Evening star., 1926-02-06
TO UNITY CHINA KILL OR
COMBINE IT'S WAR LORDS
Disband Merge Into National Army Its Bands OF
Mercenary Soldiers, Which Now Rule
and Ravage.

NAV trap him. cutting h.S communlca-
tions with Mongolia and Russia.
Camoufiag ging his retreat by the for
NAL permission which he recently Sc
cured from the provisional President
Of China to so abroad to study trade
conditions. he may already have es-
caped TO Mongolia or to Russia.
WI Pei-fu has increased his mill
tary strength. but not his popularity,
by extorting large sums of money.
millions it is said. from Yangtse men
of wealth for his proposed campaign
against the North China war lords;
and some of the Yang-tse sub-war-
lords who nominally follow him are
credited with slack allegiance. each
playing his own hand, dominated by
avarice. AS many Chinese battles are
won by bribery as by bullets.
WI has this advantage over his
rivals Chang and Feng that he has
not yet made his great drive to re-
gain supremacy. He has not like
them, at least in the present cam
paign, tried and failed. Since in the
popular mind he stands for China.
while Chang represents Japan and
Feng Russia. he may have better luck
than they in retaining the loyal allie
Some Minor War Lord May Win.
Unless Wu wins quickly, some
sub-warlord seems more likely to
emerge the victorious survivor of
this general scrimmage or battle royal
than the typical, conspicuous super
warlord, who Is steadily qualifying
TO claim for himself the definition of
Pasha in Marryat's novel as man
whose head is elevated above those
of his fellows mainly for the purpose
of more convenient decapitation.
Consequently to our list of new
conundrums must be added one that
questions which OF the Lis, the
Changs, the Suns, the Wus, the
Fengs, the Yaos. the Chaos and the
Yens. now in provincial semi-obscur-
ity, will outlve the three super-war-
lords and revel in the unlimited loot
of supreme Chinese dictator.
And still another line of questions
will obtrude. Will Soviet Russia con-
tinue to support Feng Cor his sue
cessor as Russian agent to the very
limit, making him so strong that
Japan, threatened by the Russian ad-
In ln1 n
support Chang, but WI also, against
common peril? VIII any other
great power, alarmed at the domi-
nance of Soviet Russia in North as
we'll as South China. directly or in
directly aid WI? Will the civil war
between local war lords, backed
secretly by great powers whose am
bitions clash. be transformed into in.
ternational war or new World War
in Asia? Will the clash today over
the Chinese Eastern Railway between
Russia and Chang Tso-lin. nominally
representing China, actually perhaps
also representing Japan. be the fore.
runner of a new war between Russia
and Japan?
Military Feudalism i'm China.
In an article printed in an October
number of the North China Herald
Tong Shao-yi amplifies and makes
more definite his thought concernine
the reconstruction or rather the ere
alton of a national army, concerning
which he talked interestingly in his
Shanghai conversation with me.
"One Of the most serious impedi
ments to our development as a demo
cratic nation is the return to feud
alism in the form of personal armies
led by the military chieftains who re
gard the territory which they and
their retainers have taken as personal
domain in which they act as petty
kings and in which they tax the
people as they please with a view to
increasing their own wealth. 1t is
quite natural that these mllitarists
should sacrifice everything to main.
tain themselves in power, to hold
LLCy IldNC anu 10 SCch ~
crease their holdings. do not single
out any individual. The system is the
same everywhere, and with all mill.
tarists. Not only with the so-called
super-warlords. but down to the low
est captain the military system Is a
return to feudalistic conceptions.
} A-Thies1ekem ha&te be rooted outbo.