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while his policy for the South is to reverse the order of the
procedure.
Unification of Autonomy for the Provinces?
16. Unification may not come in the next two or three years. Failing unification, it seems best for each province to govern itself, allying, if necessary, with one or more neighbouring
provinces.
Relative strength of the contending armies.
--
all
17. Nanking has from 120,000 to 130,000 men, and Hankow 140,000. Feng Yu-hsiang has under him about 80,000 men good fighters. Yen Shi-shan has about 120,000, while Fentien
has something like 390,000 divided up as follows: Chang Tso-lin
260,000, Chang Tsung-chang 90,000 and Sun Chuan-fang 40,000/
If Yen Shi-shan, Feng Yu-hsiang and the Nanking Government were
to throw in their lots together, they would have among them
about 330,000 men, and this would be very serious to the Feng-
tienites.
Possible Re-grouping of Various Factions
18.
The existing factions may be re-grouped in two ways.
One is for Nanking, Shansi and Fengtien to join hands; and the
other is for Nanking, Shansi and Feng Yu-hsiang to do likewise.
19.
Possible Re-union of lankow with Nanking and reasons therefor
Hankow and Nanking might work together, now that Chiang
Kai-shek has resigned; but such reunion will not last long. The talks of anti-Bolshevism and 'purging of the party' which have
been sung so loudly in both Hankow and Nanking are mere talks. It was to them a matter of expediency. At the bottom of these
talks there is nothing but self-interest. A man can one day
actively work with the Bolshevists and another shoot them down,
according as it suits his own interest to do the one or the