Of sapper officers not with units there were altogether fifteen in the Engineer Department of the whole district. Of these, the following were not available for general sapper duty: six officers employed in the Naval Construction Yard, and six others specially employed, thus leaving three officers available for sapper duties over the whole area. Of troops for the work over this huge area there was one sapper company--the gallant Kwantun Sapper Company, consisting of 9 officers and 450 non-commissioned officers and men. Even from this number 2 officers were detached and sent up north to Manchuria, and 50 men detached for special duties; that leaves 7 officers and 400 men at the commencement of hostilities! Had the subject ever been considered in St. Petersburg? This number was all that were available for the defensive works on miles of field and semi-permanent positions, on many permanent forts and intermediate works, and for the construction and repair of all defence buildings. It must be remembered that under the Engineer officers trained technical foremen are required, and that these have to be paid according to their skill. Stössel regarded the more expensive article as unnecessary, and thought it sufficient to employ the ordinary sappers from the company as foremen. The proper employment of these technical troops seems also scarcely to have been grasped. As a rule, for defence works the sappers, both officers and men, do little unskilled manual labour themselves; they organize, supervise, and direct the unskilled labour of the troops or of hired civilians. The extent to which the capabilities and powers of sappers was understood by some of the staff in Arthur is illustrated by the following incident: When the enemy were on the eve of their assaults on Kinchou the Officer Commanding the Sapper Company got a telegram on May 24 from Arthur: '_To Colonel Jerebtsoff._ 'General Stössel directs me to request you immediately to arrange for the blowing up of the southern wall of the town of Kinchou. It should be carried out at once. 'Kondratenko.' The next morning Jerebtsoff went with his subaltern to inspect this wall. Kinchou was situated in front of the left flank of the position of that name. Like the majority of Chinese towns, it was surrounded with a loopholed stone wall, like a tower of mediæval times. Upon inspection this wall proved to be a solid erection of stone laid in mortar, 19 feet high, 21 feet thick at the bottom, and 19 feet thick at the top. This was what Stössel wanted blown up 'immediately.' To demolish it meant blowing up some 1,435,000 cubic feet of stone masonry! When Colonel Jerebtsoff went into Arthur to report the impossibility of demolishing this wall _at once_, he was told: 'We will give you as many men from the 5th East Siberian Rifle Regiment as you like.'