Yet the sufferings of the Japanese were growing hourly severer. To half rations and hunger had succeeded famine, and with famine came actual death from starvation. Unfortunately there was no well in the castle, so the Japanese had at first sallied out, under cover of the night, and carried water from the mountain brooks. The Chinese, discovering this, posted archers in front of every accessible stream, and thus cut off all approach by night or day. To hunger was added the torture of thirst. The soldiers who fought by day stole out at night and licked the wounds of their slain enemies and even secretly chewed the raw flesh sliced from the corpses of the Chinese. Within the castle, ingenuity was taxed to the utmost to provide sustenance from the most unpromising substances. The famished soldiers chewed paper, trapped mice and ate them, killed horses and devoured every part of them. Braving the arrows of the Chinese pickets, they wandered at night wherever their dead enemies lay, and searched their clothes for stray grains of parched rice. On one occasion the Chinese, lying in wait, succeeded in capturing one hundred of the garrison, that were prowling like ghouls around the corpses of the slain. After this the commanders forbade any soldier, on pain of death, to leave the castle. Yet famine held revel within, and scores of starved and frozen multiplied into hundreds, until room for the corpses was needed. Tidings of the straits of the dwindling garrison at Uru-san having reached the other Japanese commanders, Nabéshima and Kuroda, they marched to the relief of their compatriots. One of the Chinese generals, Rijobai, leaving camp, set out to attack them. The foiled Chinese commander-in-chief, angry at the refusal of the Japanese to come to his camp, ordered a fresh attack on the castle. This time fresh detachments took the places of others when wearied. The day seemed shut out by the dust of horses, the smoke of guns, the clouds of arrows, and the masses of flags. Again the scaling ladders were brought, but made useless by the vigilant defenders in armor iced with frozen sweat, and chafing to the bone. Their constant labor made “three hours seem like three years.” The attack was kept up unceasingly until February 12th, when the exhausted garrison noticed the Chinese retreating. The van of the reinforcements from Fusan had attacked the allies in the rear, and a bloody combat was raging. At about the same time the fleet, laden with provisions, was on its way and near the starving garrison.