On his release from Poulo-Condore, Ngô Văn records that Tạ Thu Thâu and a small group secretly travelled north to Tonkin. They encountered a fraternal group publishing a bulletin, "Chien Dau" (Combat) and were received into clandestine meetings of mine workers and peasants. But famine was rife. On May 14 he managed to get an appeal published in the daily "Saigon". He called on his "brothers in Cochinchina to eat only what you need to stay alive and to send here everything you possibly can, immediately.