The battlefield of Port Arthur did not have a scent; it had a taste. It was a vile, coppery flavor that coated the back of the throat—a miasma of churned earth, cordite, iron, and the sweet, cloying decay of unburied men. The sound was a constant, rolling thunder, a physical pressure on the eardrums. It was the deep, earth-shaking thump of the Russian coastal guns, the frantic, high-pitched hammering of Maxim machine guns, and the shriek of incoming artillery shells, a sound that tore the sky into ragged strips.
Admiral Meng Tian stood in a forward observation post, a sandbagged bunker dug into the crest of a hill several miles from the main Russian fortifications. This was the headquarters of the Japanese Third Army, a place of frenetic, desperate energy. He stood with his fifty chosen officers, the survivors of the Siberian campaign, the men he called his White Foxes. They stood in a neat, disciplined rank behind him, their grey Qing uniforms immaculate, their faces impassive. They were a small island of calm, professional order in an ocean of fanatical chaos. The Japanese soldiers who scurried past them in the trenches, their faces smeared with grime and a feverish light in their eyes, looked at the Chinese observers with a mixture of curiosity and thinly veiled contempt. They were guests at this festival of death, outsiders, an irrelevance.
At Meng Tian's side, a constant, menacing shadow, stood Colonel Jiao. His face was a mask of zealous serenity. He seemed to draw strength from the carnage, to inhale the scent of slaughter like a fine perfume. He was not observing a battle; he was attending a sermon on the glory of sacrifice, and he was there to ensure Meng Tian took meticulous notes.
A Japanese liaison officer, a captain with a weary, hollowed-out look in his eyes, approached and bowed stiffly. "The General will see you now," he said, his Mandarin functional but devoid of warmth.
Meng Tian was led through a maze of trenches to the heart of the command bunker. General Nogi Maresuke sat on a simple wooden crate, studying a map spread across an ammunition box. He was an old man, his face a web of deep lines, his posture ramrod straight with the unbending discipline of the samurai class. In another era, he would have been a revered patriarch, a poet, a master of the tea ceremony. In this one, he was a butcher, tasked with sharpening the Japanese spirit on the whetstone of Russian steel. The recent death of his own son in one of the early, futile assaults hung over him like a shroud, a private grief he was determined to transmute into a public victory, no matter the cost.
He rose as Meng Tian entered, offering a formal, correct bow. "Admiral Meng," he said, his voice a dry rustle of leaves. "We are honored by your presence. It is… instructive… for our allies in the Qing Empire to witness the spirit of the Japanese soldier."
Meng Tian returned the bow, the movement sending a sharp, grinding protest from his injured leg. "General Nogi. The honor is mine. His Majesty, the Emperor, follows the progress of your glorious campaign with great interest. He wishes to learn from your mastery of modern siege warfare."
It was the required diplomatic dance, a meaningless exchange of pleasantries before the true, grim business.
"I have studied the topography of your assault," Meng Tian began, shifting the conversation to the solid, familiar ground of strategy. He gestured towards the map. "My humble assessment, offered only as an academic curiosity, suggests the Russian defenses are too strong for direct frontal assaults. Their interlocking fields of fire from the outer forts are… formidable."
He was being exceptionally careful, couching his advice in the most deferential terms possible. "Perhaps a more patient approach? Extensive sapping and trenching to bring your men close under the cover of the earth itself? It is slow, inglorious work, but it would neutralize the effectiveness of their machine guns."
Nogi listened, his head tilted slightly, a thin, almost pitying smile on his lips. He let the silence hang for a moment before he spoke.
"Your Chinese strategies are famously clever, Admiral Meng. The works of Sun Tzu are studied even in our academies. Deception. Patience. The indirect approach." He tapped the map, not on a trench line, but on the symbol for the main Russian fort. "But this is not a contest of cleverness. This is a battle of will. A crucible of the spirit. The Russian soldier is a peasant, a conscript. He fights because he is ordered to. The Japanese soldier," his eyes shone with a dangerous, fervent light, "fights for the honor of his Emperor. His spirit—his Yamato-damashii—is a blade of tempered steel. We will not sneak past their fortress like rats in a ditch. We will break down their gates with the force of our spirit."
Meng Tian felt a cold knot of despair tighten in his gut. It was exactly as he had feared. Nogi was not a general; he was a high priest, and this siege was his holy war.
He tried one last time. "And the high ground, General? That position there," he pointed to the unassuming hill marked '203'. "Its summit offers a clear line of sight into the harbor. Control that, and you control the Russian fleet."
"All the hills will fall in time," Nogi said dismissively, his patience clearly wearing thin. "Once their spirit is broken." The audience was over.
As Meng Tian emerged from the bunker back into the thundering daylight, Colonel Jiao fell into step beside him. He did not look at Meng Tian, but stared out at the blasted landscape, a beatific smile on his face.
"You see, General?" Jiao murmured, his voice dripping with sanctimonious satisfaction. "Your precious, life-saving tactics are meaningless here. These men understand true loyalty. They are willing to die for their Emperor without question. This is a lesson you have yet to fully embrace. The Son of Heaven sent you here to learn, and General Nogi is a most willing teacher."
Jiao's words were a deliberate torment, twisting the knife of Meng Tian's compromised honor. He was trapped. Ordered to advise a man who would not listen. Ordered to orchestrate a victory that could only be achieved through the very methods he found most repellent.
As if summoned by Jiao's pronouncement, a series of signal flags went up along the Japanese lines. Whistles blew, a shrill, piercing sound that cut through the deeper roar of the guns. A new assault was beginning.
Meng Tian raised the high-powered German binoculars to his eyes, the cool metal a stark contrast to his clammy skin. He focused them on the Japanese trenches. He saw thousands of soldiers, bayonets fixed, rising as one. An officer, waving a sword and his mouth open in a silent scream, led them over the top.
The world dissolved into a series of horrific, clinically observed details. He watched the first wave of men run, not in tactical squads, but in a dense, human wave, a perfect target. He saw the Russian machine guns open up, invisible scythes that cut down entire rows of men in a single, sweeping pass. He saw bodies jerk and fly apart, saw the neat lines of soldiers dissolve into a writhing, chaotic scramble of the dying and the wounded.
His mind, his Battle Sense, screamed at him. It was a curse, an agony of unwanted clarity. He saw the precise Russian gun emplacement on the flank that had the best field of fire, the one that needed to be suppressed by mortar fire before any advance could succeed. He saw the natural ravine the Japanese could have used for a covered approach, an opportunity completely ignored. He saw the moment the charge lost its momentum, the moment it faltered from a military assault into a simple, unadulterated massacre.
A young Japanese officer standing near the observation post, his face alight with patriotic fervor, unsheathed his own sword and screamed, "Banzai! Tenno Heika Banzai!"
Meng Tian did not flinch. He continued to watch through his binoculars, forcing himself to absorb every detail of the slaughter. He was a master surgeon forced to watch a butcher hack at a patient, all while being ordered to compliment the butcher's enthusiasm. The dull, grinding pain in his leg flared, a hot, angry nerve that seemed physically connected to the torment in his soul. This was his true mission. Not to advise, not to learn. But to bear witness. To be the Emperor's eyes at a human sacrifice he was now complicit in.
He slowly lowered the binoculars. His knuckles were bone-white where he gripped the head of his cane. His face was a mask of stone, unreadable, betraying nothing. But his eyes, reflecting the distant, futile carnage, were the eyes of a man trapped in his own personal, meticulously engineered hell.
To be the first to know about future sequels and new projects, google my official author blog: Waystar Novels.