While the People's Army and the Japanese army were engaged in fierce fighting on the banks of the Yalu River, relations between the East China government and Russia also deteriorated rapidly.

During the Battle of Liaoyang, there was a skirmish between the People's Army and the Russian army, which ended with the Russian army suffering a small loss, and later the Russian army was much more honest and did not dare to easily challenge the People's Army.

And just after the end of the Battle of Liaoyang, Petrov, the Russian consul in Qingdao, came to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and protested to Li Sanjie, accusing the People's Army of breaking the previous agreement reached between the two sides and causing casualties among the Russian troops, and demanding that the East China government apologize to Russia, severely punish the perpetrators, and compensate Russia for losses.

Naturally, Russia's unreasonable demands were sternly rejected by the East China Government. On behalf of the East China Government, Li Sanjie sternly refuted Russia's protests, pointing out that the conflict between the two sides was caused by the Russian army's first provocation, and the People's Army was forced to counterattack without any fault at all, and warned Russia that it was better to restrain the army and refrain from provoking again, otherwise the People's Army would fight back without mercy. As for the Shili River as the boundary, it is naturally based on the principle of preemption, and there is no such thing as half of one side at all, and it is recommended that the Russian side should retreat 10-15 kilometers to avoid further clashes between the armies of both sides.

In the end, Li Sanjie also proposed to Petrov that according to the agreement between the two sides, after defeating the Japanese army, Russia would withdraw its troops from the three eastern provinces in accordance with the provisions of the "Treaty on the Settlement of the Three Eastern Provinces," and it was time for Russia to consider fulfilling this treaty.

Originally, Petrov wanted to take advantage of the fierce battle between the People's Army and the Japanese army on the Yalu River and had no time to take care of Russia, to carry out diplomatic blackmail against the East China Government, and it was estimated that the East China Government did not want to offend Russia at this time, so it would make some concessions to Russia.

Petrov insisted that the conflict was caused by the People's Army, and insisted that Russia would refuse to fulfill the Treaty of Surrender of the Three Eastern Provinces if the East China government did not pay reparations, and that there was no guarantee that the Russian army would exercise restraint. This was in fact a threat of war to the East China government.

However, to Petrov's surprise, Li Sanjie was not threatened at all, but warned Petrov again that if the Russian army did not exercise restraint, the KPA would teach them to exercise restraint, and if Russia refused to fulfill the "Treaty on the Settlement of the Three Eastern Provinces," then the KPA would let Russia fulfill it, and Russia would be responsible for all the consequences.

It can be said that Li Sanjie's threat is clearer and more straightforward than Petrov's, and there has never been a country that threatens Russia like this. Therefore, Petrov was also very angry, and dropped a sentence of "Then wait and see" without even saying hello, and left the foreign affairs department in a rage.

After returning to the consulate, Petrov immediately sent a telegram to China, reporting the negotiation process between himself and Li Sanjie to China, and suggesting that China, recommended by the bad attitude of the East China government, should exert greater pressure on the East China government, so as to force the East China government to give in and make greater concessions to Russia.

After St. Petersburg received the telegram, it immediately aroused the wrath of the Russian Manchu Dynasty, and it was unthinkable that the East China government would dare to make a reasonable threat from Russia, which was too underestimate the fighting nation, so they asked Tsar Nicholas II and the East China government to declare war and capture Liaoyang by force, so that the entire Liaodong region would realize the Yellow Russia plan that Russia had planned for a long time.

It turned out that after Linnevich's telegram was sent back to St. Petersburg, it also gave the Russian government a shot in the arm, because the Russian government was in danger of internal and external troubles, and it was in great need of a victory, and only victory could boost people's morale, increase the prestige of the royal family, improve the confidence of the elite and the people in the government, and dilute the tense atmosphere brought about by the "bloody Sunday." The recovery of Shenyang, whether in terms of strategy and tactics or political propaganda, is a victory worthy of special mention.

So the propaganda machine in Russia was opened, touting this victory and infinitely inflating the value of this victory, and boasting that a battle that could only be regarded as ordinary in a strategic sense was the Battle of Leipzig in the Far East (the war that led to Napoleon's first ouster), saying that this battle would completely turn the situation in the Far East, and the Russian army also regained its courage and fighting spirit, and finally won the victory. And the commander of the Russian army, Linnevich, also lifted it to the clouds, calling him Kutuzov the second, the star of the heavenly general, and so on.

As a result, under such excessive exaggerated propaganda, although the Russian elite and people temporarily forgot the previous defeat and eased the political crisis of the Russian government, it also made the Russian government misjudge the war situation and make a wrong assessment of the strength of the Russian army, which gave Nikola II an unrealistic illusion and rekindled the dream of realizing Yellow Russia. Since the tsar had such an idea, the ministers around him would naturally do what he liked, so the ministers collected all kinds of traces and found various reasons to prove the wise decision of His Majesty the Emperor, and vigorously favored the use of force to teach overseas Chinese a lesson, so as to realize the dream of Yellow Russia planned by three generations of tsars.

Of course, not all the ministers were pandering to the Tsar, the imperial uncle, Grand Duke Nikolayevich, and the cabinet minister Witte all believed that the victory in this war could not completely reverse the situation in the Far East, so at this time, the scale of the war in the Far East should not be expanded, but should take advantage of Russia's slight military improvement, negotiate with the East China government, give up the territorial claims to the three eastern provinces of China, and instead pursue economic interests, and should still maintain cooperative relations with the East China government, jointly put pressure on Japan, strive for interests on the Korean Peninsula, squeeze Japan's space, and expand Russia's sphere of influence in the Far East。

However, in the Russian government, there were too few people who kept such a sober head, the voice was too small, and it was out of place, so it did not have much influence on the tsar at all, and the reaction was ridiculed and ridiculed by many people, thinking that they were too bold, and estimated the strength of overseas Chinese too high, what was there to be afraid of a group of yellow-skinned monkeys, and the powerful and invincible Russian army could defeat them with only a light military walk, and then occupy the entire Liaodong Peninsula, and then kill the Yalu River and fully occupy the Korean Peninsula. So in this optimistic atmosphere, Nicholas II gave an order to Linnevich and ordered him to immediately march to capture Liaoyang.

After receiving the Tsar's telegram, Linnevich also had a bitter saying, because the capture of Shenyang was not the credit of the Russian army at all, but the Japanese army was forced by the People's Army to withdraw its troops from Shenyang, and the Russian army just picked up a bargain. And he originally wanted to ask for merit and reward, so he said that the capture of Shenyang was a great victory, but he did not expect that the country not only took it seriously, but also put forward higher requirements for himself, and wanted to attack Liaoyang by himself.

Linnevich, of course, knows what is the situation with the Russian army in the Far East now. After the Battle of Mukden, Russia gathered about 600,000 troops in the Far East, including about 300,000 front-line troops transferred from Europe.

First of all, the number of artillery is seriously insufficient, more than 600,000 Russian troops, but only equipped with more than 1,200 artillery pieces, this number seems to be a lot, but most of them are below 100 mm caliber, less than 200 guns above 100 mm caliber, and only more than 30 guns above 150 mm caliber, and a corps of the People's Army is almost equipped with about 360 guns, of which about 150 guns with a caliber of more than 100 mm, including 18 155 mm guns, and this is not counting mortars。

Although Linnevich did not know the establishment and equipment of the People's Army, the People's Army and the Japanese army were almost under the nose of the Russian army in several battles, of course, the Russian army would send people to watch the battle secretly, and the People's Army concentrated artillery to carry out covering strikes, which also left a deep impression on the Russian army, so Linnevich thought that the number of his artillery, especially the number of large-caliber artillery, was insufficient.

In addition to artillery, the number of machine guns in the Russian army is also insufficient, and the machine guns in the whole army are less than 100. On the one hand, this is due to the inefficiency of Russia at home, and on the other hand, the lack of transportation capacity is also an important reason, and now the Trans-Siberian Railway has not yet been fully opened, and it is quite difficult to transport large-caliber artillery from Europe to the Far East.

In addition, there are at least 50,000 or 60,000 Russian soldiers in the Russian army who are not equipped with rifles, and the supply of food, medicine, and other materials is also insufficient. Therefore, although there are a lot of Russian troops in the Far East, the morale of the army is not high, and the Russian army has also tried to attack Shenyang before, including the conflict with the People's Army, all of which ended in defeat without exception. It also made Linevich very aware that the combat effectiveness of the Russian army was simply not enough to confront the KPA head-on.

But the tsar's orders must be respected, although the current Russian economy is dominated by capitalism, but politically it is still an absolute monarchy, not even a constitution, theoretically speaking, the tsar and the ancient monarchs of China, have absolute power, so as long as the tsar a word, you can make Linevich lose office.

However, at this time, the People's Army and the Japanese army were engaged in a fierce battle on the Yalu River, and the garrison in the direction of Liaoyang was empty, with only about 100,000 troops, so Linnevich saw a glimmer of opportunity, so he could take advantage of this gap to start a war, and it didn't matter whether he could capture Liaoyang or not, as long as he won one or two battles, he had an explanation for the country.