The river port of Tangkiacha, th port for Jukao, is in the hands of a large body of well-armed Chinese guerillas, the "North-China Daily News" was informed yesterday by foreign representative of a company interested cargo business in the Lower Yangtze. Several river vessels have been forced to turn back, he said, and indications were that the port of Nantung (otherwise known as Tungchow) was being threatened.
Two Portuguese ves: normally run between Tangkiacha—also known as gkong—namely, the Faro ug ud the Ave Maria; the former vessel is the faster of the The Faro arrived off the entrance to the ha hour on Thursday, but was stopped and turned back by two Japanese warships anchored there.
The Ave Maria, however, arrived long after dark and actually crept ito the harbour unnoticed, not realizing that anything was up. Everything Was quiet for some time, but for once the dozens of sampans which generálly"come out to meet vessels did not pi in an appearance.
Heavy Fighting Indeed, for a few minutes, the Ave Maria thought she had put in to the wrong port! When dawn arrived. however, they found they were in the right place—but they also saw. and heard, heavy fighting going on.
Few Japanese were to be seen, but there ' were about 5,000 Chinese guerillas, well armed, in complete possession of the port With the capture of Tangkiacha the Chinese troops appeared to be trying to capture the neighbour [city of Tzechuen, and from the Ave looked as though they would ful. The Chinese troops. i with heavy and light machine-guns and rifles, appeared to [be composed partly of Peace Preservation Corps men and partly of regular soldiers—the latter are lieved to be remnants from Hsuchowfu who have received fresh supplies {of ammunition and equipment, When the Ave Maria left the port Jat 4 o'clock on Friday morning, a Japanese transport was anchored near the port Tunzchow has hitherto been in the hands of an equivalent to the lo Ta Tao Government police, but cording to these eye-witness: port is now threatened by the Chinese troops, who should have little difficulty in capturing the pert
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.