Section 99: Battle of Mukden (2)

"Good boss. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info guarantees the completion of the third set of artillery equipment in one month. ”

Johnson turned and left.

Yang Chao also planned to leave, this time he came to Laiwu to inspect, and the result made him very satisfied, he still had to transport another batch of shells to the Russian army, so he couldn't afford to delay.

"That's right, boss. There's one thing I forgot to mention. ”

Johnson walked to the door and suddenly turned back again.

"What's the matter?"

Yang Chao had already gotten up and asked casually.

"Our 105 heavy artillery trial production has been successful, is it immediately for production? I mean, do you need to do a test? ”

Previously, the Laiwu Arsenal, like the Qingdao Arsenal, could only produce cannons below 95 calibers, and the main production models were only 75, 85, and 95, but in the Russo-Japanese War, a large number of heavy artillery was used to show that in modern warfare, the caliber of cannons was still very important, so a few months ago, Johnson was asked to transfer existing equipment and technical forces for trial production.

"This is good news, there is no need to test it, the Japanese and Russians will test it for us."

Yang Chao said with a smile, the Japanese and Russians can not take care of the quality problem now, as long as they can buy it and send it to them as soon as possible, they don't care whether they have undergone rigorous experiments or not.

After speaking, Yang Chao left satisfied.

It is no wonder that Americans were able to make a lot of war money in World War I and World War II, and this kind of response to the market is much faster than that of other countries.

The Qingdao Arsenal is still considering whether to increase the production capacity of rifles, the Americans have already expanded the output of ammunition more than four times, ammunition consumption is the most fundamental, although the unit price of a shell and a bullet is very low, and the profit is not high, far less than the profit of a rifle of more than ten dollars, but the quantity is large, since October last year, the profit contribution of ammunition in the Laiwu Arsenal has exceeded that of rifles and cannons.

The international price of a cannonball is 1 pound to 1.5 pounds, which is equivalent to about ten taels of silver, and the profit is only two taels of silver, but the Japanese purchase is hundreds of thousands of quantities, millions of shells and hundreds of thousands of rifles The profit is about the same, and the rifle is a hammer deal, and it will not be replaced if it is not broken, and the ammunition is a consumable, and later generations know that the printer is not valuable, and the consumables cost money. It's just like electrical appliances are worthless, electricity bills make people feel distressed, cars are worthless, and maintenance makes people sad.

A month after the Battle of Heigoutai, the Japanese and Russian armies did not make any major moves.

Now mainstream public opinion has decided that both countries are waiting for the outcome of the naval battle and for the Russian Second Fleet to come to the East.

There are all kinds of arguments and battle plans, and folk enthusiasts and military theorists have expressed their views one after another.

There is a consensus that the Japanese should actively attack and ambush the Russian Second Fleet when the Russian fleet passes through the Strait of Malacca, but there are also those who believe that the Strait of Malacca is an international shipping channel, and the impact of fighting there is too great, and it may affect the interests of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States.

Therefore, it was also suggested that the Japanese intercept the Russian Second Fleet near the Taiwan Strait, otherwise once they reach the East China Sea, the range of action of the Russian army will be expanded, and it will be difficult to search for the Russian fleet.

The consensus of these mainstream opinions is that the Russian First and Second Fleets cannot be allowed to converge, because everyone knows that it is basically difficult to turn around with nearly twice the tonnage of naval warships.

But it is strange that the Japanese launched a ground offensive first.

"Fengtian pleases you! In this battle, we should all have the ambition to die. ”

In Liaoyang, Dashanyan bowed ninety degrees.

A group of high-ranking generals in front of him also bowed: "We are willing to die in Fengtian and serve the emperor!" ”

Dashanyan never got up, and the other generals got up and walked out of the headquarters, and walked to their respective command posts with a certain heart of death.

The Battle of Mukden began.

Everyone left, and Oyama stood up, but instead of leaving the headquarters, he stood in front of the large map on the wall and was silent for a long time.

The Battle of Mukden, they have been preparing for a few months, but they didn't expect that the Russian army is now launching an offensive in Heitaigou, which disrupted their plans for a while, for Dashanyan, the Russian commander Kuropatkin is indeed a famous general, and he should not be burdened with so many accusations, just like he Dashanyan should not enjoy such a great reputation.

Liaoyang, Shahe, and even Lushun, the Japanese army's combat goal has never changed, that is, to annihilate the main force of the Russian army in the northeast before the arrival of the main force of the Russian army in the west, and then force the Russians to sue for peace.

But it seems that the Japanese army is winning step by step, but it has never eliminated too many Russian troops, counting the current casualties alone, the Japanese army is far more than the Russian army, and Dashanyan even believes in frustration that in fact, from the beginning to the present, the Japanese army is defeating, and the only result is to advance the battle line to the north for hundreds of kilometers, but this has no substantial benefit except for increasing the difficulty of logistics supply.

This time it is already a battle against the water, from the emperor to the people in the country, from the commander-in-chief of the northeast to every soldier, they are all ready to die, and they must complete their efforts in one battle to completely wipe out the 370,000 Russian troops in Mukden!

The Japanese 1st Army divided its troops from the upper reaches of the Taizi River, one to pinpoint and the other to cross the river to the north, and made a detour to the flank of the Russian First Army deployed here. Kuropatkin immediately mobilized reserves on the right flank to strengthen the left flank. But at this time, the Japanese 2nd Army began to detour back to the right flank for an assault, and it was clear that Kuropatkin had been tricked to divert the tiger from the mountain.

The outside world sees it this way, but Kuropatkin himself is very strange, everyone has been in a confrontation before, like two bulls fighting horns, they are equal, and no one can divide their forces to carry out roundabout operations. However, the Japanese 1st Army suddenly divided its forces, and Kuropatkin's troops facing the Japanese 1st Army naturally launched a tentative counterattack, but it turned out that the Japanese army was very strong. This forced Kuropatkin to mobilize reserves to prevent the Japanese from making a detour.

The same 2nd Army suddenly detoured to the right flank, and the Russian army also found that they were strong on the front after testing, and had to move the left flank to strengthen the right flank, tossing back and forth, which made Kuropatkin feel the pressure.

Kuropatkin was puzzled by the sudden strengthening of the 1st and 2nd armies of Japan, and both sides knew how strong the combat effectiveness of that army was, but this time Kuropatkin felt that he had miscalculated.

He suspected that the Japanese army had strengthened the combat effectiveness of this army, and the intelligence showed that the strength of these two armies was indeed thirty percent more than before, and Kuropatkin thought that it was just that the Japanese recruits had arrived and replenished the troops, but he did not expect that the Japanese army would dare to carry out such a big tactical detour after replenishing the new soldiers, which was simply unreasonable.

In the face of the madness of the Japanese army, Kuropatkin planned to test it, and successively ordered several armies to attack and pinn down.

The counterattack of the Russian army did not lead to anything, and the facts showed that the Japanese army was indeed strong on the front.

From March 1, the Japanese troops who had returned to the left flank launched a strong attack, and the Russian 1st Army struggled to resist the Japanese attack, but it could not escape itself.

On March 4, the Japanese 2nd Army had almost detoured all the way to the north of Mukden, threatening the railway line here.

On the one hand, Kuropatkin strengthened the blocking of the 2nd Army Division, and on the other hand, withdrew his troops from the Shahe front, mobilized the troops of Shahe to retreat to the Hunhe, shortened the battle line, and drew troops to support the right flank.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Japanese launched a strong attack, broke through the defense line of the 1st Army on the left flank, and approached Mukden from the left flank.

"Your Excellency, Commander!"

Nominally a part of the 2nd Army, in fact a complete 3rd Army.

The familiar face, General Nogi Noshinori, holding a katana, sat sadly on the top of a slope, next to him was a large group of exhausted officers, and the hillside was full of tired soldiers, and the wounded and sick had long been abandoned on the road.

A surprise attack had just been launched, and even Nogi Noshinori's command knife was stained with blood, but he couldn't stop the black smoke of the trains in front of him.

They came late, although they broke through the interception of the Russian army, lost more than half of their troops, and could already see the Russians' railway, but the Russians fled.

Battle of Mukden, the Japanese won, the Russians ran away.

There is no doubt that this is another defeat for the Russians.

The left flank of the Japanese army approached Mukden, and the right flank threatened the railway, Kuropatkin did not want the back road to be cut off, so he decisively abandoned Mukden and withdrew from Mukden City with most of his troops before the Japanese army encircled him.

At this time, in Fengtian City, the Japanese army was striding into this Manchu Longxing City, the burial place of the ancestral tomb.

But the senior commanders were not so happy one by one, because the Russian army managed to escape under their noses again, as before.

"Your Excellency Chief of Staff, General Nogi is going to seppuku!"

Nogi Noshinori led his troops back to Mukden to assemble, and when he saw the glorious entrance to the castle and then received his commendation from His Majesty the Emperor, he was filled with joy from top to bottom, especially when the pure gold medal scraped against his chest, Nogi Noshinori broke down and cried.

At that time, no one paid attention, and the soldiers naturally didn't dare to say anything, but the generals laughed at Nogi Noshinori's happy gaffe.

But how could a person like Nogi Noshinori, whose katana spirit is deeply rooted in his bones, easily shed tears in front of the public.

He's actually broken.

Lushun's defeat, he always thought that it was all his fault, and then determined to be ashamed of Fengtian.

Then the Japanese played a beautiful hand of darkness Chen Cang, and it seemed that they kept increasing troops in Lushun, and the whole world thought that they were going to start a big war in Lushun, but secretly, the people who increased Lushun were all new soldiers, veterans, and even Nogi Noshinori and Kodama Gentaro all broke out of their shells, boarded the ship from Dalian as wounded, and quietly detoured to the other side to go ashore and rush to Mukden.

It was Kodama Gentaro and Nogi Noshinori who commanded each other, the 5th Army and the 3rd Army, under the banner of the 1st Army and the 2nd Army, detoured from the left and right flanks respectively, and the bewildered outsiders thought that this was just a division of the 1st Army and the 2nd Army, but they didn't know that these were the most elite veterans left over from the 3rd and 5th armies after the bloody battle of Lushun, and the number was not the largest, but the combat effectiveness was the strongest.

"Bastard!"

As soon as he heard that Nogi Noshinori was going to cut his stomach, Kodama Gentaro didn't care about celebrating, and immediately ran over.