2. "The landing of the Japanese at Yinkow, or in Korea Bay, is not to be regarded as practicable." The strength of the land force that a war with Japan would require depended upon three things: (1) the strength of the army that the Japanese could put into Manchuria, or across our boundary; (2) the strength of our fleet; and (3) the transporting capacity of the railway upon which our troops would have to depend in concentration. If our fleet could defeat the fleet of the Japanese, military operations on the main land would be unnecessary. And even if the Japanese were not defeated in a general naval engagement, they would either have to obtain complete mastery of the sea, or leave a considerable part of their army at home for the protection of their own coast. Without command of the sea, moreover, they could not risk a landing on the Liao-tung peninsula, but would have to march through Korea, and that would give us time for concentration. By their desperate night attack upon our fleet at Port Arthur, before the declaration of war,[H] they obtained a temporary superiority in armored vessels, and made great use of it in getting command of the sea. Our fleet--especially after the death of Admiral Makaroff at the most critical moment in the execution of the Japanese plan of campaign--offered no resistance to the enemy whatever. Even when they landed in the immediate vicinity of Port Arthur, we did not make so much as an attempt to interfere with them. The results of this inaction were very damaging to our army. The Japanese, instead of finding it impossible to land troops in Korea Bay, as our naval authorities anticipated, were able to threaten us with a descent along the whole coast of the Liao-tung peninsula, beginning at Kwang-tung. Notwithstanding our weakness on land, Admiral Alexeieff thought it necessary to authorize a wide scattering of our troops, so we prepared to meet the Japanese on the Yalu, at Yinkow, and in the province of Kwang-tung. He had also permitted a dispersal of our naval forces, so that we were weak everywhere. _Advantages Secured by Japan's Naval Victory_