Word: tientsin
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...rail from North China and by sea through the port of Hulutao, the Nationalists had flung an airbridge to Mukden. Chinhsien's fall left Mukden dependent for supplies on Yingkow (which freezes over in November), and after that on the long and hazardous airlift from Peiping and Tientsin...
...troops dashed westward to drive them back, another Communist force from the north came down in their rear to strike the rail line west of Peiping, threatening to sever it completely and cut Fu's army in two. If the Communists succeeded' in this, Peiping, Tientsin and all North China would be lost...
Each month, from beleaguered Changchun and Mukden, 140,000 people press through the opposing military lines and cruel no man's land toward Tientsin, Peiping and the hope of a living. The distance they cover is upwards of 800 miles. The ordeal they undergo, as culled from my own observation in Manchuria and North China and from the press in Nanking, would need a Tu Fu to compass...
Below Shanhaikuan the Communists have been raiding the railway on & off. When it runs, the refugees pour down toward Tientsin and Peiping, hard-pressed, pinched and depressed cities themselves but veritable gardens of delight and luxury to the people from the north...
...leaving beleaguered Mukden. The lucky few went by plane, the majority (140,000 last month) by train, which ran only as far as Hsinmin on the edge of the Mukden defense perimeter. Said a ragged shopkeeper, crouched in the station with his family of ten: "We will go to Tientsin where my ancestors lived. We'll become farmers again." The Chinese Reds would gladly let him through. The message of despair that he and other refugees would bring to Nationalist China was payment enough...