The Battle of Liao Yang (25 August – 3 September 1904) was the first major land battle of the war, on the outskirts of the city of Liao Yang. The city was of great strategic importance as the major Russian military centre for southern Manchuria, and a major population centre on the main line on the Russian South Manchurian Railway connecting Port Arthur with Mukden. The city was fortified by the Imperial Russian Army with three lines of fortifications.
Despite General Oku Yasukata’s goal of encircling and annihilating the Russian forces in Manchuria at Liao Yang, Kuropatkin was able to retreat in good order as the exhausted Japanese were unable to pursue. On 7 September, General Aleksey Kuropatkin informed St Petersburg that he had won a great victory over the Japanese by avoiding encirclement and inflicting great losses. However, Russian War Minister Viktor Sakharov ridiculed the report.