The only portions of North China where the Japanese can be said to exercise any control at all are East Hopel, Chahar and Suiyuan, In the, two former they have been establish-Ing their" hold for nearly two years already. These two areas are. gar-risened chiefly by Manchoukuo troops: and, as they border on Manchoukuo, fare' in. any. case easily accessible Tapanese reinforcements at any moment, Suiyuan is held by bodies of Mongol irregulars who are of doubtful loyalty and only likely to fall in with Japanese wishes, as long as it sults their own purpose, In the rest of North China the Japanese armies only hold the railways and larger towns; beyond that chaos and anarchy reign complete, The whole of central and south Hopei is swarming with armed and desperate bands of men, partly disbanded soldiery and partly peasantry riven to desperation by the destruction of their homes and means of living. Into this large area the Japanese can only penetrate in strong bodies, and then are liable to be ambushed unless escorted by scout Ing planes. *Some days or so ago several of, these bands crossed the 'Yungtingho' northwards and raided various places along the Peiping-Tientsin Railway. They had to be Aispersed by bombing from the alr. And afterwards, when the noise of air bombing was heard for two days in Peiping to the south it was explained that Japanese planes were breaking up the ice in the river with bombs,
ing.
prevent these bands from eros:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.