On October 1, 1908, the Korean Peninsula War, known as the "Proxy War", broke out. If it is placed in Europe, this nation is likely to develop into a world power similar to the United Kingdom, you must know that the territory of the United Kingdom is comparable to the Korean Peninsula!

The same is true of this war, where both countries on the peninsula have had to suffer as a last resort, artificially divided into two countries, and no one can complain about their desire for reunification. Behind this simple desire is a wrestling between the great powers, mixed with too many intrigues and calculations.

The war went very smoothly at the beginning, and the nearly 100,000 troops of the Republican Army Lee Kwang-joo broke through the South Korean army's border defense on October 1, and the battle easily surprised everyone. The South Korean army deployed only three divisions of troops on the line from Panmunjom to Kaesong, and before more troops reached Seoul, the border was breached, and Seoul, which was close at hand, was immediately threatened by the strong strength of the Republican army.

Lu Wuxuan became nervous at this time, and ordered the troops in various places to speed up to move closer to the surroundings of Seoul, from not caring about preparing for war to pointing fingers everywhere, Lu Wuxuan turned into a military strategist who was extremely concerned about the movement of a company.

As a result of the layman's guidance to the insider, the actions of the South Korean army became more chaotic, and the defeated army in the border area was crowded on the defensive line around Seoul and no one cared for it. Troops from other areas came to support Seoul running back and forth around Seoul, not knowing where their defense zone was or where to pick up ammunition and other logistical supplies. On the other side, piles of shells were placed in the open, and the soldiers guarding them smoked and frolicked uncontrollably, and the officers even participated.

Unlike the Republican Army, which had undergone rigorous training, the ROK Army originally had a standing force of less than 200,000 men, and its armament was lax and the amount of training was small. Most of the officers were also directly converted from the old army. The soldiers were given weapons and ammunition from the United States and Japan, but few of them knew how to fiddle with the artillery, so mortars, artillery and other heavy firepower equipment were stored in warehouses, and the heavy firepower equipment was empty, but it could not be found in the army.

After the situation became tense, Lu Wuxuan ordered the recruitment of 100,000 new troops from all over the country to form the Third Army to meet the challenge. This Third Army was a complete rookie from officer to soldier. Not so much a soldier as a farmer who lays down his hoe.

On October 10, the army of Yi Kwangzhu completed the siege of Seoul, but the army of Kang Xijian on the other side did not progress well, they encountered heavy rains in the mountains east of the Han River Plain, the roads were washed away, and the troops had difficulty marching, and at this time they had not yet captured Chuncheon, the intended target. This gave the ROK army a chance to breathe, and the ROK 2nd Army strengthened its defense on the line from Hoengseong to Seoul. The Fourth Army of the Second Army used the mountainous terrain near Hoengseong and Chuncheon to construct fortifications to ensure the safety of the right flank of Seoul. In addition, more reinforcements are also gathering in Seoul, and the commander of the Seoul garrison, Park Myung-p, already has the strength of the three armies of the First Army and the two armies of the Second Army in his hands.

Lu Wuxuan's good mood did not last for a few days, and he was anxious by the war reports constantly sent from the front. The Republican offensive was swift and powerful, and the front-line soldiers reacted. The Republican soldiers were well-trained and tactically savvy (according to the ROK soldiers), and they often concentrated a large number of artillery to attack the ROK positions first. The morale of the South Korean soldiers quickly fell under the suppression of artillery fire. Then the Republican Army launched a cluster charge, and during the charge, it also used machine guns and mortars to suppress the fire of the South Korean army's positions, and eliminated the South Korean army's machine gun positions and other fire points. Later, the fearless Republican Army broke into the South Korean positions and used grenades and other means to eliminate the South Korean soldiers along the trenches. Under such blows, the South Korean troops on the defending side often collapsed, and even if the gendarmerie set up machine gun fire, it could not stop the rout of the soldiers.

The Chinese officer corps, which was watching the battle from the rear, could not bear to look directly at the battle. In the three days after the start of the Battle of Seoul, the Republican Army advanced more than 20 kilometers and eliminated more than 30,000 South Korean troops, but it also suffered more than 20,000 casualties, so to speak, killing 10,000 enemies and 8,000 self-inflicted losses. China provided the Republican Army with superior artillery, a part of tanks and other armored vehicles. With dozens of planes, the Republican Army could have adopted more reasonable tactics to break through the positions of the ROK troops with faster speed and fewer casualties, instead of pushing forward little by little. Lieutenant Colonel Le Fei estimated that after the Battle of Seoul, the Republican Army would suffer about 50,000 casualties, and the materials and ammunition that had been hoarded before would be left out because of this campaign.

The head of the officer corps, Lu Feng, approached Kim Jong-yu, but he misunderstood him as jealous of his military talent and the strong combat effectiveness of the Republican Army, Kim Jong-yu said bluntly to Lu Feng: "Please believe in the confidence of our Koreans in reunifying the country, and please believe in the strength of our Republican Army in unifying the country!" The implication is to let the officer corps stand aside and not make trouble for Kim Jong-yu.

When the Battle of Seoul was in full swing, Kang's army finally walked out of the eastern mountains and crashed headlong into the defensive position constructed by the ROK Fourth Army. In the face of the enemy's strong fortifications, in the absence of heavy firepower such as large-caliber artillery, Jiang Xijian brazenly ordered the troops to attack, and as a result, it took two days to take a hill, with more than 3,000 casualties and less than 500 defenders. And there are still hundreds of hills ahead waiting for Jiang Xijian's army to break through, and when the defense line of the South Korean army is broken, it is estimated that there will not be a few people left in Jiang Xijian's army, and by then the plan to besiege Seoul has long been bankrupt.

Jiang Xi had no choice but to order the suspension of the attack, and asked the rear to increase the amount of material transportation, provide a certain amount of artillery to break through the enemy's position. It's a pity that for the Battle of Seoul, most of the supplies and artillery were concentrated in Li Guangzhu's corps, and Jiang Xijian's hands lacked artillery, machine guns, and even ammunition.

Before the war began, no one expected that the consumption of ammunition would be so fast, and Kim Jong-yu finally realized how much modern warfare is a test of a country's industrial capacity, and that without strong national strength, it is simply impossible to cope with large-scale modern warfare. The closest unit of Lee Kwang-jok's corps to Seoul was a company of the 3rd Division of the 2nd Army, which saw Seoul a few kilometers away on the plain from a distance, but could not move forward in the face of the dense defense of the South Korean army.

The regiments of Lee Kwang-joo and Kang Hee-jae began to show signs of weakness in the offensive, while the defenses of Seoul became tighter, and the newly formed Third Army was sent to the port of Incheon to protect the left flank of Seoul and at the same time protect the logistics supply routes of the Korean army.

The so-called proxy war became clear until the war had progressed, and the convoy from San Francisco, after arriving in Japan, joined up with another convoy, loaded with American cotton clothing, medicine, ammunition and other supplies, as well as 35 Japanese tanks, 300 military instructors, and 50,000 guns, and arrived at the port of Incheon on October 18.

As early as October 3, the first batch of transport ships from Shanghai arrived at the port of Haeju in North Korea, loaded with millions of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of thousands of shells of supplies piled up near the port, although China supported some cars, and there was also a railway line from Haeju to Kaesong, but the transportation speed of materials was still maddeningly slow. The railway built by the Japanese was small and destroyed by the Japanese when they evacuated Korea, and the Chinese took over the railroad due to the resources expended in domestic economic construction, so the railway was not repaired. As a result, railway transportation has come to naught, and in terms of highways, nearly 500 vehicles supported by China can fully undertake the transportation task, but it is a pity that there are not enough drivers in the Republic of Korea, and the temporarily trained drivers are likely to have traffic accidents in the face of complicated road conditions and congested roads, resulting in the embarrassing situation of trucks blocking the roads.

According to rough estimates, about 500,000 people were organized to serve as porters, using mules, horses, oxen, and carts as the main means to transport supplies to the front line little by little.

As long as they are conscripted to become porters, they can have enough food, which is the official promise of North Korea, and in fact they do the same. In order to speed up the transportation, the porters and livestock can only be fed, this condition attracts a large number of people to come and actively participate in the transportation of materials, most of them will not eat too much, one is the heavy physical work will make the bulging stomach suffer, and the other is to leave part of the family for the children and the elderly.

It's just that under such conditions, in addition to ammunition and other materials that cannot be eaten, more than two-thirds of the materials supported by China are digested by porters and cattle during transportation, and the soldiers on the front line not only lack ammunition, but also lack enough food.

On the contrary, the South Korean army was able to take advantage of Incheon's proximity to Seoul to obtain sufficient supplies, which was reflected in the reality that the commander of the Seoul garrison planned a large-scale counterattack after receiving supplies from Japan and the United States. He mobilized five divisions of troops to launch a surprise attack on the Kairi area west of Seoul, and Lee Kwangzhu's corps was caught off guard, and the troops of the two divisions stationed in the area were always in an offensive posture, and there were no fortifications at all, and they were hungry and short of ammunition in the face of the Korean army's tidal wave of resistance, but they still retreated ten kilometers before reinforcements arrived, causing a huge depression to appear on the offensive line.

The ROK army has not only gained superiority in logistics, but has also rapidly improved the quality of individual soldiers and officers, and war is the best teacher, and a large number of middle- and low-level officers who have no cultural foundation have grown up through the war and become the backbone of the ROK army. The ROK soldiers also learned how to distinguish artillery fire, how to dodge machine guns, and how to hit the most threatening enemy, the most obvious manifestation of which was that in the counterattack launched by Park Myung-phu, the ROK artillery unit was finally opened, albeit under the command of Japanese instructors. (To be continued.) )