The attack of the village of San-de-pu by the 14th Division alone failed, and it could hardly have done otherwise in the absence of any artillery preparation. Neither the ground round it nor the fortifications of the place itself had been studied, and no sketch-plan of it had been made or issued to the troops. The result was that our guns shelled a village called Pei-tai-tzu, north-east of San-de-pu, all day instead of the place itself, which they did not touch, while the 14th Division attacked and captured Pao-tai-tzu (to the west of San-de-pu), and reported to me they had taken San-de-pu. The outer enclosure of San-de-pu village was mistaken by this division for that of a _reduit_ inside the village, and acting upon the assumption that they were not strong enough to seize this _reduit_, they were ordered back to their former positions, and abandoned Pao-tai-tzu. Meanwhile, having received the report that San-de-pu had been taken, Grippenberg gave orders for the heavy guns and mortars with the 8th Corps to be sent at once to the 10th Corps, in order to prepare the assault of Lita-jen-tun next day. At the same time, as his men, who had had no sleep for three nights, were utterly exhausted, he asked permission to rest his army on the 27th. Accordingly, the 1st Siberians were ordered to halt in the area south-east of Hei-kou-tai; but as we had not yet taken this area, the order led to this corps having to fight a separate action on the 27th for the possession of Su-ma-pu and Piao-tsao. When it became known on the morning of the 27th that San-de-pu had not been taken, Grippenberg was obliged to give up all idea of repeating the attack on the 27th, as he had sent his heavy guns to the 10th Corps. The decision was also necessitated by the fact that the Japanese had sent up strong reinforcements. When Shtakelberg was informed that San-de-pu had not been taken, he did not consider it possible to carry out Grippenberg’s twice repeated order to cease his attack, and late in the evening, after a hot fight, he seized the greater part of Su-ma-pu by a disconnected attack with four regiments. But being counter-attacked at dawn on the 28th by superior numbers both in front and on the left, he was forced to fall back with great loss (6,000 men). By that evening the 1st Siberians were holding a position on the line Tou-pao–Chu-san-ho-tzu, which the Japanese continued to assault with great fury till the early morning. The despatch of troops towards Su-ma-pu in no way met the circumstances: it led to a needless digression from the main objective of the whole operations—_i.e._, San-de-pu—and generally to a still greater extension of the already too long front occupied by the 2nd Army. In order to divert the enemy’s attention from our right flank by a demonstration, the villages of Hsia-tai-tzu and La-pa-tai were attacked and seized on January 27 by part of the 10th Corps under Tserpitski; but as we were not ready to storm San-de-pu, these places were abandoned.