Nanshan Hill and Motien Pass on the east were carried with the bayonet. Kinchow had already fallen, the fire of the Japanese fleet annihilating the Russian batteries in a two-days battle. When the great Corliss wheel was set up and the massive machinery "assembled" at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, the maker refused to start his engine for a trial before the Exposition was officially opened. "It will run," he said, "and run smoothly and perfectly. Every part is exact; figures cannot lie." It was a great risk to take, but the event proved that the manufacturer was right. When the electric signal announced the formal opening of the Fair, steam was let on. The huge piston of the Corliss engine started; the enormous wheel--the largest ever made, up to that time--began to revolve, and in a moment every polished rod and valve and wheel in the great engine was doing its part, running the entire machinery of the hall and performing its work without jar or noise, as smoothly as a child's water-wheel in a wayside brook. So operated the wondrous, complex machine of the Japanese military system, from the first mobilisation in Tokio, through the hurry and risk of transportation across the inner sea, and in movement after movement, battle after battle, in a country far removed from home. Field telephones kept the commanders in touch with advanced forces; the commissary department fulfilled its duties like clock-work; Kuroki, Oyama, Nodzu, Nogi, moved regiments and divisions to and fro like pieces upon a gigantic chess-board. The heat was now terrible. More than once a whole battalion rushed into a river to drink, under the full sweep of the enemy's fire. Still the resistless army of small brown men swept onward, marching through fields of Chinese corn, winding along narrow defiles, holding firmly every point of vantage gained. As the end of August drew near it was evident that the two mighty armies must meet. Minor battles had been fought, and skirmishes had been of almost daily occurrence throughout the campaign, but the vast hordes of armed men from the East and West had not yet been pitted against each other. The time had come at last, and the civilised world held its breath. The Russian army lay strongly entrenched at Liaoyang, an old town on the line of the railroad between Port Arthur and Harbin. The Japanese had been pouring troops into the peninsula for months, a portion called the Third Army gathering around Port Arthur, under General Nogi, the remainder pressing northward on the heels of the retreating enemy. The objective of the First, Second, and Fourth Armies was Liaoyang. The supreme command of the Japanese forces was now entrusted to Field Marshal Marquis Oyama, who had commanded ten years before, in the war against China.