ABSTRACT
N anshan guards Chin-chou at the entrance to the Liaotung Peninsula. Though its hills are not steep or rugged, they go far back in great waves. The place is convenient for defensive purposes, but it is inferior in this respect to Nankwan-ling, farther back. In the China-Japan War, the Chinese resisted us for a while at this Nankwanling. The reason why the Russians preferred to fortify Nanshan rather than Nankwanling was because the former was near Dalny, their only non-freezing port. They had chosen a spot on the opposite shore from Lin Shin Ton, the railway terminus at the head of Talie Bay, and had built there the large city of Dalny, making it their only commercial port in Liaotung and the starting-point of the Eastern China Railway. In order to protect this port, they had chosen Nanshan at its back and built there a fortification of a semi-permanent character. For ten years they had been spending hundreds of millions in building this city and fortifying Port Arthur, and at the same time in strengthening this important outpost of Nanshan. We were told by a captured Russian staff-officer that the Russians had believed that Nanshan could stand the fiercest attacks of the Japanese for more than half a year. However, when our second army began to attack the place, they set at naught every difficulty, did not grudge any amount of sacrifice, and precipitated themselves upon the enemy so violently that Chinchou, Nanshan, and Dalny were all occupied in one single night and day (May 26). You can well imagine how desperate was this struggle. Even in the China-Japan War, the taking of Nankwanling and the occupation of Port Arthurwere not quite as easy as to twist a baby’s arm. But one Japanese officer who fought on both occasions, said to us, when he examined the elaborate defenses of Nanshan, that the battle of ten years before had only been a sham fight in comparison. We had to sacrifice over four thousand men killed and wounded in order to take this stronghold. The scene after the battle presented a terrible sight. True it is that this battle was very mild compared with the general assault on Port Arthur, but at Nanshan I saw for the first time in my life the shocking scenes after a furious fight.
