Most nations start recruiting at the threat of war, but China has had too many soldiers for so long that last week, as Red Russia menaced her from the North, she girded for battle partly by cutting out wasteful soldier deadwood from her armies in the South, which is not likely to be threatened.
Even to disband a horde of China's motley, half-dressed, rapacious hired troops costs dear. Dismissed soldiers must be given work and a modicum of pay or they will revert to banditry, a profession which most of them forsook...
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