Rout of Ma
Thermometer mercury scrooched down in its tubes, showed 4° below Zero. Across the bleak Manchurian steppes just south of Tsitsihar snowflakes scudded in a driving blizzard that nipped soldiers' noses, soldiers' ears. Well-publicized Chinese General Ma Chan-shan with 23,000 Chinese troops was about to make his heroic last stand against 3,500 prosaic but efficient Japanese soldiers.
On two convenient hills, each some 150 ft. high and admirably placed by Nature behind the fighting lines, stood the respective Chinese and Japanese General Staffs. Somebody had to start the battle....