It is not easy to understand this repeated effort to capture a position which was abandoned without firing a shot. The explanation has been offered that Mou-tien-ling was evacuated without the knowledge of General Kuropatkin and on the rumour that two divisions were threatening to outflank the position. A more probable explanation is that General Kuropatkin, finding it necessary to withdraw his force from the Liao-tung Peninsula, and to fall back on Liao-yang, determined to recover the Pass, in the hope of delaying the advance of General Kuroki, who was seeking to effect a junction with General Oku in front of Liao-yang. Chapter XXIII ASSAULT ON CHAOTOA. At Chaotoa the Russians had a position of the highest strategic importance, from which they could threaten the advance of our right wing upon Liao-yang or Mukden. Bridge Head--as it was called--was also a barrier against the junction of our division--an armed point thrust between our centre and our right flank that an enterprising enemy might use to arrest any forward movement or in another attack on Mou-tien-ling. The necessity of removing this menace became urgent after the second attempt to recover the Pass, and the task was undertaken by the force whose head quarters were at Saimaki. Chaotoa is twenty miles north of Lien-chen-kwan, but in order to reach it safely we must retrace our steps toward Feng-hoang-cheng and strike North-east beyond the watershed. Leaving Saimaki on the right the road traverses a mountainous country and in fifty miles crosses the river at a score of places. By a rapid ascent we reach the watershed of the Eastern range--a lofty eminence whence the eye wanders over a heaving ocean of mountain and valley, clothed in many shaded greens of ripening maize and cotton and indigo. As you draw near to the Tai-tsu river you enter a long defile through which flows a stream, and at the western end of the defile rises Chaotoa. The strength of the position is at once apparent. Its precipitous front is washed by a tributary river which flows North to join the valley stream and turning West empties its waters into the broad flood of the Tai-tsu beyond Am-ping. In the angle of the meeting of the waters was the enemy’s fortified position. Their front was a sheer precipice with the deep river below; their left flank sloped gently down to the valley stream beyond which was a plain stretching to the Northern heights, and their right wing was defended by hills. From this secure angle the Russian guns commanded the valley and road: approach on their left was impossible without scaling heights beyond which runs the deep broad river Tai-tsu. [Illustration: Japanese Ambulance Party, Chaotoa.]