Chapter 13 Battlefield Lawn Mower

After the Battle of Liaoyang, the Japanese and Russian armies generally confronted each other in the Shahe area between Mukden and Liaoyang. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 At the end of September 1904, the Russian army in Northeast China amounted to about 240,000 people, more than 800 guns, and more than 200 machine guns. The line of defense is 90 kilometers long. During the same period, there were about 120,000 Japanese troops in the Shahe area, with more than 600 door guns and more than 100 machine guns. In the previous stage of the operation, the Japanese army consumed a lot of troops, and in order to replenish the troops, a general mobilization was carried out in the country, but it still could not fundamentally change the ratio of troops.

Under these circumstances, the Japanese side decided to go on the defensive in the Shahe area and wait for the 3rd Army to be freed from Arthur as soon as possible and go north for reinforcements. Although everyone later knew that the fortress was not so easy to attack, the Japanese government, the War Department, and the generals at the front line at that time did not realize that Lushun would be a big pit.

From this aspect, it cannot be said that Oyama Iwa sent him to Lushun to gnaw at the fortress in order to suppress the emperor's power. If the Third Army can really capture Lushun according to the plan with absolute superiority in firepower and strength, and transfer the army to Shahe, then the Japanese still have a glimmer of hope to fight the second battle.

It's just that the big pit of Lushun killed the Japanese in it. If the Russian army had not finally surrendered, the Japanese would have at least tens of thousands of casualties. Perhaps, it was because it was too easy to capture Arthur during the last Sino-Japanese War that the Japanese had the illusion that the Lushun fortress defended by the Russians was nothing remarkable.

Similarly, although Kuropatkin had a relative superiority in strength, he was not in a hurry to launch a counteroffensive, but still relied on the existing positions to wait for the Japanese to attack. However, the tsarist government, forced by the upsurge of the revolutionary movement in Russia and the dissatisfaction with the war in China after the Battle of Liaoyang, demanded that Kuropatkin launch an offensive to relieve the siege of Arthur, so as to restore the "honor" of the empire and improve the declining position of the tsarist government.

Kuropatkin's plan of attack was to attack the enemy between the Hun and Taizi rivers and occupy the right bank of the Taizi River, in fact, to drive the Japanese army across the Taizi River. The Russian army is divided into 2 groups on the left and right: 3 armies on the left flank, commanded by Stackerburg, to carry out the main attack in the direction of Benxi Lake (this direction is mountainous); The 2 corps on the right flank, commanded by Bilderlinger, advanced slowly in the direction of the Sand River, with the task of attracting the enemy in the direction of the main attack. The other 3 corps were used as reserves. The front of the attack of the left and right groups totaled 50 kilometers, and the total offensive speed did not exceed 5 kilometers per day and night.

This plan was mainly aimed at the mountains, and the Russian army was not prepared for mountain warfare, especially the lack of mountain artillery. To make matters worse, the preparations for the Russian offensive were not concealed, and the Japanese discovered that (Japanese spies were active in the rear of the Russian army, and the Japanese side searched for the battle plan from the corpses of Russian officers), completely lost their suddenness.

The commander of the Japanese army, Dashan, decided to make a plan, first using the mountainous terrain that was unfavorable to the Russian army, to exhaust and exhaust the Russian army in defensive warfare, and then put in new forces, turn to the offensive, storm the center and right flank of the Russian army, and annihilate the main force of the Russian army in the northeast in one fell swoop. On October 8, 1904, the Russian Eastern Corps (consisting of 73 infantry battalions and 34 cavalry companies) appeared on the right flank of the Japanese army. From this area it was possible to attack the flank of the 1st Army.

On October 9, 1904, a force consisting of 45 infantry battalions and 18 cavalry companies launched an attack on the edge of the Japanese right flank (located in the Benxi Lake-belt). The Japanese forces deployed on this side consisted only of 8 battalions of the Guards Reserve Infantry Brigade under the command of Major General Michiharu Umezawa.

This Umezawa Michiji is a Japanese general who led his troops to fight with the Boxers in the Gengzi period, and then fought a long and bad battle with those militias with backward weapons on the land of Hebei. In the Battle of Langfang, the thousands of Japanese troops under his command were harvested like rice by furious heavy machine gun fire.

Therefore, after being assigned to such a defensive mountain this time, he dragged all the heavy machine guns in the rear barracks through various connections, and asked for guidance from the military headquarters to bring a large number of machine gun bullets. He also set up a defensive force modeled after the line he had once crashed into headlong.

In the dense jagged trenches, a lot of machine-gun positions and anti-artillery holes were dug. Umezawa Michiji was convinced that as long as he was given enough ammunition supplies, even ten times the Russian army would not be able to bargain in such terrain.

The Japanese army led by Michiharu Umezawa withstood the Russian attack. In front of the Japanese position, the corpses of the Russian army were strewn all over the field, which is already very telling. The equipment of this era is that defense is more advantageous than offense. The best way to attack a well-equipped infantry position is not with a sea of people, but with large-caliber heavy artillery.

The trench system, mountainous terrain, and the military awareness that defense was more advantageous than offense allowed the Japanese to be more than ten times more effective than the Russians. The Russian soldiers were not unbrave, and the whole company, the whole battalion of gray cattle, led by the officer, raised their bayonets and charged towards the Japanese position.

Then, the bravest died the fastest. Under the fire of heavy machine guns and mountain artillery, the Russian soldiers were put down like straw. This familiar scene made Umezawa Michiji who was holding a telescope think of a lot of things, last time, he was the one who was mowing, this time he was the one who harvested, and it felt much better.

For withstanding the attack of the Russian army, which was seven or eight times larger than the number of troops, Michiharu Umezawa was commended. Then Dashan Yan concentrated the main force of the whole army and launched a general attack from the left flank to the enemy in the northeast direction. This offensive was coordinated with the 2nd Cavalry Brigade (Brigade Commander Prince Kanin Miyajihito), which had penetrated the right flank of the Russian army, and as a result, the Russian army had to begin a full-scale retreat on October 12, 1904.

The Japanese immediately took advantage of this favorable opportunity to turn to the offensive, and this action of the Japanese army led to a series of fierce encounters. In some cases, encounters take place not only during the day, but also at night. In night battles, neither side used artillery, and the troops attacked in dense formations, with soldiers arm to arm, and most of the night battles ended with bayonet fighting.

In order to identify friend and foe, Russian soldiers wrapped white cloth bands around their sleeves. This fierce encounter lasted until October 15, 1904. The Japanese army did not make much progress, only pushing the Russian army back to the Shahe area in some sections. Daisen decided to go on the defensive in a vested position.

Both the Russians and the Japanese attacked back, and it was said that the generals on both sides should have learned a lesson that defense would be more advantageous than attack. But it is not entirely military factors that decide the war. The generals on the Russian side came under intense pressure from St. Petersburg, and they had to attack, knowing that the attack would result in heavy casualties.

Kuropatkin decided to launch an offensive on his right flank on the morning of October 16, 1904, in order to restore the original position on the left bank of the Sand River. However, on the night of the 15th, the Japanese Second Army's Obao Gong Division captured Wanbaoshan (located in the Shahebao area), a decisive commanding height, in the 1st Army section of the left flank of the Russian army, with a surprise attack.

The occupation of the heights by the Japanese army created a threat of breaking through the center of the Russian defenses. As a result, Kuropatkin abandoned the original offensive plan and ordered the 1st Army to recapture the heights at all costs. After 16~17 days of fierce fighting, the Russian army recaptured the heights at the cost of 3,000 casualties. The Japanese side died 1,500 people. The two sides each consolidated their established positions, repaired fortifications, confronted each other, and occasionally sent reconnaissance units or carried out artillery bombardments.

In the area of Shahe, the Japanese failed to achieve a breakthrough and instead focused all their efforts on the offensive on Arthur.