On his ride up from Wiju Bob had been greatly puzzled by a series of huge screens of brushwood, matting, and stalks placed along or across the roadway. What object, he wondered, could they serve? It was not until he reached the high ground near the Yalu that their purpose became clear to him. He saw then that the heights on the Russian side of the river completely overlooked the lower hills on the Korean bank; in ordinary circumstances every movement could be observed from the Russian lines; the numbers and dispositions of troops, the construction of fortifications and batteries, could all be noted with the aid of strong field-glasses. From the Japanese point of view this was a serious weakness of the position. Secrecy is so essential a condition of the Japanese system of conducting warfare that General Kuroki was led to adopt a novel and somewhat extraordinary method of baffling the curiosity of the enemy. Looking back from a point of vantage near the river, Bob saw a force of blue-coated Japanese infantry marching to the front along the Mandarin road. Suddenly they disappeared behind a leafy screen, and though he watched carefully, expecting to see them emerge again farther along the highway, he was unable to detect any further sign of their presence. The incident recalled a conjuring trick of Mr. Maskelyne; and to the Russians beyond the river it must have been both puzzling and irritating. Thanks to this system of screens they could neither form an estimate of the strength of the Japanese opposed to them, nor make any likely guess as to the probable point of attack. Their position was one of extreme strength; but uncertainty regarding General Kuroki's movements largely discounted the advantages they enjoyed as a defensive force entrenched among rugged hills. Here and there, indeed, General Kuroki allowed them to obtain a hint of his arrangements; they snapped at the bait—with what result is now written in history.
It was nearly ten years since the Japanese Field-marshal Yamagata had forced the passage of the Yalu in the face of a Chinese army supposed to be impregnably entrenched in the positions now held by the Russians. The main crossing had been made opposite Wiju, but the principal movement was greatly assisted by the passage of a column higher up the river at Sukuchin. General Sassulitch must anxiously have asked himself whether the Japanese would or would not repeat this operation. Patriotic self-complacency probably suggested the answer. Was it likely that the Japanese would dare to repeat against a trained and disciplined Russian army the manoeuvre, necessarily hazardous, which they had risked against raw Chinese levies? Emphatically no. And in arriving at this conclusion the Russian general was assisted by an ingenious feint on the part of his opponent. With an openness that should have inspired distrust, General Kuroki collected a large amount of bridging material on the Korean shore at Yongampo and higher up the river opposite Antung, while a strong naval flotilla, comprising torpedo-boats, destroyers, and gun-boats, fought its way some distance up-stream, as though in support of a projected crossing in the lower reaches. To meet the expected attack in this quarter the Russian general kept a large body of troops elaborately entrenched in readiness at Antung, and allowed his attention to be diverted from the point thirty miles higher up, at which the first crossing had been made ten years earlier.
General Kuroki had completely taken the measure of his adversary. Having persuaded General Sassulitch to disperse his troops over an unnecessarily large front, he made careful dispositions to ensure a successful passage of the river at Sukuchin, and under cover of a flank attack from this quarter he proposed to pass the main body of his army across the island-strewn channel opposite Wiju. The Twelfth Division, entrusted with the flank movement, had easily driven away a small Russian force stationed on the right bank opposite Sukuchin, thrown a pontoon bridge across the river, and established itself on the right bank almost without opposition. The Russians made no attempt to correct their mistake, so convinced were they that the real danger lay towards the mouth of the river. Besides, were they not sufficiently protected by the chain of impassable ridges that stretched far inland between the Yalu and the Ai-ho? Yet it was across these impassable ridges that the Twelfth Division had orders to make its way, and establish itself on the left bank of the tributary stream in readiness for a general attack on the Russian position. This movement, as we have seen, was duly carried out. It was the eve of May-day.
A fierce artillery duel had meanwhile been fought between the Japanese batteries near Wiju and the Russian positions around Kiu-lien-cheng. In this battle of the giants the Russians were completely outmatched—another triumph of Japanese secrecy and prevision. Unknown to the enemy the Japanese had brought by sea to the Yalu a large number of quick-firers and heavy guns, and, most important of all, several howitzers. To these the Russians could only oppose a limited number of field-pieces. A movement of Japanese infantry towards the crest of the hills on the Korean side drew the fire of the Russian batteries and disclosed their position. They were at once answered by an appalling cannonade from the Japanese batteries. From the islands in the river, from the heights north and south of Wiju, the Japanese rained a murderous fire of shell and shrapnel upon the luckless Russian gunners. There was no escape, for they had not reckoned with the howitzers cunningly placed in pits on the islets beneath, and able to search the whole Russian position with high-angle fire. The hills seemed to wilt under the storm; the earth was riddled, the very rocks were rent with the hail of lead and steel scattered by the bursting charges of the terrible Shimose powder. A thick pall of poisonous smoke hung over the devoted Russian batteries; nothing could live under this shattering bombardment. The Russians stuck to their guns like heroes; never certainly did soldiers deserve better of their country. But gradually their fire slackened, then died away: the gunners lay dead at their posts.
That night the Guards and the Second Division of the Japanese army were passed by two bridges across the river, and took up a position on the right bank, sheltered under the bluffs or in the hollows in the sandy bed of the stream. The Second Division had crossed somewhat below Wiju to an island on the far side of the channel, the Guards immediately opposite Tiger Hill. The Russians were now threatened with a frontal attack by these two divisions—the Second operating direct from the Yalu, the Guards across the mouth of the Ai-ho—while the Twelfth Division, higher up the Ai-ho, was ready to attack them in flank.
Bob was tingling with excitement when he awoke on the auspicious morning of May-day. The air was crisp and keen, but spring had come at last; spring, and with it the dawn of a new era for Japan. General Inouye's camp was early astir; the sturdy little soldiers, in their trim blue uniforms, went about their morning duties with quiet cheerfulness, ready to launch themselves at the word upon the grim hills opposite, where death, they knew, awaited some; glory, they hoped, all.
Too late the Russian general had realized his fatal error in allowing the Twelfth Division to march unopposed across the hills. Too late he had taken such feverish steps as were now possible in the attempt to retrieve it. He had withdrawn in haste a considerable force from Antung to hold the bluffs on the right bank of the Ai-ho, and hurriedly begun to throw up entrenchments. General Inouye smiled when he learnt of these tardy efforts to stay him; plans carefully thought out for years were not likely to be foiled by bustle at the eleventh hour.
Hardly had the sun risen when the battle was begun by a general outburst of artillery fire along the whole of the Japanese lines. There was no response from the enemy; it almost seemed as if the position were already deserted. But soon the order was given to the Japanese infantry to advance to the assault. The three divisions moved forward simultaneously. Bob could not see what the other two were doing, but he watched with tense eagerness as the Twelfth Division dashed down the hillside to the bank of the Ai-ho. A murderous rifle-fire was opened upon them from the Russian trenches. But never a man faltered. Springing on nimbly, some taking what cover the ground afforded, others disdaining precaution, they reached the stream. They plunged in, holding their rifles and pouches above their heads, and forcing their way against the rapid current that swept along breast-high. They had now entered the zone of fire; the surface of the river boiled under the hail of Russian bullets; the turbid waters were red with Japan's best blood; but to Bob, watching intently from the hill above, the sound of their war-song came floating upon the morning breeze—
"Oh! it is easy to cross the Yalu river!"
and, with sublime and happy indifference, they struggled on.