Battle of Yingkou The Battle of Yinkou ( Japanese : ) was a land battle of the First Sino - Japanese War between the forces of Meiji Japan and Qing China , fought outside the treaty port town of Yingkou , Manchuria . It is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Niuzhuang or Newchwang . Background . Following the capture of the walled town of Haicheng , near Liaoyang in the Liaodong Peninsula , Manchuria by the 3rd Division of the Japanese First Army on 13 December 1894 , Qing forces made four attempts in December and January 1895 to retake the town . This was the only Chinese offensive of the war , and all four attacks were unsuccessful . Military operations were hampered by deep snow and extremely severe winter weather . On 10 January 1895 , the Japanese Second Army launched a three - pronged attack on the walled city of Gaiping . Although the defenders resorted to freezing water on an incline to make it difficult for the Japanese to approach the walls , the city quickly fell . This severed the Qing lines of defense , and positioned the Japanese to strike either north to the ancient capital of Mukden , or east to the capital of Beijing . The battle . Following the last attempt to retake Haicheng , Qing forces reinforced the port city of Niuzhuang with approximately 20 , 000 men , including a large force of cavalry . Another Qing force of around 20 , 000 men reinforced Liaoyang to the north , and on 1 February Viceroy Liu Kunyi arrived to assume overall command of Qing military operations . Liu launched an attack with 16 , 000 men against the Japanese forces at Haicheng on 16 February . The attack was repulsed with a loss of 150 men killed and wounded . However , when news of the capture of Weihaiwei on 12 February by Japanese forces reached the Qing army , the attack was discontinued . Demoralized , many of the Qing forces began to desert . On 28 February , Japanese forces under General Nozu Michitsura began a counterattack against Liaoyang and Niuzhuang , beginning with an artillery barrage and followed with an infantry offensive across a wide front . The Qing forces were driven in disorderly retreat to the northwest towards Jinzhou , offering only light and sporadic resistance . A portion of the Japanese army under Lieutenant General Katsura Taro pursued the retreating Chinese to the walls of Liaoyang by 3 March , while the main force with the 3rd and IJA 5th Division s under General Nozu reached Niuzhuang on 4 March . After a two - hour long artillery barrage , Qing forces abandoned the walls of Niuzhuang with almost no resistance , fleeing into town . However , with further retreat cutoff , the Qing forces resorted to urban warfare , contesting the city street - by - street in what was often hand - by - hand combat . However , by nightfall the fighting had ceased with a large number of Qing soldiers breaking through Japanese lines and fleeing into the countryside , and with the remainder ( approximately 600 men ) surrendering . As with previous campaigns , a large quantity of supplies and weapons were captured by the Japanese . Following the capture of the city , Japanese forces under General Nogi Maresuke and Lieutenant General Yamaji Motoharu attacked and captured the coastal forts protecting the entrance to the treaty port of Niuzhuang , where Qing forces were attempting to regroup . On 6 March 1895 , the Japanese forces proceeded to bombard the town of Tianzhuangtai on the opposite side of the Liao River , which they razed to the ground . Aftermath of the battle . The capture of Yingkou marks the effective end of major combat on the Asian mainland in the First Sino - Japanese War , although the Imperial Japanese Army continued to push for permission from Imperial General Headquarters to continue on towards either Beijing or Mukden . On 24 March , the Japanese made an amphibious landing with several thousand troops on the Qing fortifications at Haichow in Jiangsu Province , north of Shanghai . The capture of these fortifications placed the Japanese within 50 miles of the strategic Grand Canal connecting Beijing with Nanjing . This applied more pressure on the Qing government to finalize discussions on ending the war , and did the Capture of the Pescadores near Taiwan at the end of March . Negotiations for the Treaty of Shimonoseki , which had begun on 20 March , were finalized by the Qing surrender on 17 April , ending the war .