The Yangtze valley approaches to the city are well commanded by hills, while the level ground is not continuous but spreads itself across the river irregularly and is nowhere much more than 20 miles in width.
Hankow lies near the southwest corner of China's immense central plains, and south and west of it the mountains offer secure refuge from Japanese penetration. To the south one can travel both by rail and river io Changsha, an important city on the railway, China's vital supply link with the sea at Hongkong.
If flood difficulties should increase and the Yangtze valley itself be seriously affected the invaders' communications can lie along the 50-mile "wide plateau based on the Tientsin-Pukow Railway between the Yangtze and Huai River valleys.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.