Admiral Kamimura with his cruisers made the most strenuous efforts to catch his elusive enemy, but the bad luck which had visited him at Gensan at the end of April continued to dog him still for a long time. Again and again a convenient fog intervened to favor the escape of the Russians; moreover, the Japanese squadron had to be depleted in order to furnish aid to the main fleet which was blockading Port Arthur, and assisting in the landing of troops; and furthermore, the strategic necessity of closely guarding the Straits between Japan and Korea and preventing the possibility of a junction between the two Russian fleets, severely limited the area of Kamimura's activity. In these circumstances Admiral Skrydloff's cruisers had an almost uncheckered run of success for a period of two months. The Japanese Admiral came in for some sharp criticism at the hands of the general public in Japan for his apparent lack of energy, but the authorities at Tokio, who had all the conditions of the campaign before them in their true proportions, trusted him thoroughly, and their trust was magnificently vindicated on the 14th of August, when he at last managed to trap the Russians into his net, and administered to them a signal defeat in a pitched battle on the high seas. [Sidenote: Approaching Port Arthur] A return must now be made to the land operations upon the Liao-tung Peninsula. Undeterred by the loss of the _Hatsuse_ and the _Yoshino_, the Japanese continued to pour in troops at Yentoa Bay and Pitszewo. At the same time the 3rd Army, under General Nodzu, began to disembark at Takushan. But it was to General Oku and the 2nd Army that the honor fell of striking the next blow for the Mikado. This was the capture of Kinchau and the storming of the Russian entrenchments on Nanshan Hill, which, after preliminary operations lasting over some days, was finally effected on the 26th of May. [Sidenote: Importance of Nanshan]