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Silver Bullets? The Chinese who had commanded Canton's defenses, General Yu Han-mou, Military Governor of Kwangtung Province, ceremoniously surrendered to the Japanese. His Chinese enemies accused him of taking "Silver Bullets" (bribes), his Chinese friends warmly defended him. They said the Generalissimo had withdrawn so many troops from South China, believing the Japanese would not attack Canton until after they seized Hankow, that when the surprise offensive came fortnight ago it was impossible to do more at Canton than carry out the "Scorched Earth" orders, duly executed under General Yu.
His friends recalled that General Han Fu-chu, who did not surrender to the Japanese after he lost Tsingtao but fell back with his Chinese troops, was later executed by order of Generalissimo Chiang as a traitor, and that during the 15 months of the present war about 40 defeated Chinese commanders have been executed. In Canton, "The Birthplace of the Chinese Revolution," impassioned telegrams were received from Chungking in which Chinese President Dr. Lin Sen and Dr. Sun Fo, son of Dr. Sun Yatsen, "the Father of the Republic," exhorted the Cantonese to "defend your sacred soil."
Scorch Hankow? No sooner had Canton fallen than the Japanese announced their military timetable now called for the capture of Hankow by November 3", "The Sacred and Imperial Birthdate." This week, far ahead of schedule, the advance Japanese forces, behind a murderous airplane and artillery bombardment, hammered into Hankow. Chinese military heads, unwilling to stage a bloody last-ditch defense, abandoned the city, leaving squads behind to dynamite anything of value to the Japanese. Terrorized Chinese clamored at the barricades to Hankow's foreign areas as flames roared through the city. Generalissimo Chiang enplaned for a new military headquarters in the interior, Mme. Chiang flew to Chengtu, northwest of Chungking.
Holdup. At Shanghai this week as the U. S. Dollar Line's 22,000-ton President Coolidge prepared to pull out of the Yangtze mouth, Shanghai customs officials, acting on orders from Japanese military authorities, suddenly suspended the vessel's clearance papers. Reason: stowed aboard was silver worth $4,500,000, mostly bullion belonging to the Chinese Government but some of it jewelry and silver ware donated by patriotic Chinese for the purchase of war materials. The consignment was on its way to New York's Chase National Bank. The Japanese claimed that the silver rightfully belonged to the Japanese-controlled new Chinese Government at Shanghai. Dollar Line officials, unwilling to anchor the ship indefinitely off the China coast, grudgingly unloaded the silver and clearance papers were reissued. The shipment was stored in the Chase offices at Shanghai while U. S. diplomatic officials pondered what to do next.