The Hero of Liao Yang

Biograph summary: A young Japanese officer interrupted from the quiet pleasures of his home life by official notice to join his regiment at once, swears fealty to his Emperor on the sword of his ancestor, and in a characteristically unemotional way bids farewell to his wife and children. The following scenes find him at the front, where he is intrusted with a deed of desperate daring--the carrying of a message through the enemy's country to the commander of the second Japanese army. In the accomplishment of this feat he is severely wounded and captured by Cossacks, but, though seriously wounded, manages to devour the paper upon which the despatch is written. He is taken to a Russian field hospital, and escapes, and arrives at the headquarters of the second army while the "Battle of Liao-Yang" is raging. In the midst of terrific cannonading and shells bursting about in every direction, he hands his despatch to the officer commanding and is decorated upon the field with the emblem of highest honor in Japan, taken from the breast of the general himself.