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Updated: June 14, 2025
The attack upon Liao-yang was indeed in many respects a repetition of the attack upon Kinchau; for, as in the case of Kinchau, there was a formidable hill position that of Shushan to be first stormed and taken.
At four bells in the first watch we got under way and started to run east at a speed of twenty knots, for I had now to complete my entire plan by placing the buoys, or triangular rafts which I had provided for the purpose, in the positions in Kinchau Bay which I had already selected for them and marked upon the chart.
But at this point, some two and a half miles south of Kinchau, which, as I suppose you know, is a Chinese walled city, the isthmus is only about two miles wide; and in and about the city the Russians have established themselves in force, prepared, apparently, to dispute Oku's passage of the isthmus to the last man. "This mountain, so prominently marked on the map, is Mount Sampson.
By the time that I reached the lower margin of the belt of scrub, the moon, one-half of her in shadow, had crept up above the crest of Mount Sampson, and the whole of the country round about me was flooded with her dim, ghostly light, with the help of which I was able to make out the small walled city of Kinchau, planned in the form of a square, each side measuring about half a mile long; the Japanese position in the valley to the south of it; and a few of the Russian positions on the Nanshan Heights; I was also able to definitely reassure myself as to my own position.
Of course it was necessary for our troops to take this mountain, since, until that could be done, to pass the isthmus would be impossible. I am glad to learn that the mountain is now in our hands. "But here, just to the south of Kinchau, is another range of hills, known as the Nanshan Heights.
A reply instantly came from her to the effect that she surrendered; whereupon I dispatched Hiraoka on board, in charge of an armed boat's crew; and some ten minutes later the youngster hailed, informing me that our prize was named the Vashka, of seventeen hundred and sixty tons register, originally a cargo steamer, but now adapted for mine-laying; and that she was from Dalny, bound for Kinchau Bay for the purpose of sowing the bay with mines, in anticipation of the probability that some of our ships would be sent to participate in the attack upon the isthmus.
Kinchau was now in the hands of the Japanese; but this was not sufficient for them, they must needs pursue the flying Russians; and they did so with such furious impetuosity that they literally drove them into the sea that is to say, into the waters of Kinchau Bay, where the luckless Russians, to the number of five hundred, were either shot down or drowned, almost to a man, only ten of them surviving and being taken prisoners.
She was not big enough for a cruiser or a transport; and the fact that she was evidently being hard driven to enable her to keep pace with her consorts or, possibly, escort led me to doubt whether she was a warship of any kind. One thing was pretty clear, which was that, like ourselves, they were evidently bound for Kinchau Bay. Were they enemies or friends?
For the next half-hour I was kept incessantly employed in signalling our fleet, directing their fire; but the shoal water of Kinchau Bay was all against us, and although our ships drew in so close that they touched the ground several times, they were still too far off to actually silence the Russian batteries, although they contrived to give them a very severe punishing and, to some extent, distract their attention from the stormers.
But he has only field and mountain guns, of a range insufficient for that purpose; therefore he has requisitioned help from me, and I propose to send some craft round to Kinchau Bay, to shell the Russian positions from the sea." "Kinchau Bay, sir?" I interrupted.
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