Retreat, Coup

Chinese mercenaries swarmed up from Shantung and down from Manchuria. They united near the mouth of the great river Pei, and forced other Chinese mercenaries who were attempting to obstruct them (TIME, March 22) to abandon their positions and flee up the river toward Tientsin and Peking. Within a few days the invading mercenaries had taken Tientsin, with its 750,000 inhabitants, its 5,301 foreign residents, including 542 U. S. citizens. Late despatches indicated that the defeated mercenaries had retreated almost to Peking. Who Paid? Carnal observers displayed a pardonable curiosity as to who had hired all the soldiers in question. They were informed that these mercenaries subsist very largely by plundering as they go along but are nominally financed and directed by that perennial trio of Super-Tuchuns (really superbandits) Feng, Chang and Wu. (TIME, March 1, et ante.) The retreating forces were those of Feng. As they fell back the grip which he has held for so long upon Peking seemed slipping. The united advancing armies were those of Chang and Wu, respectively the chieftain of Manchuria and Central China. White Coup. Despatches reported that the Red Chinese Bolshevist Government at Canton was overthrown by reactionary White forces backed by prominent Chinese, including General Chang Kai-shek and Dr. C. C. Wu. Before this development, the Canton Hospital, founded 90 years ago by U. S. Dr. Parkes, was closed by Red troops after undergoing a state of siege, in which many patients starved to death owing to the impossibility of getting proper food through to them. No foreigners were reported among the dead.