"Never speak of it, but think of it always!" While Japan was disseminating these false notions as to the probable course of a war, the actual preparations for it were being conducted in an entirely different place, and the adversary was induced to concentrate his strength at a point where there was no intention of making an attack. The Japanese were overjoyed to observe the strengthening of the Philippine garrison when the insurrection inspired by Japanese agents broke out at Mindanao as well as the concentration of the cruiser squadron off that island, for Manila, the naval base, was thus left unprotected. With the same malignant joy they noticed how the United States stationed half of its fleet off the Pacific coast and, relying on her mobile means of defense, provided insufficient garrisons for the coast-defenses, on the supposition that there would be plenty of time to put the garrisons on a war-footing after the outbreak of hostilities. Japan's next move came in March and April, when she quietly withdrew all the regular troops from the Manchurian garrisons and replaced them with reserve regiments fully able to repulse for a time any attack on the part of Russia. The meaning of this move was not revealed until weeks later, when it became known that the transport ships from Dalny and Gensan, which were supposed to have returned to Japan, were really on their way to San Francisco and Seattle with the second detachment of the invading army. After the destruction of the Philippine squadron, the Japanese reduced their blockade of the Bay of Manila to a few old cruisers and armed merchant-steamers, at the same time isolating the American garrisons in the archipelago, whose fate was soon decided. The blockading ships could not of course venture near the heavy guns of the Corregidor batteries, but that was not their task. They had merely to see that Manila had no intercourse with the outside world, and this they did most efficiently. The Japanese ships had at first feared an attack by the two little submarines _Shark_ and _Porpoise_ stationed at Cavite; they learned from their spies on land, however, that the government shipyards at Cavite had tried in vain to render the little boats seaworthy: they returned from each diving-trial with defective gasoline-engines. And when, weeks later, they at last reached Corregidor, the four Japanese submarines quickly put an end to them. The strongly fortified city of Manila had thus become a naval base without a fleet and was accordingly overpowered from the land side.