The strength of the Twelfth Division was equal to one and a half divisions; that of the Second Division was about normal, though half its artillery and the greater part of its cavalry had been transferred to the Guards Division. A battery of mountain guns had however been added to the Second Division, and proved so effective that the Japanese resolved in future to carry a mountain battery behind the fighting line. The Guards Division, in addition to the cavalry and guns of the Second Division, was strengthened by a battery of Russian guns captured at the Yalu, and had in all ten batteries of field guns. Besides these forces was the Reserve--whose position was kept secret--under the direct command of Head Quarters. This reserve--the 29th regiment of the Second Reserves--was doing garrison duty at Feng-hoang-cheng on the 22nd when orders came that it must hurry to the front. After a forced march of forty-eight hours the regiment arrived at Tien-sui-tien at midnight on the 25th and was thrown into the fighting line. No one who saw them marching to the sound of the guns next morning would have dreamed that they had just performed so remarkable a feat of endurance. Such was the force with which General Kuroki succeeded in driving in the Russian left flank and compelling General Kuropatkin to evacuate Aushantien and fall back on his last defences about Liao-yang. Let me attempt to describe as clearly and as concisely as the multiplicity of details allow, the manner in which this great victory was won. In the last days of August, the army under General Kuropatkin, estimated at two hundred thousand fighting men, held three defensive lines stretching like bows over the hilly country to the South and East of Liao-yang. The longest bow was drawn to the South of Am-ping across the Pekin road; the shorter was North of the River Tang, while the smallest and strongest bow masked Liao-yang from the low hills of Shou-shan. The defensive works in front of the Pekin road had been constructed months before, those in the neighbourhood of Am-ping were begun after our advance from Mou-tien-ling on the 31st of July. The nature and extent of the defences beyond the Tang-ho were not known until a few days before the attack on Liao-yang; nor were we sure that the enemy had entrenched the heights of Sou-shan. Divided into two main bodies, with strong reserves on the inner lines of defence, the Russians awaited our advance with the confidence inspired by numbers and by the presence of General Kuropatkin. Our plan was simple. While the Armies of the West and South attacked from Anshantien on the road from Hai-cheng, the Army of the East, under General Kuroki, was to force the defensive line on the Pekin road and at Am-ping.