In the early morning of 24 March, the NRA began to enter Nanjing without any resistance from Zhang Zongchang's army. Afterwards they entered the British, American and Japanese consulates to search for suspected enemies hiding inside, but left peacefully after none were found. But immediately afterwards, uniformed soldiers and local Chinese residents started large-scale rioting against foreign interests, burning houses and attacking the British, American and Japanese consulates, and killing the American vice president of Nanking University, Dr. John Elias Williams, while almost assassinating the Japanese consul. The 6th Army of the NRA, with its large contingent of communist soldiers, systematically looted the homes and businesses of the foreign residents, and one American, two Britons, one French citizen, an Italian, and a Japanese were killed by Chinese soldiers. Chinese snipers also targeted the American consul and marines who were guarding him, which forced them to flee into "Socony Hill" where American citizens were sheltering. During this mayhem, one Chinese soldier declared, "we don't want money, anyway, we want to kill."