Nanning, Feb. 3.
Japanese forces today began tightening a noose around the Pingyang plain, where between 120.000 and 200.- 000 Chinese troops were believed to be trapped in a pincer movement Which culminated in the capture of Pingyang yesterday evening.
Various Japanese. detachments simultaneously swung this morning towards the centre of a circle embracing Nanning in the west, Pingyang in the north, and Wingshun in the south.
This manœuvre was designed to smash in a many-sided attack the large number of Szechuen, Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Central troop: massed in the Kunlungkwan area for a projected recapture of Nanning.
Army aircraft were ce-operating with the Japanese ground forces bombing and machine-gunning Chinese concentrations.
'A counter-attack by 5,000 Chinese troops in the mountains north of Kiutang was halted yesterday morning when aeroplanes bombed and machine-gunned the advancing Chinese.—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.