WAR IN CHINA.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19158, 15 November 1927, Page 9

WAR IN CHINA.

.WUHAN FORCES SURRENDER. ' FIRE IN HANKOW. (BT CABLE—PEESS AB6OCIATIOH—COPTBIGHT.) (AUSTBALIAX AND N.Z. cable association) SHANGHAI, November 13. Japanese reports state that the Wuhan forces surrendered to the Nanking armies without fighting. British reports say that the Nanking troops have not yet entered Hankow, on account of a rumour that a section of the Hankow defenders is determined to resist the enemy, though the eventual annexation of Hankow by the Nanking Government is certain. A large fire is raging in the Hankow native city. The defending troops are in disorder, looting shops and homes, and not 6paring the military headquarters. General Tang Seng-chi, leader of the Hankow forces, has vanished. The fall of Hankow to Nanking will virtually place all the territory south of the Yangtse Valley under one Government. In the meantime, the Northern General, Sun-Chuan-fang, is advancing southwards with the intention of again bidding for the possession of Shanghai. [Hankow is once again the centre of civil strife in, China, and as a result, for a second time, is burning. When the Empire was overthrown in 1911 heavy fighting proceeded in "the city and its environs, culminating in a fire which swept through the native quarter. Last year Hankow was the centre of the struggle between the Northern and Southern armies, the Southern-, ers taking the city eventually. Then the Southerners, or Nationalists, split, the Moderates breaking away from the Hankow Communist group and forming a Government of their own at Nanking.]

ATTACK ON CONSULATE. (AUSTRALIAN AKD K.Z. AND BDK CABLE.) SHANGHAI, November 13. Special police were called out, and the regulars confined to barracks, on the occasion of the funeral of the youthful victim of Monday's attack on the Soviet Consulate. A huge procession of "White Russians followed the coffin to the cemetery, amid a profusion of Imperial Russian flags. Agitation meetings are reported to have taken place at Mukden, advocating the wholesale assassination of Soviet agents in China. The Soviet Consular staffs have demanded police protection. A marked growth is observed of White hostility towards the- Reds, in contrast to their erstwhile submissive docility. It is officially feared that a reaction has commenced, and that the Soviet eventually will bo compelled to evacuate.