Japan's New Offensive In the last week China has added
to her military successes the capture of two strategic cities north of the Yellow River in Honan and of a village north of the Grand Canal in Shantung. But the Japanese are making a determined effort to retrieve their severe reverses, and especially their great defeat at Taierhchwang. Four divisions, numbering 8o,000 men, have been brought to the Pukow-Tientsin railway front in an effort to advance via Lingyi, relieve the besieged Japanese forces at Yihsien and attack Suchow, the vital junction of China's main railways from north to south and east to west. The capture of Lingyi is already reported, but in the great struggle impending China's military advisers are said to be confident of victory, though the Chinese armies have not yet shown themselves capable of defeating Japanese forces of such strength in pitched battle. The Japanese, however, are heavily outnumbered, as the Chinese are said to have 200,000 troops in the field. Japan's efforts to retrieve the situation in Shantung illustrate the difficulties she has to face in her campaign in China ; for the removal of troops to take part in her new offensive has already led to a renewal and extension of guerilla fighting in Shansi, and the garrison in Manchukuo has also been weakened by one division.
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