News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1905-01-04
SOLDIERS LIVE UNDERGROUND
Comfortable Winter Quarters of japanese
Army in Frigid Manchuria
(London Corr. New York Times.)

(London Corr. New York Times)
With November the cold weather
begins In Manchuria, and is increas-
ingly intense. Around Mukden the
thermometer does not usually fall be-
low zero Fair until the middle of
December, when night after night it
NAV sink to five, ten and even twenty
degrees below zero, and during Janu-
ary to thirty. In the frequent north
easterly or northwesterIy bllzz ards
no human being can live under can
vass. Some may be quartered in ma
tive houses but where, even suppos-
ing that the owners should be ruth
lessly turned out, will accommoda-
ton be found for 100000 men?
The answer is simple; the japanese
are already making use of under
ground dwellings,, such as the natives
sometime use, and which were used by
the Russians during the winter after
the Boxers had destroyed their rail-
way buildings. The soil of Manchuria,
excepting in certain places, is dry at
this season, especially in the districts
between Mukden and Lao Yang,
where it is largely loess and sand.
The Japanese, who hold the low
hills with gentle slopes, are in the
better position. The method is to
dig trench about ten or twelve feet
wide. A narrow stairway is cut lead
ing down to the south end. At the
base 1t is widened and a door frame
set up with native door, turning on
wooden pivots. Theupper half of the
door is open work, which, being COW
cred with Opaque native window pa
per, admits light. The sun shines at
midday down the steps and, when the
door is opened, freshens and warns
the room.
Immediately within, on one side, is
a cooking stove, camp oven or boiler.
in simple and primitive style, to
which both Russians and Japanese
are accustomed. Along the length of
the trench is platform some two and
one-half feet Ugh and six feet wide,
made of hammered earth and rough,
.unburned bricks. Beneath this are
several simple fues, up and down
which the smoke and heat from the
cooking place find it's way, issuing at
the end, remote from the entrance, by
a small chimney cut in the solid
ground.
On this platform, which resembles
the old style of greenhouse fue and is
called by the Chinese a kang, many
men can sleep in warmth and com
fort on rough mat or dried grass.
This mode of heating is not only
economical, but the fups consume
and carry off the earth damp or car
bonic acid gas which always gener.
.ates Ia underground dwellings,.
Across the top of the trench rough
pieces of tim Der or pole are laid, and
on these kao-liang stalks or straw,
upon which ia heaped the earth exca-
waited from the trench. This cover
ing keeps out the cold and is practi
ecally shell proof. No rain falls and
but little snow, and the latter can, il
desired, be swept off the roofs or
mounds over the dwelling.
The Japanese have access to large
number of the native "surface" coal
mines, where a coarse dust coal is
rapidly excavated and can be, when
mixed with little wet loess earth
burned in the rough cooking places
referred to, in which grass, rubbish
and almost anything can also be cou
sumed as fuel. While the first twelve
to twenty feet of the plain and low
hills now occupied by the armies are
adry in winter. good water can bt
found almost anywhere at twenty. five
to thirty feet below the surface.