Across the Yalu to Port Arthur

A pontoon bridge carried Japanese troops across the Yalu and moved the war unmistakably onto Chinese territory. After overcoming forward positions, the First Army Corps divided its advance through Manchuria and toward the Liaodong Peninsula. Japan also landed a Second Army Corps from the sea and used it to besiege Port Arthur. The combination of river crossing, inland advance, and amphibious landing stretched Chinese defenses across separate axes. Port Arthur and the peninsula preview the same strategic geography that would dominate the Russo-Japanese War a decade later.