FLANK ATTACK SUCCESS.

“Yesterday they essayed an attack, the results of which confirmed their optimistic beliefs, but in the evening Wu-pei-fu, personally conducting the operations, sent 500 Chihliites round against the Fengtien right flank at Changsintien, as advanced scouts. Chang Tso-lin’s men attacked and dispersed the 500, capturing half of them. The night then set in and Wu-pei-fu launched a heavy frontal attack, which concentrated the defenders’ attention on their front. Meanwhile, 4,000 Chihliites, who had been following the 500, with whom they had kept in communication by connecting files, quietly took up a position nearly in the rear of the Fengtieners at daybreak. The flanking Chihliites endeavoured to reach Marco Polo bridge, from which they were cut off, and some heavy fighting occurred. Meanwhile, the attack on the front was being pressed by Wu-pei-fu. The Fengtieners quickly realised the different material of the attackers, and by seven o’clock the commanderin-chief had ordered the retreat. Most of the defenders crossed the bridge and reached Fengtai, whence eight trainloads quickly left for Tientsin and ten for Suaiyip.”

“By nine o’clock the Chihli troops had completely occupied Changsintien, the defenders ‘abandoning all guns, munitions, and supplies’. The retreating Fengtien forces kept up a rearguard action without guns in the direction of Fengtai, under cover of which about one-third of the defenders of Changsintien managed to entrain. General Chang-chinghui, the Fengtien commander-in-chief, left Fengtai by speed al train for Tientsin at ten o’clock, and by eleven o’clock not a single Fengtien soldier remained at Fengtai. The fact that some 5,000 Fengtien men fled to Suaiyuan testifies to the state of panic which reigned.”