Now the army felt the effects of years of attrition from Japanese assault and governmental corruption and incompetence. Recruitment had been falling since 1941, and press-ganging of new soldiers had become much more common. Conscripts were often marched in gangs tied together with ropes to an area far from home; if they were too close to their own villages, they might simply flee.15 Inflation had eaten away at military salaries and made service far less attractive. At the same time some of the best Chinese armies that remained, including the Yunnan-based Y Force, were thousands of kilometers
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