We ended the previous article with a description of the shelling of Japanese positions by Novik and other Russian ships on June 22, and the next exit of the Novik to the sea took place on June 26, 1904.
Interestingly, earlier we expressed the idea that if V. K. Witgeft would have shown a certain determination and supported the actions of the light forces with heavy, relatively fast ships (Peresvet and Pobeda) and acted aggressively, then he could have achieved considerable success by sinking several Japanese warships. And so, on June 26, the Russian commander still risked putting out to sea a much stronger detachment than before.
In all previous cases, only gunboats and destroyers supported by Novik were sent to shell the Japanese positions - in some cases, armored cruisers were sent to the outer roadstead to cover them, but that was all. At the same time, every time "Novik" met with superior enemy forces, which, naturally, forced the Russian ships to be careful and retreat during active operations of the Japanese cruisers.
This time, battleship Poltava, cruisers Bayan, Pallada, Diana and Novik, gunboats Otvazhny and Thundering, as well as 11 destroyers were sent to shell the Japanese positions.
This detachment concentrated on the outer roadstead at 08.10 am, at 08.25 a trawling caravan "organized", and at about the same time, 08.25-08.30 (on different ships they indicated differently) the Japanese were sighted. On "Askold" they were identified as 4 cruisers and 8 destroyers, and on "Diana" - as cruisers "Suma", "Matsushima", advice note "Chihaya" and 10 destroyers, of which 4 were small. According to our official historiography, there were 8 destroyers and, in addition to the Chikhaya and Suma, there were two Itsukushima-class cruisers and two gunboats, and they were sighted as early as 08.05. In fact, the Japanese had the cruisers Itsukushima, Hasidate, Suma, Akuitsusma, as well as the 1st fighter squadron and the 16th destroyer squadron. They were later joined by additional forces.
According to the report of the commander of "Askold", his cruiser fired two six-inch shots at the destroyers approaching the trawling caravan, after which they withdrew to the sea. At this time, the Russian detachment, in addition to the destroyers and the caravan, remained at anchor: the detachment commander, Reitenstein, gathered the ship commanders and senior navigators on the Bayan, and Lieutenant Fedorov, a representative of the ground forces, was also present there. All commanders were shown on the maps the positions at which it was necessary to shoot, and were given other necessary orders and explanations. At this time, the Japanese destroyers again tried to approach, but Vlastny, Fearless, Grozovoy and Boyky opened fire on them and approached them. In addition, the Bayan cruiser fired two shots from the 203-mm cannons. The distance was about 55 cables, the shells lay close to the enemy ships, and they retreated.
Four of our destroyers continued their pursuit, and at 09.30 entered Tahe Bay, continuing to fire with Japanese destroyers, but then, failing to achieve success and seeing the numerical superiority of the enemy, returned to the main Russian forces, stopping a mile from them.
At 09.40 the detachment went to Tahe Bay: a trawl caravan consisting of 6 scows and 2 steamers under the cover of 6 destroyers, followed by all four cruisers and a battleship, and gunboats were located to the left of Bayan. At 10.25 "Poltava" and the cruisers anchored in the Tahe Bay in a trawl caravan, the destroyers and gunboats went on to Luvantan.
At 10.50 "Bayan" fired a single 203-mm on the coast, then on the horizon appeared smoke, indicating that the Japanese were approaching reinforcements, these were the cruisers "Kasagi" and "Izumi".
Unfortunately, the further description of the events of June 26 is very unclear and leaves many questions. Yes, they did, but in most cases it is unclear who and on what ships.
At 11.40 gunboats opened fire on the shore. After 5 minutes, 4 Japanese fighters tried to fire at the ships of the trawling caravan, but were met with torpedo boats and gunboat fire, and retreated, but immediately returned, resuming the firefight, however, apparently not for long, and again withdrew. The Japanese do not report any hits, but according to their official history, two crew members were injured on the Asami destroyer.
Noteworthy is the inaccuracy of the Japanese description - the fact is that, according to their officialdom, the Russians were attacked by the 1st squadron of fighters, but the fact is that no Asami was part of it, and indeed, a destroyer with that name in Japanese the fleet was not registered. Perhaps, of course, we are talking about translation errors, and the destroyer was actually called somehow differently - but it is interesting that the wounded are not mentioned in the "Surgical Description" either, at least the author of this article was unable to find an appropriate combat episode.
At 12.05 pm, 4 Japanese cruisers "Itsukushima", "Hasidate", "Akashi" and "Akitsushima" approached our ships and opened fire on our destroyers, but they were still too far away, and their shells fell short. Whether our cruisers answered them is unclear, but the destroyers, obviously, could not answer for the range of the distance, but soon the Japanese cruisers ceased their fire.
At 12.30 "Bayan", still in the Tahe Bay, opened fire on coastal targets, and the Japanese cruisers at that time again tried to approach and at 1.35 resumed fire on the destroyers. Apparently, the Japanese again did not dare to approach our ships at a distance of actual fire, and retreated at 12.45, stopping firing at 13.00. At the same time, the Russian ships made a rearrangement - "Bayan", "Pallada" and "Diana" went to the Luvantan Bay, where there were gunboats and destroyers. At the same time, "Poltava" took the place of "Bayan", because it was easier to support our ships with fire from it.
At 13.25, when the Russian ships were moving to their new positions, Itsukushima and Hasidate again approached and tried to fire at the Bayan cruiser, opening fire at 13.30. The Bayan responded with 203-mm and 152-mm guns, and the Japanese cruisers immediately withdrew, so that at 13.45 the firefight between them ceased. At the same time, the 152-mm gun on the gunboat Thundering failed, and the ship received permission to return to Port Arthur.
The cruisers opened fire at about 14.00, and stopped it at 14.15, while their fire was corrected from an observation ground post on Lunwantan. In general, this shooting was more successful than the previous ones, it was noted that the shells fell very well. At 14.30 the Russian detachment went back to Port Arthur, and at 15.00 they went to the outer roadstead, from where they went to the inner one until 18.00. This was the end of the case on June 26.
What can you say about this combat episode? As you can see, V. K. Vitgeft finally ventured to take the battleship out to sea and … nothing terrible happened. All ships returned home safe and sound.
Alas, V. K. Witgeft has once again demonstrated the extreme limitations of tactical thinking. Several times he sent weak detachments to shell the coast, which, with luck, the Japanese could intercept and destroy, if not completely, then at least partially - we are, of course, talking about low-speed gunboats. At the same time, it was clear that the Japanese had no modern battleships near Port Arthur, that old cruisers and the very prehistoric Chin-Yen were in service. Here, an operation to destroy these forces simply suggested itself, but … The Russian commander could not even think about giving battle to the Japanese ships, instead of trying to attack them, he limited himself exclusively to shelling the coast. Actions against Japanese ships were allowed only in terms of providing artillery support to the ground forces: in other words, it was only allowed to drive off the Japanese naval forces, preventing them from disrupting the shelling of coastal positions. As a result, N. K. Reitenstein received one of the slowest battleships of the squadron, which, although it had ample weapons to drive off the same Chin-Yen or the Japanese armored cruiser, could not pursue them. But his cruisers were just firing back from the Japanese when they attacked: it is a shame to read about the dashing cavalry swoops of the completely outdated Itsukushima and Hasidate, which at that time could hardly develop at least 16.5 knots on a first-class armored cruiser " Bayan ", and even being" in the company "of" goddesses "and" Novik ".
Even without the support of the battleship, a somewhat decisive action by the cruising detachment alone would almost certainly have led to the fact that both of the aforementioned Japanese "pensioners" found their own grave near Longwantan. Alas, history does not know the subjunctive mood …
"Novik" in this exit did not show itself in any way, it is not even clear whether he fired at least one shot at ground positions or Japanese ships.
More in June, "Novik" did not go out to sea, and the combat activities of the Russian squadron were mainly limited to nightly repelling destroyer attacks. Nevertheless, there was one case in which the cruiser should have been involved: we are talking about a destroyer ambush on the night of June 30. Its essence was that a pair of Russian destroyers would attack the Japanese forces and, having engaged them in a firefight, would carry them along in pursuit to Tahe Bay, and there another 9 destroyers would be waiting for the enemy. But again V. K. Vitgeft was not ready to allocate sufficient forces for this ambush to succeed and did not risk supporting the actions of the destroyers with cruisers. As a result, when 14 Japanese destroyers and a cruiser chased after "Resolute" and "Grozov", which served as bait, the "ambush regiment" had to retreat to Port Arthur, as its forces were completely insufficient to fight such an enemy.
Of course, it's a pity that V. K. Vitgeft did not at all seek to inflict defeat on the Japanese ships, but, at least, the tasks of shelling the coast as a whole were carried out, adjusted for the inexperience of the sailors to "work" in closed, not in line of sight positions. Alas, even this cannot be said about the next exit of "Novik", which took place on July 1, 1904. On that day, Novik, gunboat Bobr and 4 destroyers went to Tahe Bay. But in the sea nearby were "Matsushima" and "Hasidate", as a result of which the Russian ships could not take an advantageous position for shelling near Luwantan and were forced to shoot from afar. And when the request of General Smirnov to fire on the Japanese positions on Mount Huinsan was transmitted from the semaphore station, the cruiser commander was forced to answer that he could not do this, since the range was too great. For the "shelling" on July 1, "Novik" used up only 13 120-mm shells, "Beaver" - a little more, 11 * 229-mm and 26 * 152-mm shells. But in general, we can say that V. K. Vitgefta to act actively against the ships of the enemy, brought the matter to the most complete absurdity. A pair of Japanese "Matsushim" does not allow the most powerful squadron to provide effective support to the troops literally a stone's throw from Port Arthur!
On July 5, to protect the trawling caravan operating in the outer roadstead, Novik, the gunboat Thundering and three destroyers sailed out - there were no incidents.
On July 9, an event occurred that very well characterizes the caution of the commander of the Russian squadron. VC. Vitgeft decided to repeat the destroyer ambush in Tahe Bay, by analogy with the one that was carried out on the night of 30 June. This time, 13 destroyers were involved, but, despite the previous experience, which indicated that the Japanese would use a cruiser for the pursuit, our ships of the same class did not go out to sea again. The result turned out to be quite predictable - the ambush again failed, since the Japanese detachment, in addition to 13 destroyers, also had a small cruiser. So, V. K. Did Vitgeft decide to use a cruiser for the next ambush? Not at all - on the contrary, having decided that in such sorties the destroyers were exposed to excessive danger, he decided in the future, in such sorties, to use only mine boats …
And, as if overhearing the thoughts of the Russian commander, the Japanese used mine boats, successfully attacking three Russian destroyers on duty in Tahe Bay on the night of July 11. "Lieutenant Burakov" and "Boevoy" were blown up, while "Boevoy" was brought to Port Arthur - "Novik" took part in the "rescue operation" together with the 2nd detachment of destroyers.
On the morning of July 13, the Japanese launched a decisive offensive on the land front, and at 10.30 am V. K. Vitgeft received a telegram from A. M. Stoessel: “The enemy of 58 guns along the entire front opened the bombardment of our positions from 06.30. His ships are shelling Luwantan, and the enemy ships are also facing Xuancaigou. Please help me."
But by this time V. K. Vitgeft has already decided to support the ground forces with fire: as early as 09.35 gunboat "Otvazhny" under the flag of M. F. Loshchinsky went to the outer roadstead, and at 10.20 a detachment consisting of "Novik", 3 gunboats and 6 destroyers headed to Tahe Bay. "Bayan", "Askold", "Diana" and "Pallada" also received an order to separate pairs and go to Lunwantan, but could not execute it quickly.
At this time, the detachment approached the Tahe Bay - here the Novik and the gunboats were about to enter the bay, and the destroyers went to sweep near Luwantan, freeing up the mine site for firing. There was a rather heavy fog, but not continuous, but, so to speak, "clouds" into which the ships periodically "dived" for 5-10 minutes, and then the visibility improved until the "invasion" of the next "cloud". Large forces of the Japanese were observed at sea - the battleship Chin-Yen, the cruisers Matsushima, Hasidate, and Itsukushima, as well as many destroyers, of which 42 were counted on Russian ships. In one of these clouds of fog, several Japanese destroyers approached the Russian ships, but were driven away by the Novik and Gilyak guns.
At this time, the Japanese cruisers and the battleship marched in wake formation, three steamers were seen next to them. In fact, these were the auxiliary gunboats Uwajima Maru No. 5 and Yoshidagawa Maru, which carried out trawling, and at the indicated time, the Yoshidagawa Maru was in front of the combat detachment.
And then, finally, a significant event happened: "Novik" opened fire on the enemy gunboat and hit! Generally speaking, Russian historiography indicates that there were three hits - one in the "Yoshidagawa Maru" between the rear mast and the pipe, from which he was out of order and could not move independently, which is why he was taken to the tug "Uwajima Maru", which got the second shell between the forecastle and the waterline. The third hit the Yoshidagawa Maru again - now in the stern.
The Japanese in their official history confirm the first hit in the "Yoshidogawa Maru", as a result of which 2 people were killed and 5 were injured. But what is interesting is that their other source, "Surgical and Medical Description of the Naval War between Japan and Russia," gives "slightly" other data: that the trawling was carried out by "Uwajima Maru No. 5", and that it was hit by 2 Russian shells, which were mortally wounded three people, and 2 more people were seriously injured and 6 lightly. Such inconsistencies raise serious doubts about the quality of Japanese sources. Apparently, "Novik" still achieved at least two hits on the Japanese ships, and possibly three.
In total, driving off destroyers and firing at gunboats, "Novik" used up 47 high-explosive and 12 cast-iron 120-mm shells. At 11.45 the detachment anchored in Tahe Bay. At 12.40 the destroyers came to Longwantan and began to sweep, but were fired upon by enemy "classmates", ours answered without stopping their occupation, and not in vain: 3 mines were destroyed, and the exchange of fire ended in vain.
Despite all these preparations, it was impossible to shoot along the shore - the fog was such that even the mountains on the shore were not visible. For some time the Russian detachment remained in place, but at 13.40 M. F. Loshchinsky, seeing that the fog did not dissipate, and a detachment of cruisers, leaving for the outer roadstead, anchored there and did not move, ordered to return to Port Arthur.
Subsequently, however, it became clear, so that a detachment of cruisers again went to Tahe Bay and Lunwantanu and fired at the coast, but Novik did not take part in this, but remained in Tahe Bay, serving as a rehearsal ship, transmitting signals from Port Arthur to cruisers near Longwantan. Accordingly, we will not describe this episode in detail: we will only mention that 5 more cruisers approached the Japanese for support, after which the Russian squad retreated. During the retreat, "Novik" was the end, closest to the Japanese, but did not open fire. The "goddesses" and "Bayan" were firing, and the Russian sailors believed that they had hit 203-mm shells in the stern of the cruiser "Itsukushima", which, however, is not mentioned in the official historiography of the Japanese.
The Russian ships in this battle did not suffer any damage, since the Japanese shells fell undershot, and the cruisers returned to Port Arthur intact. But the Japanese were unlucky - returning after an unsuccessful pursuit of Russian ships, a Chiyoda was blown up by a mine, 7 people were killed and 27 were wounded, and many more were poisoned by gases. The damage turned out to be light enough and the ship was not threatened with death.
On the Russian ships they saw the explosion of a Japanese cruiser on a mine, they also saw that it separated from the squadron and went to Dalny. The commanders asked V. K. Vitgeft to send "Bayan" to him, but … as always, caution prevailed. For the sake of fairness, we note that the leadership of the ground forces assessed the quality of the shelling on July 13 as very high.
The next day, July 14, V. K. Vitgeft again sent a detachment of cruisers to Luwantan and Tahe, without waiting for the requests of our generals. This time, Novik, Bayan, Askold and Pallada, 3 gunboats and 12 torpedo boats, and, oddly enough, Retvizan went to shell the Japanese positions. The large cruisers with the battleship were still "concentrating" on the outer roadstead of Port Arthur, when the Novik and 7 destroyers went to Lunwantan: the destroyers were supposed to sweep the sea, the Novik was to cover them. Almost immediately, enemy destroyers appeared at the bay. Our destroyers with trawls turned back, and the Novik entered the battle at 08.35. Shortly before that, he clarified the position of the Japanese ground forces with a semaphore and now, as has already happened more than once, fired at Japanese positions and destroyers at the same time. Shooting along the coast was corrected by Longwantan station. At 08.45 Novik was supported by gunboats that approached Lunwantan, and then, at 09.10, Retvizan, three cruisers and 5 destroyers entered Tahe Bay.
From that moment on, all ships took part in the shelling of the coastal positions in turn, conducting periodic shelling. The Novik smashed the Japanese ground positions from 08.35 to 09.00, then at 09.35 resumed fire and fired until 09.55, after which it retreated to the western bank of the Tahe, but then fired at Vysokaya Gora and the pass from 12.45 to 13.00.
However, the Japanese ships were already approaching - at 13.10 “Askold” drove off the Japanese destroyers with fire, and at 13.30 the Japanese cruisers appeared. The leader was "Hasidate", his wake - the newest "Nissin" and "Kasuga", and behind them at a considerable distance - the 5th combat unit ("Itsukushima", "Chin-Yen" and "Matsushima"). What happened next is not entirely clear.
At 13.50 the Japanese opened fire, as their official historiography points out, “either from 12,000 or 15,000 meters” (or were they still yards?), That is, from 65 or 80 cables. According to the Bayan commander, the battle began at a distance of 62 cables, but Rear Admiral M. F. Loshchinsky believed that the Japanese fired from 70 or 90 cables. The Russian detachment immediately retreated to Port Arthur, while the lead was "Askold", followed by "Bayan", "Pallada" and "Retvizan", to the right of the "Bayan" were gunboats, but where at that time was "Novik "And destroyers - unknown. At the same time, only the Retvizan from its 305-mm guns could respond to the Japanese. Domestic official historiography claims that Bayan tried to approach the Japanese cruisers within the firing range of its 203-mm guns, but did not succeed, because the Nissin and Kasuga retreated, keeping the Bayan within the range of the 254-mm gun. " Kasugi ", but neither in the report of the cruiser commander, nor in the report of M. F. Loshchinsky does not contain a description of this episode. In any case, the fire contact was short and lasted only 13 minutes - on March 14, the fire was stopped by both sides.
The Japanese believed that they had achieved one hit in the Retvizan and one in the Bayan, but in fact the Russian ships did not suffer damage: enemy shells fell between the cruisers, mainly giving flights. One shell from the Retvizan tore the Nissin's wireless telegraph antenna, and another pierced its top flag.
On July 14, Novik used 6 cast iron, 103 segment and 62 high-explosive, and in total - 171 * 120-mm projectile and 2 * 47-mm projectile.
On the whole, the departure of the detachment leaves a very ambiguous impression. On the one hand, V. K. Vitgeft acted without waiting for the "application" of the ground forces, but led the detachment to the outer raid in advance, in case it was needed. The effectiveness of naval artillery against land targets has improved, and there is no doubt that the fire of the 305-mm Retvizan cannons made a considerable impression on the Japanese. On the other hand, our detachment, despite the presence of a first-class battleship in it, was, in fact, put to flight by the old Chin-Yen and two Japanese armored cruisers. The Russian ships left, despite the fact that at 13.00 they were asked from the shore not to stop shelling the Bolshoi Gora pass.
To some extent, this result is explained by the fact that the battle was fought at distances inconceivable for the Russian fleet, in addition, the only Russian ship that had the technical ability to fight at such a distance, the Retvizan, which was damaged at the very beginning of the war, had no opportunity conduct full-fledged artillery exercises. At the same time, according to official Russian history, it was impossible to get close to the Japanese ships, since there were most likely minefields in this area between them and our detachment.
The problem, again, was the purely defensive mindset of the Russian commander. In essence, in order to cover the Russian detachment carrying out the shelling, the detachment should have been taken out to sea. Our ships moved to Tahe Bay along the coast, where the Japanese threw many mines, but, having moved away from the coast for a long distance, one could not be afraid of mines. At the same time, a detachment of sufficient strength cruising at a certain distance from the coast could always intercept or at least drive away Japanese ships approaching, again, from the sea. However, V. K. Vitgeft, obviously, could not decide on such "decisive" actions.
The exit on July 14 ended with a great loss for the Russian fleet: already entering the inner harbor, "Bayan" was blown up by a mine, which made it out of order until the very end of the war and did not participate in hostilities any more. A squad of cruisers, already not very strong, received a critical weakening. And on the night of July 15, the Russian ground forces were forced to leave their positions and retreat.
Here in the actions of "Novik" a lacuna arose - the fact is that during the last offensive the Japanese approached enough for the heavy guns of the battleships to reach their positions with changeover fire, which was the practice of the squadron. The next time "Novik" went to sea on July 26 and 27 - the day before the attempt of the 1st Pacific Squadron to break through to Vladivostok.
On July 26, "Novik", two gunboats and 15 destroyers went to Tahe Bay, many mines were found along the way, so the "Novik" and the gunboats even had to anchor while waiting for the destroyers with trawls to finish their work. "Beaver", "Novik" and destroyers arrived at Tahe at 09.50, by this time 4 enemy destroyers were seen, keeping in the distance. At 10.20 am on "Novik" they found up to a half-battalion of Japanese infantrymen lying down, and began to shoot at them. It was all the more convenient to adjust the fire because the Japanese were dressed in black uniforms with white gaiters. At first the Japanese remained motionless, but then the Novik's firing forced them to flee and look for shelter in the thickets of corn, on which the Beaver and destroyers, which had approached, concentrated their fire at that time. Interestingly, the Japanese tried to respond from land with artillery battery fire from a closed position, but it did not get hits.
However, at 11.50, the Chin-Yen, Matsushima, Hasidate and Itsukushima appeared with the support of 4 gunboats and 12 destroyers (according to the official history of the Japanese, the 5th combat squadron and the 4th squadron of fighters arrived, that is, not 12, and 8 destroyers), with which "Novik", of course, could not fight. Nevertheless, the Russian ships continued shelling, and went to Port Arthur only at 12.15, when the Japanese detachment approached approximately 7-7.5 miles. The battle with Japanese ships was avoided, and the detachment returned to the outer raid without incident, while the Novik used 69 high-explosive, 54 segment and 35 cast-iron shells during shelling of Japanese positions, and in total - 158 * 120-mm shells and 39 * 47-mm shells.
On the morning of the next day, July 27, a detachment consisting of the cruiser Novik, 4 gunboats and 7 destroyers, 6 of which made up a trawling caravan, set out for Tahe Bay. On the way to Tahe, they dumped 3 mines. At 07.40, the detachment, having arrived in Tahe Bay, opened fire at the designated places, but at 08.50, superior Japanese forces appeared again as part of the 5th combat detachment and the 1st fighter squadron. The Russian ships were again forced to retreat to Port Arthur, but this time they could not leave without a fight. Oddly enough, the artillery battle did not turn out in favor of the Japanese.
Unfortunately, we do not have a detailed description of the shootout: neither the Japanese in their official history, nor the report of M. F. Loshchinsky, but the commander of "Novik" M. F. von Schultz, obviously, had no time for reports - immediately upon returning to Port Arthur, he went to a meeting of the commanders of the cruiser detachment and then prepared the cruiser for a breakthrough on July 28. Nevertheless, it is known that the Russian ships did not receive any damage in this battle. At the same time, the Japanese source "Surgical and medical description of the naval war between Japan and Russia" reports that during this battle, Itsukushima lost 14 people killed, including a doctor and 13 non-commissioned officers and sailors, in addition, wounded there were 17 people.
During the shelling of the coast and the subsequent battle with Japanese ships, gunboats "Brave" and "Thundering" together used up 14 * 229-mm shells, but, most likely, they were all shot along the coast, and it is also extremely doubtful that the gunboats could shoot from these guns on the retreat - for ships of this type, the 229-mm artillery system was located in the bow and had small firing angles.
Thus, it is most likely that Itsukushima received several hits from 120-mm shells. Those on July 27 were consumed: cast iron - 64, of which 60 were fired from the Bobr gunboat, 4 from Gilyak, 57 from the segment (37 from Novik and 20 from Gilyak) and 21 high-explosive shell from "Novik".
Obviously, no one would shoot at the Japanese cruiser with segment shells, so it can be assumed that the Itsukushima was fired mainly by the Novik with high-explosive shells, and possibly the Beaver with cast-iron shells. Again, the Russian Navy did not like cast-iron shells for their low quality of manufacture, and therefore it is not entirely clear why the Beaver did not use shells of a different type at Itsukushima. It can be assumed that the bulk of its shells "Beaver" still shot at the ground positions of the Japanese, and at "Itsukushima", if at all, then only a few shots, already prepared for battle by shells. If these guesses are correct, then it can be assumed that the losses of "Itsukushima" are the merit of the artillerymen of "Novik". However, it must be remembered that this conclusion is still based on assumptions, and not on historical facts.
Be that as it may, on July 27, 1904, Novik went out to support the ground forces for the last time. A breakthrough to Vladivostok and a battle awaited him.
