Chapter XXI

ADVANCE TOWARD LIAO-YANG.

The advance of the First Army toward Liao-yang, long expected, carefully prepared, began on the 24th of June. The Second Division, under General Nishi, moved along the Pekin road; their left flank protected by the Guards Division, and their right by the Twelfth Division. Our last view of the Phœnix Mountain was from the summit of a pass overlooking the river Tsao, and a tract of country as beautiful as an English park.

When we left Feng-hoang-cheng it was with the confident expectation that the Russians would oppose our advance and that the Second Division would not be permitted to occupy Mou-tien-ling without a struggle. At our first halt we learned that the enemy had abandoned Lun-chen-kwan at the foot of the Pass and set fire to their stores. This hasty retirement was not the only evidence of surprise. From our flanks came reports that the Russians were retreating in confusion. Japanese cavalry occupied the foot of Mou-tien-ling on the morning of the 27th of June, and save for a Russian post of observation in the Pass the road was reported clear as far as Chou-chan--eight miles South of Liao-yang.

The fame of Mou-tien-ling has long been in the mouths of men. It is the “Heaven-reaching Pass,” and is described in all military text books as a position of great strategic importance and capable of prolonged defence. Great things we expected of Mou-tien-ling. Yet when General Fujii was beguiled into speaking of it we suspected that it would not bear the test of close acquaintance. Our worst fears were realised when we ascended the Pass. We looked for a mountain and found a hill, for fierce crags and found densely wooded slopes, for a dark and threatening defile and trod a winding forest path, for a wide field of fire and saw nothing save “dead” grounds.

Our march was Northward. For three nights and days rain had fallen in a continuous torrent; the rivers were in flood; the loose friable loam of which the roads are composed was a treacherous bog, and the hills were veiled in clouds of vapour. For several miles we rode along a narrow valley shut in by low hills clothed with vivid green. This defile ended abruptly in a low ridge that closes the North end of the valley like a barrier reef--the watershed of the Tsao-ho. Here, it was believed, the Russians would make a stand. The position is adapted by nature for defence. The reef commands for three miles the narrow valley along which an army from the South must advance. On either hand are hills seamed with deep dongas and gullies in which large numbers of men might rest secure from direct fire. Behind these are other hills forming a second line of defence, and to the rear of the reef lies a valley where an army might be sheltered and whence they might approach the first line of defence without exposing a man to the enemy.

The Russians were evidently satisfied with the physical advantages of the position, for they had toiled long and arduously to strengthen it. On the crest of the barrier reef were several empalements for modern quick-firing guns that could have swept the valley from end to end. Other guns--about fifty in all--were to have been posted on the flanking hills. Here, too, were trenches, long lines of them; not the primitive deathtraps that we saw on the North bank of the Yalu, but real trenches, scientifically made, five feet six in depth, giving head cover and approached by traverses. And at the back of the position--a little to the East--stands a bold conical hill, upon which the Russians had constructed a large circular and traversed trench like a fort, dominating the road.

Why had they forsaken these splendid defences? The explanation was simple. They were in momentary danger of being outflanked. One division of General Kuroki’s army was marching along the Pekin road; another was on the left, and a third on the right. Of the movements of the flanking columns we knew nothing beyond the fact that West of Mou-tien-ling there is a point at which they might concentrate and join forces with the central column. Herein lay the danger of the Russian position at the Dividing of the Waters. Unless General Kuropatkin was well informed of the movements of the Japanese, and unless he was better prepared than we had hitherto found him he could not hope to check the advance of these three independent divisions. The utmost that could be expected from the Russians was that they might hold the central column and harass the march of the flanking columns long enough to assemble a force to prevent any concentration West of Mou-tien-ling, on the Pekin road. The withdrawal of the main body of the Russian army from Liao-yang to Kai-ping and Hai-cheng made this impossible, and the road North lay open to the Japanese. As the divisions on our flanks advanced the Russian troops at Fun-sui-rei, or the Dividing of the Waters, had no choice save to retire. When we ascended the barrier there was not a sign of the enemy; the trenches were empty; the empalements were deserted; the Russians had withdrawn four days before. Looking South we saw the long line of Japanese transport moving along the valley between green hills, and away in the distance rose a tumultuous sea of purple mountains with crests uplifted to the sky.

At Lien-chen-kwan--five miles from the water shed--we halted once more, and had another opportunity of realising that the army to which we were attached was only one of the pawns upon the chessboard. We had exhausted our moves and must wait.

At four o’clock on the morning of July 4th we had a surprise. The enemy, who had abandoned Mou-tien-ling three days before, returned and endeavoured to destroy the outposts on the reverse slope. The head quarters of the Second Division to which I was attached was seven miles from the scene of the engagement, and it was not until the following morning that I received permission to visit the Pass. The physical features of the country through which we rode are identical with those to the South of the watershed--a narrow valley, hemmed in by well-wooded hills that extend in every direction like furrows in a ploughed field. The road runs due West, and two miles from Lien-cheng-kwan we halted at the head quarters of the Fifteenth Brigade, at the door of which sat several wounded prisoners of the 10th and 24th East Siberian regiments--our old friends of the Yalu. Four miles beyond rose a bold forest-clad hill--the famous Mou-tien-ling, or Heaven-reaching Pass. The spur springs abruptly from the river flats, and the ascent is made by a steep and winding path which ends in a ravine before the summit is reached. The ridge is narrow, and covered with a dense growth of trees and bush, and the descent is steep until you come to a path that strikes Eastward along a cup-shaped valley, in which are a few scattered homesteads. At the end of this path is a temple dedicated to the memory of a famous emperor named Kwan-tai. On the Eastern slope beyond this shrine is another temple, and near to it a wood that played an important part in the attack on the outposts.

On the 2nd of July the 2nd battalion of the 30th regiment of Japanese infantry occupied the Pass and made the temple of Kwan-tai its Head-Quarters. It was the commander of the battalion--Major Takakusaki--who told us the story of the fight. From the second temple we walked along a shady lane to a road overlooking a valley on the Eastern slope of the hill. The road was stained with blood and littered with spent cartridges and scraps of paper inscribed with Russian characters. Looking Eastward we saw a broad ravine enclosed with hills of sharp ascent. The entrance to the ravine broadens to the river bed, and bending North is closed by several low spurs from one of which rises a white tower or pagoda. In the bed of the ravine are some farm houses, and at the South-west corner rises a conical hill behind which is a new road made by the Russians in order to avoid the steep ascent of the Pass. This road sweeps round the Mou-tien-ling spur in the shadow of many ridges. On our left was the wood near the temple, on our right the new road, behind us the ridges, and before us the broad ravine with the conical hill on our right. The road on which we stood overlooking the ravine had a trench that ran up to the wood.

The disposition of the outposts at midnight on the 3rd inst. was after this manner. A sentry watched from the conical hill, and in the houses in the ravine was a piquet commanded by Lieutenant Yoshi Seigo, with a sentry three hundred yards in front and patrols beyond. In the hills above the new road was posted one company, half of which patrolled the hilly country nearest to the enemy. In the second temple was another company covering the left flank, two sections occupied the wood near the temple, one section lay in the trench on the slope of the ravine, and two companies were concealed in the valley behind the temple of Kwan-tai.

Under cover of darkness two battalions of Russian infantry entered the ravine from the Liao-yang road. They followed upon the heels of the Japanese patrols so closely that the sentry in front of the picquet appears to have mistaken them for his comrades. Without answering his challenge the head of the leading battalion pressed forward and reached the picquet before the alarm was given. Lieutenant Yoshi Seigo rushed out to find the house in which the picquet lay almost surrounded. There was no time to organise any plan, and the picquet pouring out of the house engaged in a hand-to-hand combat with sword and bayonet. Five of them were slain, but not before their commander had cut down three of the enemy. About thirty escaped and made for the head of the ravine toward the Japanese trench. Seeing a black line on the ridge Lieutenant Yoshi Seigo came to the conclusion that his comrades were on the alert and were holding the road against the advancing infantry. Not until he had approached within a few yards did he discover that he was again in the midst of the enemy, and that the Russians had already got a footing on the road. Meanwhile the company in the wood near the temple, warned by the rifle shots, made ready to receive the attack, and an officer’s patrol of twenty men who were just on the point of leaving collected near the wood at the end of the trench. Within a few moments after the alarm the whole company formed a line from the wood to a point half way along the road with the enemy in front of them.

The state of the road showed how fierce was the fight. A Japanese sergeant struck off the head of a Russian officer and slew two men before he fell pierced by five bayonets. The sword of Yoshihara Chuji was notched like the edge of a saw. A second lieutenant fought like a tiger and died with five bullets in his breast. For fifteen minutes or more the road about the trench was a tangle of dark figures, hacking and thrusting and shooting. At last the company gave way and fell back into the scrub behind the ridge, whence it poured a deadly fire into the Russian ranks. In the meantime, reinforcements were hurrying from the valley beyond the temple. One company came racing up, dashed into the wood and out upon the road right into the thick of the foe. Once more the fight swept on hand to hand, with sword and bayonet and revolver. Against the ferocity of this attack the enemy recoiled and, turning, fled down the slope into the ravine followed by the rifle shots of three companies who lined the hills. The fourth company had taken a position on the ridge commanding the new road along which an attack from the second Russian battalion was expected, but this force of the enemy never got beyond the conical hill at the corner of the ravine. Finding his flank secure, Major Takakusaki led his men to the front in time to take up the pursuit. The Russians left fifty-three dead on the field and forty-seven wounded of whom three died. Three unwounded men and ninety-eight rifles fell into the hands of the victorious outpost. The two battalions were accompanied by fifty Cossack cavalry and brought with them large quantities of supplies as well as cooking utensils. It looked as if their intention was to stay, though it was difficult to imagine that this was a serious attempt to re-occupy the Pass which they had abandoned without a struggle. If this really was their object it can be explained only on the ground that General Kuropatkin sought at the last moment to delay our advance until he could make good his position on the North road. The attack was badly planned and badly executed. The second battalion took no part in the action and there was obvious miscarriage of the plan for an assault on the right flank of the Japanese. The enemy made a gallant fight, but courage could not avail where leadership was manifestly wanting in skill and foresight. The Japanese loss was only thirteen killed and thirty wounded.

Mou-tien-ling, after all, had done something to deserve its repute in the war of 1894 when the Chinese on two occasions succeeded in wresting the Pass from the Japanese. As we turned to descend the mountain we saw on the isolated hill above the ravine--clear against the blue sky--the solitary figure of a sentinel straining his eyes toward the East where the enemy lay in silence.