RAIDING FORCE NEAR NANKING

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25290, 16 September 1947, Page 7

RAIDING FORCE NEAR NANKING

CURFEW IMPOSED BY GOVERNMENT

COMMUNIST GENERAL’S ACTIVITIES (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) NANKING, Sept. 15. The Chinese Gover/iment has imposed a curfew on the Nanking suburbs and oh river traffic following the discovery that a daring Communist raider, the one-eyed 51-year-old General Liu Po-chen, is roving the north bank of the Yangt.se about 50 miles from the capital. General Liu and his elusive army of hit-and-run raiders have long been a thorn in the Government’s side and have escaped many attempts to trap them. Five weeks ago they were reported to be pinned against the flooded Yellow river in western Shantung. Then the Government oh September 5 claimed that they were trapped in the mountains in the Honan-Hupeh-Anwhei border region. However, the military authorities now disclose that last week General Liu bfbke into Liusffi, a Government arsenal city 140 miles from Nanking. Government troops quickly recaptured Liuan, but in the meanwhile 150,000 rifles and considerable quantities of ammunition, with which it had been intended to equip Government recruits, had disappeared. General LlU’s men presumably destroyed what they could not carry away. Reports are now pouring into Nanking from widely separated points about the activities of the raiders, who are. apparently moving with their customary speed. General Liu’s forces are estimated at about 25,000 men. A spokesman at the Nanking naval base asserted that there was ho threat to Nanking, which is on the south side of the btoad Yangtse, but he confirmed that toe surfew, effective from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., had started last night.