480 THE FAR EAST Part IV
for the purpose of suppressing banditry in Jehol, use would be made
of Kwantung and 'Manchukuo' troops. Before the end of January
these troops were over the border, making use of the short length of
railway which ran into Jehol to connect the Peiping-Mukden line
with the coal-mines of Peipiao.
Meanwhile, in order to inspect the military position and the
arrangements for resisting invasion, Mr. T. V. Soong, then Minister
of Finance in the Government at Nanking, paid a visit to the north.
His views on the chaos and lack of preparation which he there found
to exist were reported to have been expressed in such scathing terms1
as to leave less room for surprise when, in spite of the great difficulties
presented by the nature of the country—for the most part a broken
mountain region, almost devoid of roads and approachable only by
a few difficult passes—the Japanese- 'Manchukuo' army made rapid
progress (partly through the effective use of armoured cars). Within
ten days from the beginning of operations the Chinese garrison had
abandoned Cheng-teh—the administrative capital of Jehol and
formerly the summer residence of the Manchu Emperors2—and were
in retreat towards the border between Jehol and Hopei.
The way was now free for the invading troops to push down to the
line of the Great Wall. Here they occupied all the passes with the
exception of two, which were left open to facilitate the exit of the
Chinese forces. The resistance offered by the latter—who were
estimated to amount, at that time, to 125,000 men—was so poor as
to give rise to the suspicion that they were acting under orders to
avoid a serious conflict. With the withdrawal of the Chinese, Jehol
passed into the hands of the 'Manchukuo' authorities; the administra-
tion was reorganized; and General Chang Hai-peng was appointed in
the place of ex-Governor Tang.
The Jehol campaign, which thus lasted little more than a fortnight,
occupied an interlude in a separate series of hostilities on the 'Man-
chukuo '-Hopei frontier which had continued sporadically since Chang
Hsiieh-liang's army had been driven south of the wall in January 1932.
The open tongue of territory between Jehol and the sea, a strip of
level country traversed by the Peiping-Mukden railway and separat-
ing the mountains from the coast, presented another strategic
problem to the new rulers of 'Manchukuo'. In order to guard the
gap in their defences, they set about establishing a neutralized zone
1 See 'China in 1933—a brief record' in Oriental Affairs, vol. i, No. 2, for
January 1934, p. 13.
2 Where in 1793 the Emperor Ch'ien Lung received the first British Embassy
to China, headed by Lord Macartney.