Here we find the complement of the operations which at Nagasaki and Ujina excited such keen admiration on the part of foreign critics. Perfect order and discipline characterized the disembarkation of the Japanese, as it had characterized their embarkation. The Pink-Yang Inlet is difficult of navigation at the best of times, but the inherent difficulties were enormously enhanced at this period of the year by the drift ice, which rendered landing an awkward and, in some cases, a hazardous undertaking. But the Japanese showed that admirable forethought which has characterized every step they have taken, and the transports brought with them large numbers of pontoon wharves, which enabled the troops to disembark from the sampans at some distance from the shore, and to march easily on to firm land. Here the hardy Japanese, in spite of the severe cold, bivouacked for the most part in the open, and were then pushed forward with all possible rapidity towards Ping-Yang. By the middle of March, as far as can be estimated, at least 80,000 men had landed in Korea ready to advance northwards as soon as the weather would permit; General Kuroki, commanding the 1st Army Corps, assuming the direction of affairs until the arrival of Baron Kodama, the Chief of the General Staff, who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief. [Illustration: RUSSIAN AND JAPANESE DESTROYERS AT CLOSE QUARTERS, MARCH 9TH.] [Sidenote: At Seoul] In the meanwhile a strong force, under General Inouye, had marched upon Seoul, and without difficulty overawed the feeble Emperor and his corrupt Court. On the 12th of February M. Pavloff, whose name had for so long been a word to conjure with in Korea, left the capital for Chemulpo under the humiliating protection of a Japanese guard. M. Pavloff, it is said, was thunderstruck by the news of the disasters to the Russian navy, and by the sudden revelation of the real strength of the hitherto despised Island Empire. It was now clear to the world, and not least to his dupes, the Koreans, that the diplomatic bluff in which he, in common with his administrative chief, Admiral Alexeieff, had been indulging for so long was ludicrously out of proportion to the naval and military preparations which would ultimately have to support it. But the power of this able man at the Court of Seoul, though broken for the moment, was not by any means destroyed. So well had he done his work that even in the hour of Japan's triumph he still managed to find tools in the corrupt servants of the Emperor, and when he had taken his departure for Shanghai more than one attempt to communicate with him had to be frustrated by the Japanese. [Sidenote: The Korean Emperor]