically clean the areas troops: north of the Yangtze of Chinese san and' Mallustian changed. hands several times. A Japanese. flanking movement against the Chinese lett wing forees at Yulklashan was success Tatty checked.
"Japanese warships on the Yangtsze River shelled the' Chinese. positions from, Sanshenchen, Heavy casualties, have been sus tained by both ses. The Chinese fnsualtiee include two captains, sev ral lieutenants and 400" soldiers Chinese advance Heuchow, Jan. 25.
Japanese soldiers on the western bank of Takiho (river), north of Ming-point of the "Hindenburg Line"
New fortifications were reported be under constmuetion along a line] Voking Tingruan and Fengyang, west of ihe Tsinpu oilway and south Heuchow.
New antiaircraft batteries were also reported under installation in the: Vicinity of Fengyang and Pengpu, Where the Chinese forees apparently expect to give bathe to the Japanese troops sdvaneing north from the:
Closer to Usuchow tientsin, Jan. 30, Steadily drawing loser to. the Railway, the Nationalist jatiack on. Hangchow' "by Chinese {troops based upon Fuyang, 25 kdllometres west of the lakeside city, a week ago, the Chinese Army's left wing has been withdrawn to points {ar Inland on the southern bank of the Chientang River, a Japsnese mill-{ary spokesman announced last night.
The Chinese, he said, suffered 117 casualties in the abortive counter~ offensive. A Dattalion commander was among those slain. The troops Eolonged to the 79th Division.
"The present Chinese line, the spokesman said, stretched " from [Ghangshan,, approximately. twenty: kilometres "south-west of Hangchow, Maintenanee Commission, witha start '0f,300 persons, was obtaining satis-{factory Fesults," About 900 policemen hind been recruited and were now on duty, he added.
Three thousand destitute Chinese were receiving free gruel dally. at even kitchens, while more than 100 tegular patients applied for treatment daily at the three free elmies operated by the Japanese Army in the city, asserted, "Telephone service had been restored as had ferry services to vane ous towns and villages accessible from Soochow by. canal and river, the spokesman declared.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.