Following the Battle of Liaoyang (24 August to 4 September 1904), Russian forces retreated to the river Sha Ho south of Mukden and regrouped.

General Kuropatkin had thus disposed his forces in a purely defensive layout, from which it would be difficult to impossible to execute an offensive without opening a major gap in the lines.

Despite that it was technically not under the Japanese Manchurian Army but directly under Imperial General Headquarters to attack Primorsky Krai politically, the division was substantially under Manchuria HQ under the commander's decision.

Field Marshal Ōyama's plan was to form his armies into a crescent to encircle Mukden, cutting off the possibility of Russian escape.

[citation needed] Then Field Marshal Ōyama seized the chance he had been waiting for, and his orders to "attack" were changed to "pursue and destroy".

The Hun River, guarded by the Russian left flank commanded by Major General Mikhail Alekseyev, remained frozen, and was not an obstacle to the Japanese attack.

At the same time a salient was formed just 15 kilometers west of Mukden, enabling the Japanese to totally encircle the Russians on their right flank in the process.

[citation needed] All but encircled and with no hope for victory, General Kuropatkin gave the order to retreat to the north at 18:45 on 9 March.

The pursuit was stopped 20 kilometers short of Mukden, but the Russians were already fleeing farther north from Tiehling towards the Sino-Russian border at a fast pace, and the battle was over with the Japanese as the victor.

But the battle of Mukden was decisive enough to shatter the Russians' morale and, with the unfinished Trans-Siberian railroad now in Japanese hands, undermined the tsarist government's war effort.

[11] The victory shocked the imperial powers of Europe, as the Japanese proved overwhelming throughout the battle despite the Russians having more manpower and material.

Tsar Nicholas II was particularly shocked, when the news reached the palace in St. Petersburg, that the tiny Asian island nation of Japan - approximately 2% of Russia's landmass - could defeat the powerful and huge Russian empire.