Having inspected the line of forts, batteries, and earthworks on the landward, and part of those on the seaward side, General Smirnoff was horrified at what he found. The heavy semi-permanent works which it was proposed to construct in order to complete the girdle of fortifications as laid down by Imperial order, were either not begun or in a very embryonic condition; and it was the same with the laying of the armoured concrete for casemated buildings--work which required time. Scarcely anything was being done to the intermediate field-works. There, where menacing works sprang up afterwards within five months, were now naked rocks. Military roads had alone been made--many of them by the Chinese. The sites for Little and Big Eagle's Nests, Zaredoubt, Zaliterny, Tumulus, Cemetery Batteries, Obelisk Hill, and Fort No. 6, were then rock as bare as my hand; they had not been even traced out on the ground. The strengthening of Fort No. 5 had not been commenced. On the greater number of old fortifications to be strengthened, but which were not yet completed, guns had not even been mounted, or had been so badly mounted that the work would have to be done over again. Of a third line of defence no one had even thought. It was the same with 203 Metre Hill, Divisional Hill, Long Hill, Flat Hill, Angle Hill, Ta-ku-shan and Sia-gu-shan Hills, etc. In a word, a picture of absolute unpreparedness was unfolded before the new Commandant. This was alarmingly increased by the fact that the different advanced works were very badly sited, and badly designed for their sites at that. He decided to depart considerably from the proposed plan of the polygon of defences, and found it necessary to move several of the works forward, and to strengthen the above-mentioned hills, well knowing that once the Japanese got possession of Kinchou and a strict blockade commenced on land, the Fortress could not long hold out in the state in which he found it. With his arrival all the best men, headed by the late General Kondratenko, joined hands, and the work proceeded apace. Though the gangs of Chinamen employed on the earthworks day and night were large, they were not large enough, and a dearth of labour was at once felt. The Chinese would not agree to work for the fairly high wage offered to them, and began gradually to slink away to Chifu. The Japanese spread proclamations among them, of which the following--a typical one--was published: 'Port Arthur will soon be cut off, and then captured. No Chinaman who has in any way assisted the Russians to defend the place will be given quarter.' All the labour of fortifying and arming the Fortress fell upon the 7th East Siberian Rifle Division, under General Kondratenko, and upon the reserve battalions. The work done by these simple, rough Russians was the work of Titans, and only those who watched them delving, shoving, and hauling on the slopes of those rocky hills for months can appreciate what the labour was.