After a day or two spent in recuperating his tired troops, whose tremendous exertions during the previous week must have tested their powers of endurance to the utmost, and also in bringing his heavy guns and supply train across the river from Wiju, in preparation for the march General Kuroki began a forward movement into Manchuria with his whole army. The cavalry led the advance, operating over a wide area of country and sweeping the scattered units of the Russians before it. Some sharp skirmishes took place at Erh-tai-tsu and San-tai-tsu, but no real difficulty was interposed in the way of the victorious Japanese, who drove the enemy in flight before them. On May 6th the foremost cavalry vedettes reached Feng-hwang-cheng, and instead of finding the strongly held entrenchments which the Russian press was even then busily assuring a sceptical Europe would prevent any further advance on the part of the presumptuous foe, they discovered that the troops of General Sassulitch had been withdrawn, and they entered the deserted town without having to fire a shot. The leading columns of the infantry, following quickly behind, marched in and took possession on the same day. Before his hurried departure General Sassulitch had ordered the magazine to be blown up, but large quantities of hospital and other stores fell into the hands of the Japanese. General Kuroki's main body was not far in the rear, and the position of the whole army was soon securely established at this important point. Feng-hwang-cheng is situated at a mountain pass on the Liao-yang road, at a distance of about 25 miles from the Yalu. As already stated, it possesses great strategical importance. It is the centre at which the roads meet, coming from Liao-yang, Haicheng, and Kaiping, places which are situated at about equal distances from one another along the Manchurian railway from north to south, and it therefore constitutes a _point d'appui_ from which a force could be thrown against any of them, while it is itself a position of great strength. General Kuroki immediately began to entrench himself strongly at this spot and to consolidate his forces, while he waited for the highly important developments which were now to take place in other quarters of the theatre of war. [Illustration: IN THE RUSSIAN TRENCHES.] [Sidenote: Remarkable Japanese Strategy] A wide view of the position of affairs as they now stood over the entire field of operations is necessary at this point in order to make clear the remarkable events that followed, and to throw into full relief the extraordinary qualities of the Japanese strategy--a strategy conceived after the most patient study of all the conditions of the problems and worked out in practice with almost machine-like regularity and precision. [Sidenote: The Paper Army]