Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War

by Herbert Strang

When it became known in the camp that Jack, or Sin Foo as he was there known, was about to leave, many of the Chunchuses were eager to accompany him. He found his popularity, and the extraordinary belief in his luck, rather embarrassing. He thanked these willing volunteers, but declined their company: Hi Lo and the man selected by Ah Lum were to be his only attendants.

Soon after dark on a bitter February night Jack, with his two companions, rode up to the farm of Wang Shih's people, some fifteen miles from Moukden. They were overjoyed to see him, and to hear news of their son and brother. Old Mr. Wang, when he learnt that his son was now Ah Lum's chief lieutenant, rubbed his hands with delight and foretold that he would die a mandarin. It would not be the first time in the history of China that a successful brigand had been bought back to the cause of law and order by the bribe of high official rank. Mrs. Wang was garrulous about a second visit paid them about Christmas-time by Monsieur Brin, who had consoled himself for his failures as a war correspondent by studying Chinese social arrangements at first hand. The simple folk readily agreed to put Jack up for a few days; it would have been impossible to find more comfortable quarters during his period of waiting.

Next morning Ah Lum's man went into Moukden. By mid-day he had returned. The compradore had never been seen in the city since he left for Harbin on the morning of Jack's departure. But the Chunchuse agent Me Hong had learnt one trifling fact about Mr. Brown; he was surprised that his chief was still in ignorance of it. The English merchant had been seen and recognized among a gang of convicts at Kuan-cheng-tzü. Me Hong had sent off the news at once by a messenger to Ah Lum; the runner had vanished. He had not returned to Moukden; certainly he had never reached the Chunchuse camp. Sowinski was still in the city; so, the messenger believed, was the "Toitsche war-look-see man"; but there were so many of the fraternity living in Moukden that he was not sure that his information on that point was correct.

He brought other news. Another great battle was evidently impending. The Japanese had for weeks been steadily pushing forward. They had cut the railway-line south of Moukden; two regiments of their cavalry had crept round the Russian left, and had been seen within a few miles of Harbin; and it was reported among the Chinese that Generals Nogi and Oku were preparing a great turning movement on the right. The city was full to overflowing with refugees; many were streaming northward; the Russo-Chinese bank had packed up its chests and decamped; and the Chinese viceroy was in a terrible state of anxiety for the safety of the palace and the ancient tombs of the Manchu emperors.

This news almost tempted Jack to venture again within the city. But on second thoughts he decided to run no risks of meeting Sowinski. The imminence of another great battle, however, perhaps to prove the decisive battle of the war, created a keen longing to witness the scene; and next day, taking leave of his kind hosts, he set off with Hi Lo for a little village lying between the Moukden railway-station and Sin-min-ting. Hi Lo had relatives there with whom they could safely stay.

The battle-ground was in essentials a repetition of that of Liao-yang, though on a much larger scale. The Russians had thrown up an immense line of entrenchments extending in a rough semicircle from Sin-min-ting on the north-west of the city to Ping-ling on the east, with Moukden as the centre. Comprising a range of low hills for the greater part of its course, the position was naturally strong, and it had been fortified for months with all the devices known to the military engineer—pits, abattis, barbed-wire entanglements, forts of solid masonry bristling with huge guns. Snow lay upon the ground, frozen so hard that the passage of cavalry across it raised clouds of white dust. The plain to the west and south of the city was one vast whiteness: yet that peaceful scene was the arena on which three-quarters of a million of men were preparing to spill their blood in blind obedience to duty—to contend with desperate earnestness in one of the decisive battles of the world.

The Russian right wing was composed of the Second Manchurian Army under General Kaulbars, resting on an arc between Sin-min-ting and Moukden. The centre, south of the city, was held by General Bilderling with the Third Army; the left, thrown out as far south-east as Tsin-khe-chen, was entrusted to General Linievitch and the First Army. It was here that the first attack was made. On February 19 General Kawawura threw his right flank detachment against the Russian works, and, after a fight prolonged over five days, drove the Russians back towards Fa-ling. Meanwhile General Kuroki moved forward upon Kao-tu-ling, and succeeded in forcing his way northward, and General Nodzu, from his position on the Sha-ho, opened a furious bombardment on the exact centre of the Russian lines. By these movements General Kuropatkin was led to expect that the brunt of the fighting would fall upon his centre and left; in reality they were designed to hold his attention while more formidable operations were developed on his right.

It was on the last day of February that General Oku's army deployed between the Sha-ho and the Hun-ho, and General Nogi started with incredible rapidity on his northward march. By the time General Kuropatkin became aware of the danger threatening his communications on the right, Nogi had made such progress and so skilfully disposed his forces that to crush him was out of the question; all that Kaulbars could do was to fall back towards Moukden and oppose as stubborn a resistance as possible. The assaults of Kuroki and Nodzu on the centre were so fierce and persistent that Kuropatkin had no troops to spare for the reinforcement of his jeopardized right flank. Doggedly, intrepidly, the indomitable Japanese pressed home their attack. The Russians clung heroically to their positions, and rolled back charge after charge; but still the enemy returned, seeming to gain in vigour and enthusiasm after each repulse. They charged with bayonets, with grenades, with shovels and picks; sometimes, when they penetrated the Russian entrenchments, flinging down their weapons and going to it with their fists. The trenches were filled with corpses; the frozen ground all around was dyed red with blood; there was no respite day or night; men fell, their places were filled, and foe met foe over the bodies of the slain.

For ten days the issue was in doubt. Then, on March 5, Kuroki was across the Sha-ho; Nogi had swept through Sin-min-ting towards the railway; Marshal Oyama's huge army was flinging its octopus tentacles around the Russian position, vast as it was. Kuropatkin, most unfortunate of generals, on March 8 found it necessary to withdraw his centre and left behind the line of the Hun-ho, and collect every unit that could be spared by Kaulbars and Bilderling to stem the advance of Oku and Nogi.

Meanwhile the Russian left had opposed a bold front to Kuroki and Kawawura. Unable to make a successful offensive movement, Linievitch stubbornly retreated in good order beyond the Hun-ho, and entrenched himself in a new position there. But around Moukden the plight of the Russian army was becoming desperate. As the terrible enemy crept on towards the city from all sides save the north-east, the Russian troops, packed into a constantly diminishing space, and exposed to a converging fire, fell in thousands. More than once the Russians attempted to break through. The gallant Kuropatkin in person led a terrific attack on Oku at the head of sixty-five battalions, and his splendid men fought with such courage and determination that for a while it seemed the Japanese advance must be checked. But at this critical moment, when the Russians were at least holding their own on the right centre and left, and Oyama was concentrating to hurl them back, an event had taken place at the left centre that proved to be Fortune's cast of the die. Early on the morning of March 9, Kuropatkin received the news that Kuroki had driven a wedge between Bilderling and Linievitch. Those generals in falling back on the Hun-ho had temporarily lost touch: and the Japanese general, who had never made a mistake throughout the war, was quick to seize this opportunity of breaking the enemy's line. On the same day Nogi got across the railway between Moukden and Tieling; nothing but instant retreat could save the Second and Third Russian armies from annihilation or capture; and at nightfall on that fifteenth day of the battle the order to retreat was given.