Furthermore, General Zasulich did not hold the Japanese in a very high regard. However, this force was spread out piecemeal over a 170-mile front, whereas the Japanese Army could concentrate its efforts on any single point of its choosing. On 22 April 1904, Kuropatkin dispatched the "Eastern Detachment" under the command of Lieutenant-General Mikhail Zasulich with 16,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry and some 62 artillery pieces to fight a static delaying action at the north bank of the river. He also had received strict orders not to hinder the Japanese progress through Korea from Viceroy Yevgeni Alekseyev, but to hold the line at the Yalu River to prevent the Japanese from crossing into Manchuria.
He estimated that it would take at least 6 months to build his forces up to suitable levels. Short of ammunition and shocked by the experience of modern naval warfare, the Japanese allowed Admiral Ting to escape with his surviving vessels to the fortified harbor of Weihaiwei.The strategy of the Russian commander in the Far East, General Alexei Kuropatkin was to conduct stalling action, while waiting for enough reinforcements to be brought up to the front via the single-track Trans-Siberian Railway to take the offensive. The Japanese flagship, Matsushima, was badly damaged when an onboard ammunition store exploded, but by nightfall the Chinese had lost five ships. The Chinese had failed to grasp the need for anti-fire precautions, and the flammable paint on their ships ignited too easily. The Japanese gunners had superior training, their munitions were of better quality, and their ships were handled with confidence and aggression. It was one of the first naval engagements between such modern ships.Ĭombatants were stunned by the sheer violence of the gunfire as explosive shells rained down. The rival warships, of roughly equal strength on paper, steamed into battle. The Chinese northern fleet, commanded by Admiral Ting Juchang, was defending the troop landings.
_B20102-52.jpg "battle of the yalu river")
On 17 September, a Japanese naval force-under Admiral Sukeyuki Ito-attempted to intercept Chinese troopships heading into the river mouth. The Koreans had the better of the land fighting, which moved up to the China-Korea border at the Yalu River. In 1894, both China and Japan sent troops into Korea.
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