CHINA AFLAME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10824, 18 July 1913, Page 2

CHINA AFLAME.

WIDESPREAD REBELLION.

PROVINCES TO DECLARE INDK" PENDENCE. JAPANESE ATTITUDE REBELS DESTROY RAILWAYS, By Telegraph.—Press Aosooiation, —Copyright. (Received July 18, 8.20 fum.) LONDON, July 17. ' A Pokin message says that thtf Kiangsi, Kiangsu, Kwangsi, Fukein, Canton, Szechnan, Hunan and Anliuj provinces are preparing to declare thei# independence. Some have already dona £O, Many Northern troops Itavs gone to Kiangsi, where indecisive, fighting is proceeding. The attitude of the Japanese is bit* terly commented on, and the presence of Japanese officers with the rebels sup* ports the belief that they are Stirling up strife. Li Huan Hung has protested again™ the anchoring of Japanese gunboats within the fighting zones. Advices through German ohannol3 state that a i-ebel leader, gearing a Japanese uniform, ascended tho river, in a Japanese gunboat, but tho Japan* eso Legation deny that official aasi&*j tance hfis been given to the rebels. The Southern army dynamited thai Pukow railway bridges, one hundretj' and fifty miles north of the Yang-tser» and tore up the rails, preventing the transport of Northern troops. , Hie insurgents surrounded the .German Consulate at Nankin, on tha ground that the Germans excluded the revolutionaries from; the German-Han-kow concession. Shanghai reports that the revolution is general along the lower Yang-tse. The province'of Kiangsu has joined the rebels. General Huan-Chi-Sing has declared war at Nankin against President Yuan Shi lvai, and Huang Huing has been appointed Commander-in-Chief, with tho Ex-Vioeroy xus Generalissimo. All the troops at Nankin and Chin, kiang have joined tho rebels.

The commanders of some forts won shot for refusing to join the rebels.