Japanese thrusts routed the 200,000 Chinese defenders of Shansi who are fleeing in confusion south and west of the Yellow River, a Japanese military spokesman Shanghai in claimed yesterda:
Straggling units were seeking sancruary in the mountains. Some of the defenders of Linfen, he said, had fled to the snow-capped plateaus to the west, while near Yushe and Wuhsien, halfway between Pingyao and the eastern Shansi border, other units trapped by the rapid Japanese advance, had also made for the hills.
Further east, near the Honan-Hopei border, the spokesman said, 20,000 Chinese troops located in the area bounded by Linhsien to the west and Hantan to the north, "had surrendered, Success in mopping up operations in the hilly country between Fenyang and Hwaiyin, near Pengpu, on the Tientsin-Pukow Railway, was also claimed by the spokesman. In an encircling movement launched on March 3, the Japanese troops had annihilated 1,800 Chinese, in groups of 200, 600 and 1,000 respectively, he claimed,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.