In the open, Chinese soldiers proverbially run. Cornered, they fight like wild tigers, defend every streetcorner and doorway, die frothing and screaming defiance.
Ideal for such fighting is the ancient Chinese city of Shanhaikwan, the perfect corner. Surrounded by its own 40-ft. wall and backed by China's Great Wall, Shanhaikwan is a 20th Century Thermopylae, the gateway defending China proper from Manchurian invaders. Last week several thousand Chinese soldiers, armed chiefly with old-style rifles, were ordered to defend Shanhaikwan against the simultaneous assaults of Japanese artillery (19 pieces), Japanese whippet tanks, Japanese machine gun crews, Japanese bombing planes (seven) and Japanese destroyers (two) which fired in high, wide, erratic fashion from their anchorage six miles away in the Gulf of Liaotung opposite famed Port Arthur. Considered purely as butchery, the three-day battle was a little classic.
The Japanese troops were commanded by Major Ochiai, sometime military instructor to the troops & officers of China's "Young1 Marshal" Chang Hsueh-liang, the very troops & officers who were defending Shanhaikwan last week. Less than two years ago some of the Chinese officers sent popular Major Ochiai a floral tribute of chrysanthemums, Japan's imperial flower. Last week posies were forgotten.
Dog-trotting behind a murderous Japanese barrage the Imperial troops entered Shanhaikwan's dragon-crested South Gate. Firing from cover Chinese riflemen drove them back once, twice. Next artillery battered breaches in the walls, Japanese troops burst through, fought bayonet-to-bayonet with desperate Chinese among the low mud huts of Shanhaikwan's narrow, winding streets. Hurtling from the sky Japanese bombs set the city afire, rained death among soldiers and civilians alike. Japanese gunners, when they finally got the range, concentrated on Shanhaikwan's famed Drum Tower which has sounded, warnings for centuries, sent it crashing down in smoke.
"Fighting against an enemy possessing superior arms," said General Ho, "we held the city through three days and nights. . . . That must be considered a redeeming feature of the situation. . . . There may be criticism but my conscience is clear."
There was no criticism of General Ho whose resistance Chinese editors called "magnificent," but at least a hundred Chinese War Lords and Generals sent out telegrams denouncing Peiping's "Young Marshal" Chang for not having sent more troops to Shanhaikwan, proclaimed fervently their own eagerness to fight Japan. Most such proclamations were of course mere bluff, but the world listened to Poet-General Tsai Ting-kai, famed for the glorious resistance of his 19th Route Army to Japan's attack on Shanghai (TIME, Feb.1). Telegraphed General Tsai, who happened to be in British Hongkong 1,600 mi. from Shanhaikwan last week: "If Chang Hsueh-liang has no intention of resisting I will take the19th Route Army to North China!"