Yen, Zero, Chang, Reds

Yen. With 43 "attendants" (many female) a handsome Chinese in the prime of life landed last week in hospitable Japanese Dairen.

He was the great & virtuous Yen Hsi-shan, long "model Governor" of Shansi Province, now defeated, selfexiled. Some of the "attendants" said that Marshal Yen yearns to tour first Japan, next the U. S., will shortly do so. Others said he will settle down at Beppu, Japan's Karlsbad, lately the refuge of that other Chinese exile, notorious Marshal Chang Tsung-chang, so brazen that he calls his attendants "concubines" and worse (TIME, Aug. 12).

Sub-Zero. All North China was colder last week than in any winter since 1893. Thermometers said 35DEGF. below zero in Harbin, Manchuria. Ill-clad, scant-nourished Chinafolk died by hundreds in cities, by dozens in towns.

Chang. Back to Mukden, his capital city in sub-zero Manchuria, the young War Lord Chang Hsueh-liang did not go last week. He has been at Nanking in central China, conferring with another "little general," President Chiang Kaishek.

In Nanking loud Mrs. Chang Hsueh-liang was hospitably entertained by two of the famed "Soong Sisters," arbiters of Chinese society: Mrs. Chiang Kaishek, softspoken, Wellesley-educated wife of the president, and Mrs. H. H. Kung whose husband is the excessively aristocratic 75th descendant of Confucius.

As a result of the "little generals' " conference young Chang, who inherited Manchuria and $10,000,000 from his famed, barbaric father Old Chang Tso-lin (TIME, July 2, 1928) set himself up last week in Peiping (once Peking), prepared to reside there permanently as Governor of the North. If one of his subordinates in Manchuria does not seize that rich land and ruin Marshal Chang, he will be most lucky.

Reds. Ordered by the President of China into Kiangsi Province "to suppress the Reds" (TIME, Jan. 19), the Eighteenth Army Division was surrounded last week and disarmed. It promptly deserted en masse to the Chinese Red Army of Kiangsi which recently massacred with amazing ferocity 100,000 persons.

General Chang Chi-tsan, Commander of the deserting Eighteenth, was held by his captors for $2,000,000 (Mex.) ransom. Appalled, the President of China despatched four army divisions to Red, rebellious Kiangsi.

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