From the Yalu to Port Arthur - 1906 Author:William Maxwell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter IV THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN AND THE JAPANESE LEADERS. A Glance at the map will show that the Russian defence lay within an irregular triangle, of which... more » Harbin is the apex, and Port Arthur and Vladivostock are the angles at the base. The railway from Harbin to Port Arthur passes through several towns, like Mukden, Liao-yang and Hai-cheng, upon which the Russians could concentrate rapidly, but south of Hai-cheng the line runs along the coast, and is open to flank attack from the sea. From Harbin to Vladivostock the line of defence may be said roughly to traverse Kirwin and to sweep Eastward to the coast. On the land side Vladivostock is defended by the difficult nature of the country and by the river Toumen, which covers its approach from the South-west. So isolated, however, is this fortress that its capture was an incident that did not enter into the first phase of the campaign. The base of the triangle from the mouth of the Yalu to the Toumen is the strongest line of defence, and was the first to be assailed. The Yalu forms a natural barrier along the north of Korea. Winding its tortuous length between high and rugged mountains it receives asaffluents many torrents and impetuous streams. A few miles from the point where its waters mingle with the ocean, the banks of the Yalu descend into the plain. Upon this lower ground on the left of the river is the town of Wiju, and on the right nearer to the bay stands Antung. At Wiju you may cross the Yalu ; it is the key to the barrier of mountain and flood that divides the hermit kingdom from Manchuria. To force the passage of the river by direct assault would have been to risk disaster at the outset. It was necessary to make a diversion in order to turn the position and compel the Russians to fall back along the road t...« less