I said to Missionar same way. I said heads in basket. I said Soldat, bandit same way. I told Missionar. - Malcolm Bosse

Look, children, it's very simple. What's going to happen is this. If you people go forward, we eat bread. If you people retreat, we eat sticks. That is all there is to war. Let no one tell you different.

Soldiers get paid sometimes. Bandits have to fend for themselves. But when the warlords don't have the money, their soldier become bandits. [...] Peking's supposed to pay the warlords. I mean, they're official generals, servants of the government , right? Most of them are bandits is what I say.

[A young mission worker in Shanghai told him that] China's nothing but a loosely allied group of principalities that establish whatever law there is through force of arms.