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"Tokyo, 19th May.-Corea has officially nul- lified all her treaties with and concessions to Russia."
"
Tokyo, 20th May:- The drowned in the Hatsuse include sixteen officers and nineteen petty officers. The drowned in the Yushino were sixteen officers, including Captain Bayeki, and thirty-three petty officers.'
"
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
west from Kuanchèngtse the Chinese are com- mencing an insurrection against the Russians and Christians.
According to information received on the 12th and 13th of May the advance of the enemy from Fenghwangcheng towards Liao- yang is proceeding indecisively, having rather a demonstrative character. It is possible that "The latest naval disasters have caused a the enemy's main body is marching towards painful sensation. The Kokumin is unwilling Haicheng or towards Kaichou. Another con- to think that these catastrophes were the resultsiderable portion of the enemy is concentra- of carelessness, but hopes that circumspection ting to the northwest of Takushan. will be exercised in the future, and consoles We have taken measures to clear out the itself by remembering that the Hatsuse and region between Lienshankuan and Saimachi Yoshino, with their crews, have perished after from the Hunghutze. In our engagements & life of splendid action."
against them, which have taken place at different times, we lost three Cossacks killed, one wounded, and four missing. During the 13th May a band of these Hunghutze, 300 strong, assailed the mines at Yentai, and they We were repulsed with a loss of thirty men. have information of the appearance of a large band of Hunghutze, 16 versts (1 miles) to the west of Liaoyang. The patrols of the railway guards that were sent out towards the west, along the Sangari River, could not reach Petana, owing to the large number of bands of Hunghutze congregated there.
"Tokyo, 20th May. It is officially announced that a Japanese squadron reconnoitred Kaiping Bay on the 16th instant, and fired at the Russian troops ashore, who fled. The Japanese swept the adjacent waters on the 16th. The gunboats approached the shore and bombarded the railway bridges, military trains, etc., doing more or less damage."
Tokyo, 20th May. It is officially announced that a portion of the Japanese army commenced landing at Takushan on the 19th instant. Ini the engagement near Kinchou on the 16th inst.. | the Russians left thirty dead on the field. According to prisoners taken, the Russian casu- alties exceeded three hundred. The bulk of the Fourth division of Russian infantry, and the whole Seventh division, are occupying the Kin- chou peninsula under General Stössel, the Commandant at Port Arthur."
"Tokyo, 21st May.-The latest news, reliable, is that the Ru sian cruiser Bogatyr was de- stroyed and sunk in a dense fog, probably almost simultaneously with the sinking of the Kinshiu Maru.
"Tokyo, 21st May. It is officially announced that a flotilla of Japanese guuboats and de- stroyers approached Port Arthur at 1 a.m. on the 20th instant, and effected a reconnaisance in fores in despite of a furious cross fire from the batteries. The flotilla left at dawn; no casualties reported."
"Tokyo, 23rd May.-The second issue of Exchequer Bonds was announced to-day. They are five per cent. bonds running for seven years, and the minimum issue price is 92. A com- muniqué issued àpropos says that the estimated war expenditure to the end of the fiscal year from the beginning of hostilities is over forty- one million yen."
“Tokyo, 23rd May. Some Japanese officers and scouts encountered and exterminated ten Russian cavalrymen on the 21st inst. in the Interior, north-west of Iakushan. Another scouting party captured two cavalrymen and soven horses, The Japanese also captured on the 21st inst. a captain and a corporal who were attempting to recouroitre the rear of the Japanese camp at Tanshanchêng.
Mukden, 16th May.
In the district of Promorski everything is quiet.
Captain Bolchakoff reports from Kencheng, that he has seized forty thousand pounds of powder, which he has thrown into the river.
The Japanese have re-occupied Kuantien- hsien.
The line of the flying post between Saimachi and Lienshankuan is fully cleared from the Hunghutze.
On the 14th instant a detachment was sent out to disperse the strong baad of Hunghutze which had assembled sixteen versts west of Liaoyang. The detachment consisted of mount- ed infantry and the 15th company of the Zaraiski Regiment. After a lively engagement the Hunghutze fid, leaving twenty dead and a quantity of arms and ammunition behind them. Our losses are: killed two men, wounded three.
THE BATTLE OF THE
YALU.
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]
Chuliencheng, 2nd May.
GREAT JAPANESE VICTORY.
The Japanese and Russian troops have at last measured their strength in earnest, after three days of preliminary fighting, manoeuvring for position and feeling the way, and the Japanese Tokyo, 23rd May.-Reliable information have not only gained the day and forced the has been received that the Russian soldiers are passage of the Yalu, but have also shown them- continually surrendering themselves, apparently selves superior to the Russians in generalship. to avoid fighting, notwithstanding the strictest in mobility, in weapons, in skill at the use of instructions to the contrary
issued by them, and in the fighting spirit of the rank and the Russian commanders. Japan's treatment file. Plainly, the Russians are outclassed at of her prisoners in as tender as possible, and every point. They have lost a most important bears full testimony to her humanitarian pria- position, lost over a thousand men in killed, ciples. The prisoners already arrived profess wounded, and prisoners, lost half of their rifies and themselves profoundly gratified at their treat-artillery and large quantities of ment by the Japanese."
BUSBIAN OFFICIAL DESPATCHES.
Major-General Dessino, Russian Military Agent in China, has published in some of the Shanghai papers the following telegrams :-
Moukden, 15th May. During the 12th of May a Japanese detachment of about one battalion of infantry and two com panies of cavalry occupied Pulantien. This detachment left the station the same evening. The train going from Dalay returned back. During the night of the 13th of May Palantienį was illuminated with the searchlights of the enemy. Un the 13th of May the Japanese reappeared near Pulantien and Wafungtion and destroyed the railway. We closed the etations. t Wafungehou and Wantzealin.
In the eastern detachment there are no changes.
We discovered the enemy's cavalry patrols twelve versts (8 miles) to the east of Suiyen.
Between Saimachi and Lienshankman the lunghutze are attacking our flying post (mail). Forty versta (27 miles) towards the south
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ammunition, and most of all, they have lost their power to terrify. They have had to hoist the white flag. It is an ominons beginning.
When there has been talk of Russia's land forces retrieving the prestige so much damaged on the water, the Japanese have commented, cautiously, “It is probable that the army may be stronger than the navy, but we may find that the difference is not very great after all." And now they have won the first test match, fairly and thoroughly.
The beginning of it all was nearly a month ago, when the Japanese cavalry scouts followed up the retreat of the Russians through the north-west part of Corea, and had a brush with some Cossacks just outside of Wiju on the Corean side of the Yalu River. The Russians retired to the Manchurian side of the river, and at once began to prepare for a big struggle at this point. It may be true, as frequently stated, that the Russian Generals differ as to the desira. bility of making a serious effort at the Yalu, but the fact remains that they did make it, and with disastrous result.
[May 30, 1904.
I do not pretend to decide whether the pas - sage of the Yalu was in itself of much or little importance, but the important thing about this battle is that it has shown how the two armies compare in strategy, mobility, and efficiency of men and weapons in actual combat. And the verdict on all points is decisively against the Russians. These are considerations far more important than the loss or gain of this or that place; such tangible results are merely the illus- trations emphasising the lesson, and they are not as valuable as the lesson itself.
The Yalu is a very shallow, wide, meandering river, full of mud-flats which at times are big When the river is full, the width at islands. Wiju from bank to bank is about two-thirds of a mile, or say 1,000 yards-easy shooting distance, with modern weapons In a straight line across from Wiju there are no islands, and on the op- posite shore there is a bluff called the Tiger's Head. At least, we call it that; probably it is called a large number of different things in Chinese, Manchu. Corean, and Japanese, for most places in this part of the world have so many aliases that we can never hope to get them all right. The Tiger's Head was the principal Russian position. The crest of the hill was made into a regular fortress, of quite formidable dimensions. On the part nearest Wiju there were four batteries of six cannon each, and on a higher level further back from the river-side, in the direction of Chulien- cheng, as many again: These, guns could, if need be, demolish the whole town of Wiju, and sweep the whole broad bosom of the river and both banks for three or four miles up and down. Towards Antung, which is about seven miles below the Tiger's Head on the same side of the Yalu, the Russiaus had another fort, of smaller armament, and the intervening ground was plentifully protected by infantry well en- trenched.
Besides this main line of defence, the Russians had outposts, of a few men each, at short intervals all the way for thirty or forty miles up the Yalu, and an equal distance down to the sea front and along This accounts the coast as far as Takushan. for the apparently conflicting reports of the Russians' numbers; while it had been said that there were over fifty thousand guarding the Yalu, it is certain that there were not twenty thousand in this action. The explanation is that the Russians foolishly spread themselves over too great a length of line; any given point in their defende was thus bound to be weak, and they were not alert enough to reinforce in time. It is the old story; the army that waits to be attacked is at a disadvantage if it is without information as to the point where the enemy will attack. There may be fifty possible points and the defender is compelled to attend to all the fifty while the attacker can concentrate all his energies on one point.
spy of
In this matter of information, I came across a curiously characteristic incident in Wiju The Russians sent several Corean and itself.
One of Chinese spies into the Japanese zone. them would be a farmer, another a pedlar, and so on. Some came from Antung, some from Fenghwangcheng, and various other places, but never one of them started out on his spying expedition for the Russians without being from the start by a tracked the Japanese, who lurked in the Russian this sort of thing. camp watching for Thus, a blind beggar (supposed) tramped and begged his slow way along the main road from Wiju down to Pingyang, and by strange coincidence an itinerant vendor of Manchester piece-goods happened to be going the same way, and stayed each night in the same village. At Pingyang the man with the rolls of shirtings tapped a Japanese gendarme on the shoulder and nodded in the direction of the blind beggar. A few minutes later, very quietly, a couple of ordinary-looking Corean labourers happened to collide accidentally with the blind man, apolog is. ed, led him gently aside, and he was a prisoner in a Japanese guard-house the next moment; searched, and numbers of useful and interesting memoranda were found concealed in his straw The cotton-merchant and the blind shoes. beggar both disappeared, but the former still lives and, flourishes.
This illustrates how the Russians were so inferior in their information. Their secret service is hopelessly outclassed by the Japanese
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