Manchuria is the home of the Manchus who conquered China and ruled it until 1911. It is the Prize, the bone of contention over which the bloodiest battles have been fought, and the one area in all Asia without which neither the Communists nor the Nationalists could hope to become a world power. Studded with Japanese industrial plants, Manchuria is known as the Pittsburgh of China, due to the fact that here both coal and iron are mined close together. Here, also, is contained seventy per cent of the industrial potential of all China. A rugged, windy land, much like our American prairie states, it is one of the few places in Asia that has a food surplus and serves as the granary of that vast region. Farmers, using shaggy Mongol ponies, till broad fields of soybeans, millet, corn, wheat and opium poppies. With the great abundance of grain, the people are able to produce beef and mutton for export. Even before the Japanese occupation, Manchuria was a thriving center, and the conquerors, with characteristic efficiency, speeded its industrial and agricultural development during the fourteen years of their occupation. They developed the largest coal, iron and gold mines in Eastern Asia. From Manchuria alone they obtained more gold than from any other source, in addition to five million tons of iron and steel and thirty million tons of coal every year. The great cities in Manchuria, of which Mukden is the capital, were modernized. New railroad lines were built into the outlying districts, and thousands of workers, heretofore purely agricultural, were taught to work in factories. For the first time, modern hotels and apartments covered city blocks, and Mukden undoubtedly boasted more bathtubs, per capita, than any other city in Asia, with the possible exception of Shanghai. The Generalissimo had believed that Manchuria, when it was liberated, would become a part of the Nationalist Government. He had sent occupation troops there, had incorporated it into his rightful territory, and at the end of the war had already started repairing the damage caused by the final phase of the fighting. He was unaware of the fact that Roosevelt had promised Manchuria to Russia as her price for entering the war against Japan. He still firmly believed in Roosevelt’s friendship, because Roosevelt had promised that _all_ Chinese territory liberated from the Japanese would be returned to China.