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teams should decide to be active at the same time. Of course, it was always possible, once China had Allies who would unquestionably win the war, whatever happened, that the negative policy might be overdone: should that happen, I am myself convinced, it would not be in accordance with the inclination of the frontline troops, if we can take those who passed through our school as typical, or of guerilla generals.
The idea of catching the Japanese by a mine, which might explode when those who had set it were many miles away, appealed immensely to the Chinese mind; but the urge was subject to the necessity of not drawing too heavy a retaliation onto the local population. The Japanese expected the local population to inform them of guerilla movements in the vicinity and inferentially any successful guerilla exploit was due to collaboration with guerillas and punished accordingly. Actually, of course, the population supported the guerillas so long as the guerillas did not make life too difficult by attracting too much Japanese retaliation. The guerillas depended, not only for success, but for mere existence, on the intelligence of Japanese movements provided by the local population. When it came to carrying out an operation; for instance, the capture of a small fort, the Chinese much preferred to capture it by guile. The Japanese garrison, who like all soldiers preferred to be waited on to doing anything themselves, would have a Chinese coolie to carry water from the well, a Chinese cook to prepare their meals, a boy to sweep out the quarters, and they would allow hawkers selling vegetables and such things to come in with their wares. These Chinese might be in the employ of the guerillas to a man. These Chinese, who as a nation are perhaps the best judges of character in the world, would soon learn all the weaknesses of the garrison and could make their plans accordingly; but the plan would have to take account of possible retaliation on the civilians involved, and might entail their entire removal from the district. On the other hand, in retaliating, there was a limit beyond which it did not pay the Japanese to go; in their own peculiar way they realised the advantage of attracting the population to their point of view. It resulted in a sort of balance being struck where the Chinese could judge just how far it was wise to go in carrying out any given policy of sabotage or more direct attack.
I have heard criticism of the trade which was allowed to flow between free and occupied China. At Chin Ya we were on one of the main roads over which this commerce passed. Every day you could see strings of coolies, or rickshaws, going towards the Japanese lines laden with tea,