Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1900 — BATTLE IN CHINA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BATTLE IN CHINA

Sixteen Thousand Allies Engage the Chinese. - ■» LOSS OF 1,200 MEN. These Are Reported to Be Chiefly Russians and Japanese. Dispatch to the Navy Department Tells of a Severe Engagement-Fight Occurs at PietsanKi About Eleven Miles Northwest of Tien-Tsin, En Route to Pekin—Chinese Retreat and Are Supposed to Have Met with Heavy Losses. Dispatches received Monday via Shanghai from Tientsin report a great battle between the allies and Chinese Sunday at Pietsan'g. Te allies lost 1,200 men, mostly Russians and Japanese. The Chinese were finally defeated and forced to make a disordered retreat. The American troops, under Gen, Chaffee, were in the midst of the battle and gave an excellent account of themselves. Peitsang is the first railroad station, about six miles northwest of Tientsin, en route to Pekin. The Navy Department at Washington on Monday received the following cablegrams:. Chefoo. Aug. <>, Bureau Navigation, Washington—British Fame reports engag ment at Peitsang Sunday morning, 3 to 10:30. Allied loss—killed and wounded—l,2oo, chiefly Russians and Japanese. Chinese retreating. TAUSSIG. Chefoo, Aug. 6.—Bureau Navigation, Washington; Official report believed reliable. About 16,000 allies heavily engaged Chinese at Peitsang, daylight of tlie otli. REMEY. . Taussig, who signed the first dispatch, js in command of the which is at Chefoo. „ China persists in her determination tc send the ministers to Tientsin or to meet the advancing international troops, in hope that the onward march may be stayed if the members of the legations are turned over to the powers. The communication from the tsung-li-yamen hand-

ed to the State Department by Minister Wu Saturday is supplemented by the substance of an imperial edict communicated to Consul-General Goodnow by DirectorGeneral Sheng, indicating that arrangements are still going on in Pekin for escorting the ministers to Tientsin. Interest in the Chinese situation was intensified in Washington Monday morning by the receipt of two dispatches from naval officers at Cheefoo, repeating un» official but apparently reliable reports of active and extensive hostilities between the allied forces and the Chinese on the lint l between Tientsin and Pekin; The dispatches indicated that the relief column had started in earnest and that it was meeting with determined opposition. Although neither of the naval dispatches mentioned the presence of American troops in the reported engngemeu’. it was geei’rally assumed at the War Department that at lenst a part of (Jen. Chaffee’s small army was on hand and took an active and aggressive part in the affair. According to information in possession of the War Department, the town of Peitsang is at the head of tidewater on the Peiho, between eleven and twelve miles by road beyond Tientsin. It is a village ot mud huts of considerable size, but not walled. The river at this point is not navigable by anything larger than a good fixed steam launch, and it is thought that tlie troops probably returned there in small boats, towed by the nuval launches. From the fact .that the engagement lasted seven and a half hours, it is argued in the department that either the Chinese must have been heavily intrenched pr that there was an immense horde of them'to so stubbornly contest tlie advance of the 16,000 international troops. It was figured by military experts that a loss of 1,200 killed and wounded on the part of the allies probably meant a loss of from three to six times as many by the Chinese. Free communication between the foreign ambassadors and their governments is said to have been established by an imperial edict. Any message that may be sent, however, must not be in cipher. Another proclamation provides for the safe deportation of tlie foreigners from Pekin to Tientsin. The United States government will not consent to the reniovnl of the ministers and foreigners from Pekin until there is a free communication by the powers with their ministers. Nor will this government consent to communication in plain language alone, but insists that cipher messages must pass freely between Minister Conger and our State Department. It is -emphatically stated that unless such message* nre exchanged the United StatP* cannot know beyond question that the messages were not garbled and both the l lifted Stater government and the ministers misled. There seems to lie no doubt about tb« safety of the ministers at Pekin for th* present, and that they will remain where they will be able to protect themselves

GEN. Y. FUKUBHIMA. Commander of the Japanese Forces in China.