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 involved were 3 officers and 64 men killed and 3 officers and 85 men wounded. As soon as the fighting at Mukden was over, the Regiments of the 2nd Division were concentrated at Changchun, the staff, with General Tamon, the 30th Regiment and one Battalion of Field Artillery arriving on the 20th, and the 15th Brigade under General Amano arriving on the 22nd. Kirin was occupied on the 21st without the firing of a shot, and the Chinese troops were removed to a distance of about 8 miles.

The Herald of Asia, a semi-official Japanese publication of that time, states that all military operations were then regarded as completed, and that no further movements of troops were anticipated. The military operations which in fact ensued are attributed to Chinese provocation: an anti-Japanese demonstration at Chientao on the 20th, the destruction of a railway station at Lungchingtsun, and the explosion of some bombs which did no damage on Japanese premises at Harbin on September 23rd are mentioned as examples of such provocation. Complaint is also made of growing banditry and of the activities of disbanded soldiers. All of these things, it is claimed, finally forced the Japanese to new military operations against their will.

The first of these operations was the bombing, on October 8th, of Chinchow, to which place the Provincial Government of Liaoning Province had been transferred by Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang at the end of September. According to the Japanese account, the bombing was chiefly directed against the military barracks and the Communications University, where the offices of the Civil Government had been established. The bombing of a civil administration by military forces cannot be justified and there is some doubt whether the area bombed was in fact as restricted as the Japanese allege. Mr. Lewis, an American honorary adviser of the Chinese Government, arrived at Chinchow on October 12th and wrote an account of what he found there to Dr. Koo, who passed on the information later to the Commission in his capacity of Assessor. According to Mr. Lewis, the military barracks were in fact not touched at all and a multitude of bombs fell everywhere in the town, even on the hospital, as well as on the University buildings. The Commander of the bombing-planes informed a Japanese newspaper shortly afterwards that four planes from Changchun were ordered to Mukden at 8.30 a.m. on the 8th. There they joined other planes and a squad of six scouting and five bombing-planes were immediately despatched to Chinchow heavily loaded with bombs and fuel. They arrived at about 1 p.m., within ten to fifteen minutes dropped eighty bombs, and immediately returned to Mukden. The Chinese, according to Mr. Lewis, did not return the fire.

The next operation was that of the Nonni River Bridges, which started in the middle of October and ended on November 19th with the occupation of Tsitsihar by the Japanese troops. The justification for this given by the Japanese was that they were attacked while repairing the bridge over the Nonni River which had been destroyed by General Ma Chan-shan. But the story must be begun earlier and an explanation given of the destruction of the bridges.

At the beginning of October, General Chang Hai-peng, the Garrison Commander at Taonan, who in former times had held the same rank as Ma Chan-shan and Wan Fu-lin, and had tried to become Governor of Heilungkiang Province in their place, started an advance movement along the Taonan-Angangchi Railway with the obvious object of seizing the Provincial Government by force. It is alleged in the Chinese Assessor's document No, 3, and this view is supported by information from neutral sources, that this offensive was instigated by the Japanese. In order to prevent the advance of Chang Haipeng's troops, General Ma Chan-shan ordered the destruction of the bridges over the Nonni river and both armies faced each other across the large and swampy valley of that river.