It should be borne in mind that these instructions were given at a time when the position of only two of the hostile armies had been fixed. Of these, one—of three divisions and three reserve brigades—had forced the crossing of the Ya-lu, and the other—of three divisions—had landed near Pi-tzu-wo. Moreover, a landing, of the extent of which we had no information, was then being carried out at Ta-ku-shan. Consequently we did not know the destination of one-half of the enemy’s army, and were thus not in possession of two important pieces of knowledge which were necessary before any operations of a decisive character could be undertaken—namely, the position of the enemy’s main forces and their probable plan of operations. It was incumbent on us, therefore, to exercise great caution, and to keep our forces as far as possible concentrated, so as to be ready to meet the attack of two or even three armies. Concerning the two directions in which the Viceroy advocated an advance, the following few points suggest themselves. For any operations towards the Ya-lu—bearing in mind the necessity for guarding our flank and rear against one hostile force landing at Pi-tzu-wo, and possibly others landing near Kai-ping or Newchuang—not more than sixty to seventy battalions were available of the ninety-four which in the middle of May constituted the army; the whole of the food for these troops had to be brought up by rail, owing to the exhaustion of the local resources—never very plentiful—in the hilly country between Liao-yang and Feng-huang-cheng: we had not got the transport to do this, for our ten transport trains could only have carried a three or four days’ supply for a force of this size; the usual May and June rains would have made the movement of our guns and baggage at first difficult, and then impossible, and we had at that time no mountain artillery or pack transport; we were by no means well placed in the matter of artillery parks: the horses for those of the 5th, 6th, and 9th East Siberian Rifle Artillery Divisions were still _en route_ to Harbin, while the 1st and 2nd Siberian Divisions had arrived without any. Finally, if Kuroki should fall back behind the Ya-lu without accepting battle, we should have been obliged to retire and leave at least an army corps to contain him. When the rainy season came on, this corps itself would have been obliged to withdraw, as with interrupted communications it would have been seriously threatened by Kuroki’s far larger force, well provided with both mountain artillery and pack transport. For these reasons an offensive towards the Ya-lu was impracticable.