On the following day the work of bridging the stream both at Kulido and Cheun-song-do was carried out, in spite of the intermittent fire which the Russian guns maintained upon the corps engaged. So ineffective indeed was this cannonade that the Japanese artillery did not even reply to it, and their engineers pursued their enterprise calmly and without substantial interruption. On the same day the naval squadron under Rear-Admiral Hosoya rendered valuable assistance to General Kuroki by its co-operation in the Yalu estuary. Two gunboats, two torpedo-boats, and two armed steamers ascended the river as far as Antushan and effected a useful diversion in the quarter by shelling the Russian entrenchments. The bombardment must have proved destructive, for after making a brisk reply for some time, which, however, did no damage to the Japanese ships, the Muscovite batteries were finally silenced.
Confusion in the Russian Councils
On Thursday, the 28th, the same tactics were displayed, and the position seized by the Guards' Division and the 2nd Division on the Islands of Kulido and Cheun-song-do was consolidated. Two companies of the former, indeed, crossed over to the mainland and reconnoitred Tiger Hill, encouraged by the silence of the enemy on that commanding eminence. To their surprise they found that the post had been evacuated by the Russians. No explanation has been offered of this remarkable step; the only conclusion possible—a conclusion, indeed, strengthened by subsequent events—is that confusion reigned in the councils of the Russian commanders, and that no definite and coherent plan had been thought out by them. For on the next day General Kashtalinsky was again ordered to occupy the hill, which the Japanese themselves, having other plans in view, were not yet in a position to seize effectively.
Kuroki's Consummate Strategy
On Friday, the 29th, General Kuroki began the important move on his extreme right, for which the 12th Division had been all this time kept in reserve. The operations of the Guards and the 2nd Division, useful, and indeed necessary, as they were for the purposes of a general advance, had acted as a screen for his consummate piece of strategy by which the Japanese Commander turned General Sassulitch's flank and finally captured the position. To the north of Wiju, about thirteen miles higher up the stream of the Yalu, stands the small village of Sukuchin. Here it was that the Japanese effected a crossing in October, 1894, in their war with China. On that occasion the movement enabled them to outflank a force of 30,000 men, and it is one of the remarkable features of General Kuroki's dispositions for attack that they repeated in all essential particulars the tactics which proved so successful ten years ago. Still more remarkable is it that the Russians appear to have learned none of the lessons of the war of 1894, and to have fallen just as readily into the trap as did the Chinese. Early then on the 29th the engineer corps of the 12th Division started to construct two pontoon bridges over the Yalu at Sukuchin. Here, as in every other department of the Japanese arrangements, the organization was perfect. Not a detail had been omitted and the work proceeded smoothly and with dispatch. By the next morning both bridges were completed and the troops prepared to cross.
Futile Russian Opposition
The Russian Commander, who had at last got wind of the manœuvre which was taking place at this point, had detached a small force to oppose the passage of the river, and when at 10.40 the vanguard of General Inouye's Division began to march on to the pontoons, a fierce fire was directed upon it from the opposite bank. The Japanese, however, retorted both with rifle fire and artillery, and the fusillade of the Russians was soon checked, with the result that by the afternoon the whole of the 12th Division had gained the right bank of the Yalu with the loss of only two men killed and twenty-seven men wounded. General Inouye then marched forward to seize Yulchasan and Tiger Hill, which positions, after their first evacuation, had again been occupied by the Russians under General Kashtalinsky.
Masked Batteries at Work
In the meantime, the Guards' Division, assisted by a heavy bombardment from the batteries below Wiju, was pressing an attack upon Tiger Hill from the Island of Kulido, an attack which successfully diverted the attention of General Kashtalinsky from the advance upon his left, and prevented him from offering it any formidable resistance. The Japanese artillery in particular distinguished itself. Never was superiority of generalship more strikingly displayed than it was by General Kuroki in this case. The position was admirably selected by him; the work of placing the batteries was carried out with such skill that the Russians were kept in entire ignorance of their whereabouts; and finally when they opened fire on the morning of the 30th the heavy character of the guns employed took the enemy absolutely by surprise. On the delta immediately below Wiju was a belt of trees of which the Japanese General had at once seen the potentialities; and behind its screen his engineers had constructed gun pits, in which were concealed several batteries of howitzers. These pieces of ordnance did terrible execution in the Russian lines in the course of the day.
Serpentine Line of Dark Forms