Division was alerted for possible deployment to China, but no timetable was set for its deployment. Two days later, on July 8, with more ground troops urgently needed to lift the siege of the foreign legations at Peking, the British ambassador offered the Japanese government one million pound sterling in exchange for Japanese participation. Shortly afterward, advance units of the 5th Division departed for China, bringing Japanese strength to 3,800 members of the 17,000-strong allied force. The commander of the 5th Division, Lt. General Yamaguchi Motoomi had taken operational control from Fukushima. Japanese troops were involved in the storming of Tianjin on July 14, and the allies later consolidated and awaited the remainder of the 5th Division and other coalition reinforcements. The siege of legations was lifted on August 14; the Japanese force of 13,000 was the largest single contingent, making up about 40 percent of the approximately 33,000-strong allied expeditionary force. Japanese troops involved in the fighting had acquitted themselves well although a British military observer felt that their aggressiveness, densely-packed formations, and overly aggressive attacks cost them excessive and disproportionate casualties. For example, during the Tianjin fighting, the Japanese suffered more than half of the allied casualties, 400 out of 730, but made up less than one quarter (3,800) of the force of 17,000. Similarly at Beijing, the Japanese accounted for almost two thirds of the losses, 280 of 453, but constituted slightly less than half of the assault force. Russia Russia supplied the second largest force, after Japan, with 12,400 troops consisting mainly of garrisons from Port Arthur and Vladivostok. On 30 November 1900, Admiral Yevgeni Ivanovich Alekseyev compelled the Chinese military governor of Shenyang, Zeng Qi, to sign an agreement that effectively ended Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria and placed it under Russian control. United States In the United States, the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition. The United States was able to play a major role in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion largely because of the presence of American forces deployed in the Philippines since the US annexation after the Spanish–American War in 1898. Of the foreigners under siege in Beijing, there were 56 American Sailors and Marines from the USS Oregon and USS Newark. The main American formations deployed to relieve the siege were the 9th Infantry and 14th Infantry regiments, elements of the 6th Cavalry regiment, the 5th Artillery