893.00/13275: Telegram
The Consul General at Hankow (Josselyn) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 14—3 p.m.]
57. The Communists under Hsu Hsiang Chien who remained in northwestern Szechuan when Mao Tze-tung17 moved into Kansu in September en route to northern Shensi have struck southwards from west of Sungpan, driven back the Government forces in the Mowkong area, and reached Lushan and Tienchuan north and west of Yachow and are threatening Tayi and Kiunglai, west of Chengtu. Liu Hsiang, the Szechuan Chairman, has withdrawn his headquarters from Kiunglai to Sintsing which is closer to Chengtu. Yan Sen’s 20th Army is reported to have borne the brunt of the fighting north of Yachow and lost heavily but to have checked the Communist advance, at least temporarily. According to unconfirmed reports in Chengtu November 9th troops of Liu Wen Hui’s 24th Army in Yachow have refused to fight and the situation there is serious. Reinforcements have been despatched to Yachow from Chengtu in large numbers and there are heavy troop movements toward Chengtu from the northeast. Strict censorship has been established.
2. The following Americans were stationed in the danger area: at Yachow Mr. Frederick Newton Smith and the Misses Laura Emma Brodbeck, Carrie A. Shurtleff and Frances Therolf, all of the American Baptist Mission; at Kiunglai, Miss [Mrs.] R. Jefferson, wife of a China Inland missionary. Air mail letter from Chengtu November 11th states missionaries at Kiunglai have evacuated and those at Yachow were leaving by raft for Kiating November 11th. I have telegraphed Kiating for information regarding them.
Repeated to Department, Peiping and Nanking.
- Head of the Chinese Soviet regime.↩