The was one of the major land battles of the Russo-Japanese War. While the Japanese Army settled down in front of Port Arthur for a siege, a large force under Field Marshal Oyama moved north to secure the strategically located rail junction of Liaoyang, on the Mukden–Port Arthur spur of the China Far East Railway, in Manchuria. The battle began on 25 August 1904, with the 158,000 strong Russian armies, attempting to turn the flanks of the Japanese First, Second and Third Armies totaling 125,000 men.