The Chinese wall, which played such an important part in the defence, merits some description. Along the line of old Chinese batteries, from A up to Tumulus Battery, the Chinese had built a continuous mud wall--a dense mass of clay revetted with stone--14 feet thick at bottom, and 2 to 4 feet thick at top. It was 10-1/2 feet high, and had a banquette all along the inner side; the outer had a slope of about 45°. Where the roads from the town passed through it had traversed openings and gun emplacements. There were three such openings on the eastern front--at A Battery, Wolf's Battery, and in the ravine between Fort Erh-lung-shan and Fortification No. 3. Before the war no one dreamed of this wall being of use, and not only was it not kept in repair, but in places stones and earth were taken from it. It eventually proved most valuable; it is doubtful if we could without it have managed to repulse so successfully some of the assaults. When the eastern front was manned, General Smirnoff had the wall repaired and loopholed; splinter proofs and barbettes for the guns were built, and small guns for repulsing attacks were mounted. It was frequently hammered by the enemy's guns, even by their 11-inch howitzers, but little real damage was done to it, and to the end the enemy could not drive us back from it or breach it beyond repair. Only a small portion of it near Fort Erh-lung-shan was abandoned just before the capitulation, and this was done by General Fock's order, but was not really necessary. The following tables bear witness to the state of the Fortress on the outbreak of hostilities: Table I. _Showing the Authorized Armament as laid down by the Committee in 1900, and the Guns actually in the Fortress on January 14, 1904._ -------------------------------+---------------------- | Number. Nature of Guns. +------------+--------- | Authorized.| Actuals. -------------------------------+------------+--------- 10-inch of 1877 | 10 | 5 9-inch of 1877 | 12 | 12 6-inch quick-firing Canet | 20 | 20 6-inch of 1877 (of 68 cwt.) | 37 | 30 6-inch of 1877 (of 43 cwt.) | 38 | 18 42-line | 28 | 24 Heavy guns of 1877 | 12 | 12 Light field | 233 | 146 57-millimetre coast | 24 | 28 57-millimetre caponier | 84 | 14 11-inch howitzers of 1877 | 10 | 10 9-inch howitzers of 1877 | 32 | 32 6-inch field-howitzers | 26 | 24 3-line machine-guns | 48 | 38 -------------------------------+------------+--------- Total | 614 | 413[52] -------------------------------+------------+--------- Table II. _Showing Allotment of Guns on Works on January 14, 1904._