/USHING rapidly westward across the south Honan plains, Japanese troops yesterday were within 50 kilometres east o Sinyang, the strategically vital railway and highway junction 200. kilometres north of Hankow.
Five days after the capture of Kwangchow, the last of the remaining Chinese defence centres barring the way, to a Japanese advance from Anhwei towards the Peiping-Hankow railway, the Japanese occupied Loshan, an important highway centre, halfway between Kwangchow and Sinyang, on Wednesday morning.
The capture of Loshan placed the Japanese in a controlling position over' highway traffic from Hankow into Honan, as the principal highways radiate from Loshan to the north.
Loshan was taken in a dawn attack on Wednesday, as Japanese troops crossed moat-like creeks outside the city walls to force their way through the Tinghsieu gate at the south of the city at 630 o'clock on Wednesday (morning, a Domei dispatch stated.
The main Japanese force entered the city at 9 o'clock.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.