Sufficient efforts were not made to readjust matters either in the divisions or corps. The commander of the 10th Army Corps maintained under his command only two brigades of the 9th and 31st Divisions (consisting of sixteen battalions), which had been moved by my order towards Sha-ling-pu; the commander of the 16th Army Corps was with the 25th Infantry Division, which had sixteen battalions; while neither the commanders of the 8th or Composite Rifle Corps had got so many troops directly under them. By General Kaulbars’ orders, Tserpitski was appointed to command the left wing of the troops moved on to the right bank of the Hun Ho; among these was only one regiment of the 10th Army Corps, the remainder belonging to the 8th Army, Composite Rifle, and 5th Siberian Corps. At the same time as Kaulbars appointed Tserpitski, he removed the commanders of the 8th, Composite Rifle, and 16th Corps from the direct command of troops. This gave the _coup de grâce_ to the corps organization of this army. It was now completely destroyed. As I have mentioned (Vol. III.), there was an opportunity on March 6 of withdrawing the whole of the 10th Army Corps from the first line, and so reorganizing the 8th Corps and the Composite Rifles properly, but the commander of the 2nd Army did not seize it. The inaction of the 2nd Army on March 4, its passive and disastrous operations on the 5th and 6th, placed our right flank in a very difficult position. Nogi was moving not only along the flank, but to the rear of the 2nd Army. The commander of this army, continuing to see danger where there was none, paid particular attention to Oku’s operations, and left Nogi to move round to our rear without hindrance. Indeed, had I not interfered on March 7, Nogi’s force would have seized Shan-tai-tzu, the Imperial Tombs, and Mukden, and moved in rear of the 2nd Army. By my orders the defence of the positions near Shan-tai-tzu, Ta-heng-tun, and Wen-ken-tun was organized so as to face to the north and west. The movement of the 3rd Army towards the Hun Ho contracted our position, and enabled me to withdraw to my main reserve portions of the 9th, 15th, and 54th Divisions, and by means of this concentration the danger of Nogi’s movement to our rear was temporarily averted, but in the section held by the 2nd Army we were fighting on three fronts—west, south, and north. Under such conditions I naturally sent into action those units which were nearest. Still, the defence of the northern front was entrusted to a brigade of the 41st Division, the Volinsk Regiment, and to the 9th Rifle Regiment. Near Tsu-erh-tun were concentrated three regiments of the 9th and three of the 54th Divisions.