China Cover Postage Due To Fort Morgan Colorado

I was taking a closer look at my WW cover collection and rediscovered this cover from China scanned below.



The return address is Yenching University, Peiping, China, but the cancel on the stamp does not look like Peiping to me. I have yet to figure it out. Any ideas?

The interesting thing about this cover is that it was marked postage due 30 Centimes and arrived in Chicago 6 cents postage due. As you recall, I recently shared a Masons post card from Australia that was 30 Centimes postage due with 6 cents in postage due stamps applied. See this link...

https://goscf.com/t/82668

I just find it interesting that this letter and that postcard were both assessed the same postage due. The China cover has precancelled postage due stamps marked Fort Morgan Colorado. No markings on the back of the cover, nothing at all to show. I am starting to get interested in WW postage due covers.

As always, comments welcomed.

Linus

The other strike shows the Chinese equivalent a bit better and might help someone confirm the town/city name. It's still not easily read, though:


The large T marking at lower right includes the Chinese characters for "postage due":


Another interesting cover!

Thanks hy-brasil.

The city of Peiping is the old name for Beijing today. Looking at a map of Beijing, I think the postmark might be "CHENGDE," a city near to Beijing. At least that is my best guess so far. It is very difficult to make-out all the letters.

Linus

Scratch that guess.

I am now leaning towards "CHENGDU" because the last two letters look more like "DU." I think that is probably my answer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu

Linus

At the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese war Yenching University was moved from Peiping (today spelled as Beijing) to Chengu in Szechuan Province. This appears to be the University using up old Peiping return address stationery during a time of scarcities. The cancel should be and is Chengdu.

Yenching was essentially an American created and run school that was formed by combining 4 American missionary schools. After WW 2 the Chinese communist party eliminated it by folding its students and resources into Beijing University which they controlled.

Kimo

Thank you for that information and the confirmation of "CHENGDU."

Much appreciated,

Linus