Word: 27th
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...truth was different, and Beijing knew it. An estimated 5,000 citizens died in only a few hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning after units of the P.L.A.'s 27th Army launched their brutal assault to oust pro-democracy students from Tiananmen; the exact number of victims may never be known...
Other vengeful visions proved illusory. When units of the 38th Army, a contingent normally based in Baoding, rolled into the city three days after the Tiananmen bloodletting, residents cheered them on, hoping they would drive out the hated 27th. "Let it be blood for blood!" shouted bystanders. But the 38th Army supported the 27th and martial rule...
...stirred confusion and alarm. Tank convoys rumbled to the east, away from Tiananmen, only to return a few hours later. Armored vehicles were deployed at a strategic cloverleaf east of the square, as if awaiting attack by another military force. Rumors of skirmishes, even artillery duels between the "bad" 27th Army and the "good soldiers" of the 38th Army, fluttered through the capital. With fear of an armed confrontation rampant, foreign governments ordered the evacuation of their nationals. Beijing airport was packed with diplomats, tourists and businessmen waiting for tickets and specially chartered planes to leave a capital seemingly under...
...troops brought to the capital from all over China during the past few weeks are said to be loyal not to some central command but to various factions in the leadership. Thus while numerous units remained behind barricades, others, like the 27th Army, wreaked destruction in the city. Reports of heavy fire inside the Forbidden City, where police and P.L.A. units are routinely billeted, led to speculation that the rival units were shooting it out with one another. Furthermore, said a Western academic in Beijing, "there was very clearly a battle between two different army units on the road...
...major battle has yet to materialize between the 27th Army and supposedly rival military units on the edges of the city, but a witness said the 27th and 38th armies, based in Hebei and Beijing respectively, fought each other with automatic weapons early yesterday about 12 miles east of downtown...