The Japanese resumed their advance on Tainan in the second week of October. The arrival of strong reinforcements (the 2nd Provincial Division, transferred from the Japanese 2nd Army in Manchuria, and part of the 4th Provincial Division, from Osaka) allowed them to approach Tainan from three directions at once. On 10 October two task forces sailed from the Pescadores. The smaller task force, 5,460 troops under the command of Prince Fushimi Sadanaru, landed at Po-te-chui () (modern-day Budai, Chiayi), to the north of Tainan. The larger task force, 6,330 troops under the command of Lieutenant-General Nogi Maresuke, landed at Pang-liau (Fangliao), to the south of Takow and well to the south of Tainan. Its first objective was to capture the port of Takow. Meanwhile, the Imperial Guards Division, then at Changhua, was ordered to continue to press forward towards Tainan. The division, 14,000 strong when it landed in Taiwan at the end of May, had been so reduced by sickness that it could now only with difficulty put 7,000 men into the field. Nevertheless, the Japanese now had the numbers to make an end of the campaign. Just under 20,000 Japanese troops would now close in on Tainan simultaneously, from the north, the northeast and the south. Liu Yongfu could probably field a larger force, but the Chinese and Formosans were by now fighting merely to stave off defeat. They had little hope of stemming the Japanese advance on Tainan.