But, unfortunately, that information was wholly erroneous. Far from being dispirited and exhausted, the Japanese forces were on the very point of advancing to the attack again when Kuropatkin formed his momentous resolution and issued orders for "the march to Liao-yang". If his movement was hailed with almost delirious enthusiasm in St. Petersburg, it was observed with hardly less satisfaction at Tokio, where it was at once recognized that the enemy were obligingly releasing Marshal Oyama from the necessity of a long march and another attack on fortified positions. [Sidenote: Reinforcements for Both Sides] By this time Kuropatkin's forces--thanks to the completion of the Circum-Baikal railway--had reached 250,000, with more than 800 guns. The Japanese strength, after reinforcements both from Japan and from the army investing Port Arthur, cannot have been much less; though at the close of the battle which was about to be fought Marshal Oyama asserted that at all points his victorious troops had been outnumbered. However that may be, the Japanese had the advantage of a prepared position, the key of which was in rugged mountainous country. Unlike the battle of Liao-yang, of which minute details have already been furnished, the battle of Yentai, as it was first called, or of Sha-ho, as it came to be known afterwards, can only be followed in its broad outline, mainly because the maps available are utterly inadequate. The place-names which mark the direction of the operations in one official report rarely agree with those in the other official report, and can only be vaguely identified. But a rough sketch-map is at least sufficient to give the general bearings of the operations. The Japanese front extended in a horseshoe formation from Yentai, on the railway, to Pensihu, on the Taitse River, with Oku on the left, Nodzu in the centre, and Kuroki on the right. The plan of Kuropatkin--a plan which in the light of after events we know to have been beyond the possibility of achievement--was to attack the right wing of the Japanese army under Kuroki, and roll it back upon Liao-yang, while the Japanese left and centre were held in front; then to shut up Oyama and his troops in Liao-yang, much as Sir George White was shut up in Ladysmith, while a rapid march southwards was made to the relief of Port Arthur. [Sidenote: Battle of the Sha-ho]