Chinchow

At the beginning of December, the position was that the Chinese still insisted upon the suspension of hostilities without reservations—an attempt to save the Chinchow area from Japanese hands—while the Japanese declared that they must have a "free hand" to deal with "bandits" after the suspension of hostilities—"bandits " being an elastic phrase which, as events proved, was employed to cover operations against regular Chinese forces thirty thousand strong.

Source: wiktionary

The first real crisis for the United States came early in October. Those regiments of Chang Hsueh-liang’s main armies which had escaped the Japanese gathered in the old walled town of Chinchow (later to be renamed Kinshu by the Japanese), and there set up fortifications and established what they called a provisional government. The town, formerly an important terminus on the camel caravan routes from Mongolia, is on the railway which runs from Mukden to Shanhaikwan, Tientsin, and Peiping.

Source: wiktionary

On the 27th, in light of news that Japanese forces were advancing on Chinchow, Stimson asked the President to examine the arguments in favor of an embargo, but they were not sufficiently cogent to persuade Hoover to consider such drastic action.

Source: wiktionary