The plains before the hills of Isahaya were a sea of disciplined, moving men. Twenty thousand soldiers of the Qing Second Army advanced across the open ground, a spectacle of power designed to be seen. Their regimental banners, emblazoned with golden dragons, snapped in the breeze. The rhythmic, thunderous beat of war drums echoed across the valley, a sound that was both a promise and a threat. It was the very picture of a traditional, confident army on the march.
From his sandbagged command post on the highest hill, Japanese General Nogi Marasuke watched the enemy's approach through his telescope. He was a veteran of Japan's own civil wars, a man of stoic disposition and immense personal bravery. He saw the approaching horde and felt a grim sense of satisfaction.
"They are arrogant," he said to his subordinate, a young, eager colonel. "They march as if they have already won. They have learned nothing from the disaster that befell their first army."
"They are stopping, General," the colonel noted, pointing. "Look. They are making camp, still more than two miles away. Well out of rifle range."
General Nogi frowned, lowering his binoculars. This was unexpected. "Stopping? Why are they stopping? Are they cowards? Do they mean to besiege us?" He felt a prickle of unease. This was not the reckless charge he had anticipated. "No… this is different. This feels… patient. Professional. Double the sentries. Tell every man to be ready."
The battle began not with a clash of infantry, but with the roar of cannons. The Qing army, having halted its advance, began to systematically unpack and position its artillery. Dozens upon dozens of new Krupp field guns were arranged in long, neat lines, a testament to the industrial might their Emperor was now wielding. The subsequent bombardment was not a haphazard shelling; it was a symphony of destruction.
On the Qing side, an artillery officer stood on a high wooden tower, a telegraph wire running from his position to the gun batteries. High above, a large silk kite, an observation platform for a man with a telescope, relayed coordinates.
"Target their forward command bunkers! Coordinates grid seven-niner-four!" the officer shouted into the telegraph key. "We are not just suppressing them! We are dismantling them piece by piece! I want their officers dead and their guns silenced before our infantry takes a single step!"
In the Japanese trenches, the world became a living hell. The earth shook with the constant, percussive impact of high-explosive shells. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of cordite. Men huddled in their trenches, their knuckles white, as the fortifications they had spent weeks digging were systematically blown apart around them. But their morale, forged in the new fire of their Emperor's holy war decree, did not break. To steady their nerves, they began to sing. First one man, then a dozen, then a hundred. Soon, the defiant, somber strains of the Kimigayo, their national anthem, rose from the trenches, a thin thread of human spirit against the overwhelming storm of steel.
For hours, the one-sided artillery duel continued. The Qing were patient, content to grind down the enemy's defenses from a safe distance. For the Japanese soldiers in the trenches, it was maddening. They were warriors, ready to die for their Emperor, but they were being denied a warrior's death. They were being killed by an invisible enemy they couldn't even see.
In one of the forward trenches, a Japanese colonel named Hori, a man known for his fiery temperament, could bear it no longer. His position had been hit three times, his men were being killed without ever firing a shot, and his samurai pride was screaming in protest. Without consulting General Nogi, he made a fateful decision.
He leaped onto the parapet of the trench, his sword drawn. "We cannot die like rats in a hole!" he roared, his voice filled with furious passion. "The spirit of Yamato is not to cower in the dirt! It is to charge into the face of death! We will show them the steel of a true Japanese soldier! For the Emperor! BANZAI!"
A wave of fanatical fervor swept through his men. They had been waiting for this. They craved it. A thousand soldiers, caught up in the madness of the moment, fixed their bayonets, scrambled out of their trenches, and launched a massive, suicidal charge across the open, shell-pocked ground toward the distant Qing lines.
On the Qing side, General Song Qing watched the charge begin through his binoculars, his face impassive. This was exactly what the Emperor had predicted. The Japanese commander's desire for a glorious battle would override his tactical sense.
"Hold your fire…" General Song commanded his front-line officers. "Hold…"
The Qing soldiers, lying prone in the shallow foxholes they had dug, watched the wave of screaming Japanese soldiers get closer. They could see the wild, fanatical light in their eyes. The memory of Pyongyang, of the panicked rout, was fresh in their minds. But this time, there was no panic. There was only the cold, disciplined patience their Emperor had beaten into them.
The Japanese charge crossed the five-hundred-yard mark, then four hundred. The Qing lines remained silent.
"Hold…" General Song whispered.
They reached the three-hundred-yard mark, the point of no return, the range at which their repeating rifles would be most devastatingly effective.
"NOW!" General Song roared. "FIRE AT WILL!"
The entire Qing line, twenty thousand rifles and a hundred heavy machine guns, erupted in a single, continuous, deafening roar. It was not a series of volleys; it was a solid wall of lead that tore across the field.
The result was a slaughter of almost unimaginable proportions. The front ranks of the charging Japanese simply ceased to exist, mown down like grass before a scythe. Men were ripped apart, their bodies thrown backward by the sheer kinetic force of hundreds of bullets striking them at once. The Banzai charge, so full of spirit and courage, dissolved into a chaotic, bloody mess. The soldiers in the rear faltered, seeing the wall of death before them, but were pushed forward by the momentum of the men behind them, only to fall themselves.
A young Qing soldier from Hunan, the same one who had once feared dying of boredom, found himself in a strange, cold trance. He fired his Hanyang rifle until the barrel grew hot to the touch, his hands working the bolt action with a smooth, mechanical rhythm born of endless repetition. He did not see brave enemy soldiers charging with swords. He saw only upright targets that needed to be put down. He saw a wave of death that he had to stop before it reached him. The terror he had felt after the ambush at Pyongyang had been replaced by the cold, focused precision of a trained killer. He fired, worked the bolt, aimed, and fired again, his world shrinking to the front sight of his rifle and the falling shapes in the distance.
The charge lasted less than ten minutes. In the end, not a single Japanese soldier had made it within a hundred yards of the Qing lines. The field before them was a carpet of the dead and dying.
In his command post, General Nogi, who had watched the entire disaster unfold, was shaking with a cold rage. He was furious at his subordinate, Colonel Hori—whose body now lay somewhere on that field—for his foolish, unsanctioned charge. But he was also filled with a new, grudging respect for the enemy. They were not the arrogant fools of Pyongyang. They were disciplined. They were patient. And they were utterly ruthless.
He restored order to his shaken lines. The battle settled into a brutal, grinding stalemate. The Japanese were trapped in their trenches, unable to advance against the wall of fire. The Qing army sat patiently, content to let their artillery continue its methodical work of destruction.
General Song's anvil had done its job perfectly. It had engaged the main Japanese force, absorbed their fanatical charge, and pinned them in place, all while inflicting horrific, one-sided casualties. Now, all they had to do was wait for the sound of the hammer falling from the south.