At the third general attack on November 26th, at 2 p.m., a large force of Japanese assaulted Sung-shu fort, and having crossed the moat through a bomb-proof passage, they gained the parapet of the rampart and swarmed over it. “Into this seething mass of humanity the machine guns of the forts and batteries on An-tzu Shan poured such a tremendous fire that the attackers were mowed down, crushed, dispersed, and sent head over heels to the moat again in less than half a minute, before a single man had reached the interior of the fort. _The same fate befell a fresh attempt undertaken at five o’clock._”[43] Here we see the importance of machine guns being able to command the parapet of neighbouring works, and the necessity of reserving fire until the best possible target is presented, even though the enemy is permitted actually to scale the parapet. The same thing occurred at the storming of Erh-lung Fort. At midnight on November 26th the Japanese “made a desperate attempt to storm the upper battery, but the assailants were mown down by machine guns, _as soon as they appeared on the parapet_.”[44] This is a good illustration of the use of machine guns at night, and no doubt these guns had been trained by day to sweep the parapet in anticipation of an attack after dark. “On January 28th, 1905, near Linchinpan at about 7 p.m. the Japanese attacked the forts of Vosnesenski and the trenches near by in which were posted two machine guns. These latter opened fire at 200 or 300 yards on a Japanese company in line. _In one or two minutes they fired about 1,000 rounds and the Japanese company was annihilated._”[45] During the attack on North Chi-kuan Fort on December 19th, by the 38th Regiment under General Samayeda, which took place at 5 p.m., the men were sent over the parapet man by man from different points, to make it more difficult for the Russian machine gunners. “As soon as there was a little interval in the rattling of the machine guns, a man would jump up and run for his life, and seek shelter behind the débris piled up in the terre-plein after the explosion, or in the holes which the big howitzer shells had made in the ground. Though many of the men were shot down in the short race, little by little a force of about 150 men were assembled in the front part of the fort, and the commander, Captain Iwamoto, then led them against the sandbag trenches at the rear.... The fighting was mostly hand-to-hand, _but the Russian machine guns took an important part in the defence_, their galling fire making fearful ravages amongst the attacking party. The Japanese, therefore, got a couple of mountain guns hauled up on the parapet, and with them succeeded in silencing the Maxims.”[46]