1926 (1 of 2)

Nan chang, Kiangsi,
September 30, 1926.
Last night we received the first mail that has come through
to us since the.beginning of the fighting except for the mail arriving
across the ri ver on Sunday the 19th and whi ch was de li ve r e d to us six
or eight days later. Evidently from reports which I have been able.to
read, there is much propaganda mingled with some of the news which ap~
pears.
We have now in the h 0 spi t 0.1, capt mins and maj or s of both the
northern mld southern forces as well as other means of securing informa~
tion. As near as we can learn the city was taken by less than a thou~
sand southerners. roJ:he report that there was no northern soldiers in the
city was a mistake, for some thousands of no r t he r n troops had occupied
the city day before the southerners appeared. The rail heud was also
held by several thousand troops at which position they were strongly
fortified with rice bags, walls of heavy warehouses, etc. The northern~
ers had a train of steel freight cars alsQ Which could be kept moving
up and down the railway. According to what seems to be aocunate informa~
tion the southerners penetrated to the station thirty li north of Nan~
chang where they blew up a bridge and wrecked a train. So far as we
could learn there were in the neighborhood of ten thousand southern
troops engaged.
TVhile the southerners o c cup'i e d the ci y there were five days
of almost incessant fighting, no re particularly firing across the river. between the troops of Sun Chuan Fan who held the railroad and the south~
erners who held the city side. On the fifth day the southerners practi~
cally all left the city going soutl1 to hold back General Deng Er Tso, the
Commander-in-chiefrs forces. On Friday evening the 24th, General Deng
with two divisions(approximately twenty thousand men) ente~ed the city
by the south gate, he having fought his way for twenty li or more during
thut day driving back before him a thin skirmish line of a fow hundred
southern troops.
Most of the southern troops during the Whole operation were
kept on the west side of the river, where repeated attempts were made
to drive the forces of General Sun from their entrenched position at
the rail head.
On occupying the city, General Dang's troops proceeded to ter~
rorize the whole popu~ace and ever since a reign of terrbr has prev~iled.
Shops allover the city have been systematically looted. In one case,
known to the author, onG large shop having heen visited twenty times by
different bands of northern soldiers. These oporations began by the k;i.
ing of more than sixty police so that until the IHst two days, police
were withdrawn entirely from t he streets. Among o t he r s, the official Red
Cross Hospital was shot up, the head of the Rec~ Cross killed as well as
four or five of their workers. Ostensibly this looting is carried on in
the efforts of the northern troops to find hidden southern soldiers and
student sand 0 t he r s who part i of.pat ed in their act i vi tids or who sought
to shelter them.
The temporary Red Cross organization, the organization which
is financing the work whi ch is being done by i7he Hethodist Hospi tal have
during the last five days buried more than a thousand corpses, gathered
from in and noar the city on this side of the river. Of these more than
ten were bodies of southern sold!ers, many were northern so~diors, but