Page:A Pocket Guide to China (1943).pdf/44

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one shoulder; otherwise he eats off the countryside.

Because he speaks softly and smiles easily, don't think the chiupa isn't tough; on his record he is a good soldier. For 5 years he and his comrades have kept a large part of the Japanese Army occupied along a 2,000-mile front. You have no reason to feel superior because you are better fed or better armed. On the contrary, give the Chinese soldier his due in admiration for his plain, common guts.


CHINESE STRATEGY

WHEN the Chinese were attacked at Lukouchiao on July 7, 1937, Chiang Kai-shek had only one course to follow: fight and retreat, using his assets, courage, man­-power, and space to inflict as much damage as possible on the Japanese. You may ask why China didn't get ready for the Japs. For the same reason that we didn't—they didn't know the Japanese plans and anyway they hoped it wouldn’t happen. Besides, China was just getting into her modern stride. She was devoting all her resources to peacetime development when Japan attacked. A lesser nation would have given up. China just tightened her belt and went to war with what she had. Her ill-equipped armies fought back and astonished the world with their endurance. She moved her government 1,000 miles inland, from Nanking to Chungking, so that she could carry on

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