 At the fortress of Tianjiazhen, thousands of men fought until the end of September, with Japanese victory assured only with the use of poison gas.Yet even now, top Chinese generals seemed unable to work with each other At Xinyang, Li Zongren's Guangxi troops were battered to exhaustion.They expected that the troops of Hu Zongnan, another general close to Chiang Kai-shek, would relieve them, but instead Hu led his troops away from the city".