BITTER CHINESE RESISTANCE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 22 March 1938, Page 5

BITTER CHINESE RESISTANCE.

• ADVANCE REACHES SOUTHERN SHANTUNG (By Telegraph-Press Assn.-Copyright} Received Monday, 7.5 p.m. LONDON, March 21. Japanese troops, smashing their way flown the Tsinpu railway, have reached the southern border of Shantung, where , they captured Hanchwang. 20 miles from Suchow, says the Shanghai correspondent of The Times. General Lit-sung-jen, one of China’s ablest soldiers, commands this region. He offers a bitter resistance, including hand-to-hand fighting along the Grand Canal, the railway bridge over which the Chinese dynamited. The Japanese assert that General Lit-sung-jen’s divisions in Kwangsi and Szechwan are retiring -in disorderly fashion into Northern Kiangsu, leaving 7000 dead. The Japanese have taken over the Chinese coalmines here and now control €0 per cent, of China’s coal output.

CHINESE 1 AIR FORCE. TORBIGN LEGION ABANDONED. (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) HANKOW, March 21. The Foreign Legion of the Chinese Air Force, which included British, Australian and other volunteers, has been -disbanded. CHINESE RETURN TO BUSINESS, THOUSANDS WITHOUT JOBS. (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) DAIREN, March 21. The special correspondent of the Australian Associated Press, who travelled on an armed train from Tsinan to Tsingtao, states that farmers en route were tilling the land and carrying on business as usual. Tsingtao city is peaceful under Chinese police, with the Japanese Army in the background.

The Japanese cotton mills are in appalling ruin, the loss being over one hundred million yen and as a result of this tens of thousands of Chinese are without jobs.