Kuroshio Current

“ General Kuroki, after the battle of the Sha-ho River, had wintered on the southern bank of the Taitze River, the centre of his army resting in the neighborhood of Bensihu, thirty-five miles east of Yentai. The Russian line was ten miles north, and the first place to be taken was Tsinkhetchen, at a point where the level river country began to rise to the Tie range of mountains, running in a generally northwest-southeast direction across all of Manchuria, into Mongolia northward, and into Korea southward, passing along the eastern side of the Russian triangle. ”

“ It was as if the odour of her father’s barrels had been communicated to her, too. This girl had left her own home and was staying at Gohei’s.
When they first went on strike, in order to rally their spirits, they had all formed up in columns and marched out of the factory. Now, whenever they looked up at the smokeless chimneys they felt their power. If we don’t work, not a puff of smoke comes out, not a barrel can be moved—this they understood and their blood danced and pulsed in their veins. But at home, wives were trying to make them scab. The women worried over the approach of starvation ”

“ In order to get around the Russian flank it was necessary for General Kuroki to cross the river, as well as cross several smaller streams. All of the hills in that vicinity were in the possession of the Russians and were protected by batteries. There was a strong Russian detachment at An-Ping, and another at Liandiansian.
General Kuroki’s army advanced in three columns, through the valley of the Lan, a small stream flowing into the Tai-tse, and here it was that a hot [Pg 291] fight was experienced, in which both Japanese and Russians showed uncommon bravery. ”

“ Further off a tank of pulp bubbled under compressed air. A truck loaded with barrels, all with new labels on them, dashed along at full speed towards the pier; the sound of the wheels echoed in the concrete cavern.
Chiun’s ghost had hidden himself. The company, in its struggle against Yamaki had, at any cost, to fulfil all orders. Autumn was the rush time in the soy industry. The men were paid special rates for night work. For those who stayed in the company’s dormitory there were special rewards.
In other factories the men lived together in special quarters. ”

“ The blue-jackets of the Kushiro, at the instigation of her executive, gave the departing visitors three cheers as the men let fall their oars. Sam Bolles and Dick Scupp, who happened to be in the boat's crew, stared, with open mouths, at the Japanese commander, who nodded to them in a friendly way. A few minutes later the foam gathered under the Osprey's bows as she bore off toward China, and the [Pg 273] Kushiro, making a graceful turn, headed toward Nagasaki, both vessels dipping their colours in salute. ”

“ At first its employees had walked to work, but Handa and his men would waylay them and drag them into the ranks of the strikers. Those who refused they would beat up and then drive away. The company then started bringing blacklegs by boat from the neighbouring village to the factory pier, sending them back the same way in the evening. A gang of thugs was always in readiness on the wharf. The scabs were farmers and fishermen. ”

“ The task assigned to Kuroki was to drive the Russians from Tsinkhetchen into the foothills to the passes of the mountains, then to take these and to debouch his army on the plains of the Hun River, twenty miles east of Mukden, and eastward of Fushun, then to strike northwestward toward the railroad and line of retreat of the Russian Army northward from Mukden, joining at the railroad the forces under Oku and Nogi, which were to attack from the west. ”

“ Commander Oto Owari had hastened at once to Tokio, on his unexpected return from the North Sea, where his strategic attack upon the Baltic ships had so signally failed. He was acquitted of blame, by a court of enquiry, and was at once given the command of the torpedo-boat destroyer Kushiro, then fitting for service in the Sasebo docks.
At this time O-Hana-San was a nurse in the military hospital at Hiroshima. She knew of Oto's appointment and, if the truth be told, dreaded the time when the Kushiro should be put in commission. ”

“ It was the mystery which delayed the Japanese, not Mergenthaler. When at last Kuroki’s left wing continued to report no aggressive movement from Bilderling river-ward; and when continued combing in the north raised nothing but bleak hills and grain-valleys hushed between showers, he flooded further columns down the ridge, and slew what he could of the Russian horsemen who tried with absurd heroism to block his way. At two in the afternoon the Flanker fixed his base among the very rocks where Morning had lain—and the next position for him to take was the coal-hills of Yentai. ”

“ General Kuroki deluded the Russians into the belief that our main crossing was to be effected there. Sassulitch swallowed it whole. I had to land some men yesterday on a small island above Yongampo. We were stormed by the enemy. I withdrew the survivors in boats, and unluckily my boat sank and I was knocked over by a splinter from a Russian shell. They picked me up and carried me off to Antung, and then towards Feng-huang-cheng, but our cavalry came up and released me, and here I am."
"Got a bad knock?" asked Bob, noticing that his left arm was bound up. ”

“ Notwithstanding the raking fire, however, from General Kuroki's batteries, the Russians stuck to their posts like heroes, and the field guns of the 3rd Battery, assisted by a number of machine guns, ploughed up the ranks of the Mikado's troops, doing terrible execution. But the Japanese were in overwhelming force, and though men were falling on every hand, the main body pressed resistlessly forward, crossed the river, and took up a position on the right bank, at the base of the hills. ”

“ But Nagasaki has seen its great days, having lost its importance when the opening of the port of Kobé took the tea trade to the upper end of the Inland Sea, around which lie the great tea districts of Japan. Its coal mines and its million-dollar dry-dock make it a harbor that no ships pass by, more vessels entering annually than at Yokohama. All the naval fleets coal here, and buy the greater part of their supplies in this cheap market, and fleets of foreign men-of-war are always at anchor. ”

“ Everyone imagined that they would use the strike to oust Uematsu from the market.
To quarrel and curse one another in this fashion had become habitual with Yamaguchi and Tokujiro. There are some people who, when you meet them, are so irritating that you can’t help picking a quarrel with them. ”

“ As said before, the Japanese commander not only washed to confront General Kuropatkin in battle, but he wished also to get behind the Russian general and cut him off from a possible retreat northward along the line of the railroad. For this reason, while General Oku and General Nodzu hammered at the Russian front, General Kuroki struck the Russian line in the far east, and did his best to turn the enemy’s flank.
Liao-Yang is on the Tai-tse River, which flows almost east and west. ”

“ Kurushima, Daimio or Lord of Tosa, led the fleet with a picked squadron manned by his own hardy fishermen—veteran sea-fighters, every man. Their long, rakish craft, mere open rowboats though they were, were known and feared from Luzon to the China coast. The largest foe that sailed the seas shrank from encountering them ”

“ It was just before the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Japan, and General Kuropotkin, the Russian Minister of War, had very recently been in Tokyo and had been accorded a welcome so elaborate that it became historic. It satisfied the Japanese conception of courtesy to an exalted foreign visitor and we discovered that it was to serve as a model for our own reception, though our time was so short that the programme had to be considerably modified. ”

“ Captain Oda and His Mines The arrangements of the Japanese were carried out with their usual thoroughness. At midnight on the 12th of April, the fourth and fifth destroyer flotillas and the fourteenth torpedo flotilla reached Port Arthur roadstead, having with them under escort the mining ship, the Koryo Maru. The Koryo Maru was a new vessel of 2,700 tons burden, specially constructed for torpedo and mining work. ”

“ In addition to the above, we must not forget to add that Japan is the only country of the Far East which works important coal-mines, and that two of the principal of these are situated in the island of Kiu-Siu, quite close to that part of the coast nearest Korea and China, and that she is, moreover, at the present day mistress of the Pescadors, a strategical point which Courbet valued very highly, situated in the middle of the China Sea. It will thus be easy to estimate of what value the co-operation of this nation would be to those Powers who are interested in the Middle Kingdom. ”

“ Then followed a retreat and pursuit, every step of which was marked by fighting of the most desperate nature, thousands of bodies carpeting the gradually rolling country, which finally became the plains along the Hun. Fushun was the Japanese objective. Kuroki bent every energy to roll back the front which Rennenkampff presented, but for ten days after the plain had been reached his army was fought to a standstill. ”

“ Japan also possessed an advantage in that her cruisers were not only larger than those of China, they were also newer, faster, and more heavily armed; and there were more of them. One ship in particular, the Yoshino, was larger than the Chinese battleships; while the armoured cruisers Matsushima, Hiroshima, and Hakodate were all well over four thousand tons, and much more heavily armed than any of the Chinese ships, with the exception of the Chen Yuen and Ting Yuen. ”

“ Kuribayashi knew that the 204th Naval Construction Battalion had built some of the most daunting defensive systems on the island in that sector. One cave had a tunnel 800 feet long with 14 separate exits; it was one of hundreds designed to be defended in depth.
The Japanese defenders waiting for the advance of the V Amphibious Corps were well armed and confident. Occasionally Kuribayashi authorized company-sized spoiling attacks to recapture lost terrain or disrupt enemy assault preparations. ”

“ Japanese children playing in the streets of Kioto.
Later I managed to find the highway that led out of Hiroshima. It led the way between bright green hedgerows, through village after village, past many farm-houses and rice-fields. The air was fresh and cheering, and I was often within sight of the bright blue arm of old ocean that wound in and out along the coast. Now and then an ocean liner, awakening memories of far-off lands, glided by. In shallow bays unclad fishermen, too brown to sunburn, disentangled their nets and heaped high their catches in wicker baskets. ”

“ Again at Yansu, a month later, the doughty Kellar disputed the last mountain-trail to the city, and Kuroki had to kill him to get through.... The army was growing accustomed to the civilians, and these were days of service for the correspondents. It was given them now to see the great fighting-machine of Kuroki—that huge bulk of flying power—lose its pomp and gloss and adjust itself to the field. It faded into the brown of the mountains, took on a vulpine leanness and a nerveless, soulless complacence, like nothing else in the world. Food was king; fighting was the big-game sport ”

“ The correspondent for the London paper handed in a cablegram describing, Kuroki's plans; but as it was wrong from beginning to end the censor grinned and let it go through.
So, there they were—Kuroki on one side of the Yalu with forty-two thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and one hundred and twenty-four guns. On the other side, Zassulitch waited for him with only twenty-three thousand men, and with a long stretch of river to guard. ”

“ His policy was still, “No battle before we are in superior force.”
For the moment it was equally Japan's interest to mark time in Manchuria. Still intent upon the Russian Port Arthur squadron, Landing of the Japanese 2nd Army. she had embarked her 2nd Army (General Oku, 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th divisions) during April, and sent it to Chinampo whence, as soon as the ice melted and Kuroki's victory cleared the air, it sailed to the selected landing-place near Pitszewo. ”

“ You are, of course, aware that there is little doubt that our nation will soon be in conflict with Japan, both by land and sea, and our secret agents have learned that a Japanese chemist has recently discovered a new and terrifically powerful explosive, for use not only in shells and torpedoes, but also for floating mines. ”

“ But the girl could see. Away aft, the cook's cabin, and everything behind it, was a mass of flames. Out of the midship hatch poured a cloud of smoke, and now and then a column of fire shot out with it. Even as the two stood there, hand in hand, there came a jarring explosion under their feet.
"Milly, I must see—I must see!" cried the captain. He tried to pull the towel from his eyes, but the ship-owner's daughter stopped him.
"You mustn't take it off, Jim," she pleaded. "It will blind you if you do. And there's nothing that you can do. The boats are gone. ”

“ Uematsu understood this and in the new factory. No. 11, he did not allow the men to live together. He employed only boys, vouched for by their headmasters.
After the strikers had started attacking the boats it became dangerous to bring the men back to the village each day. This, however, threatened to deprive him of scabs. So he began to give “prizes” to those who would stay in the dormitory. All mention of Chiun’s ghost was forbidden.
From the top of the strainer the bag, swollen up with bean pulp, stuck out bulkily. ”