Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast.

Episode 169, The Mailstrom, Part 7.

Okay, so last week we put a final nail in the coffin of the Port Arthur campaign.

But that whole mess took months longer than it was supposed to, and it didn't even end until

the start of 1905.

So what was happening in the other

theaters of war in the interim? Well, we left off with a Japanese advance on the city of Liao Yang.

And by the way, since it's come up in a few emails, yes, I did skip a couple of battles in the lead

up to Liao Yang, but honestly they all

unfold in pretty much the same basic way.

The Japanese move towards the city, the Russians fight a delaying action, and then they retreat.

It's the oldest strategy in the Russian playbook, trade physical space for more time.

After all, it's only a matter of time before the Russians

assemble an overwhelming force, and if there's one thing Russia has plenty of, it's space.

Now, in late August, 1904, Alexei Kropotkin was preparing to defend the city of Liaoyang

to the south of the vital strategic

center of Mukden. Not that Kuropatkin thought this was a particularly good idea. He was under

orders from the civilian viceroy of the Far East, Yevgeny Alexiev to fight a pitched battle,

and was simply doing what he had been told to do.

However, as we discussed two weeks ago,

Kropotkin chose to make a stand at Liaoyang because it was expendable.

He was not planning to launch an all-or-nothing attack,

...