Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War Soldier’s Personal Notebook, the former property of Mr. Nakamura who was born in Meiji 4 = 1871.  In Meiji 28 (1895), at the end of the Sino-Japanese War, Mr Nakamura served on board the Himeji Maru which was wrecked on the Bombay Reef in the South China Sea on November 7, 1896.  In Meiji 38 (1905), he was sent to Korea in the midst of the Russo-Japanese War.  He participated in the Battle of Heikoutai (Sandepu) from January 25 to January 29, 1905. This battle (known to the Japanese as Kokkodai No Kaisen) took place southwest of Mukden, Manchuria. There were 9,000 casualties on the Japanese side and over 12,000 for Russia. A month later, he was in the Battle of Mukden (Hoten Kaisen in Japanese) from February 20 to March 10, 1905. This was one of the largest and most important battles of the Russo-Japanese War and took place just south of Mukden. The Japanese racked up 75,504 casualties and the Russians managed an impressive 88,352. This represented a devastating defeat for the Russian Manchurian Army which was driven out of southern Manchuria for good and lead to the Japanese development of that region. News of Russia’s defeat shocked Tsar Nicholas II at St. Petersburg, and many nations around the world now viewed the Japanese military as being on an equal footing with those of western nations. The Notebook includes a record of these battles.