The adjoining fort, East Panlung, was one of the most fiercely contested of all the siege. It had been admirably strengthened. The besiegers were forced to attack in close formation; the entanglements and obstructions concentrating them to points upon which machine-gun fire converged, and decimated the attacking companies, whose survivors were so few when they reached the parapet that the defenders had little difficulty in repulsing them. The Japanese were as determined to win the position as the Russians were to hold it. Lieut. Kitagawa was fortunate enough among the besiegers to reach the fort and to plant the flag on its wall. He was followed by a few desperate men, who swarmed over the breastwork, and were supported by new arrivals. In the hand-to-hand conflict inside the fort the Japanese were winners, There was a desperate and long-continued struggle, fought out with rifles, bayonets, swords, grenades, and even stones--whichever weapon or missile came first to hand. The Russians late in the afternoon took to the covered way and fell back by it, still fighting ferociously, to Wantai Hill fort, for that far did the victorious besiegers pursue them towards the town. During the night the Russians made several ineffectual attempts to recapture the position. The Japanese held also the North Kikwan fort, but from that they were driven out in a close encounter on the following day, after the position had been mercilessly shelled for hours. The attack had proceeded almost without intermission for four days, and the besiegers had secured only a dangerous footing on the Kikwan fort as the result of a most strenuous and determined attack by all ranks. At this one vantage point the Japanese began to mass troops, distracting the attention of the Russians from the manœuvre by a demonstration in force against the Tung-yen redoubts. The Russians during the night made an attempt to retake the lost positions. A sortie from Wantai Hill was made an hour before midnight on August 23; the Russians drove the Japanese back on Panlung, thence down the hill to a position near the railway, where a knoll afforded them cover until reinforcements arrived. At one in the morning the Russians withdrew to the forts before the Japanese, and by the covered way to the south fort, which they held against the Japanese, who, however remained in possession of the outer works of the Panlung fortifications. An attack was delivered at the same time on Etseshan, but the Russians with their search-lights so exposed to fire the progress made by the Japanese that the attack was pushed on in half-hearted fashion only, and ere dawn broke it was definitely abandoned.