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After the success of the military coup d'état between Saigo and Yamamoto Gonbei, Okuma Shigenobu was attacked by the ronin of Genyosha and lost his feet and was forced to withdraw from politics, Japan rushed towards the road of no return to militarism, Yamamoto Gonbei served as prime minister, and appointed Saigo Gondo as generalissimo and army general, Togo Heihachiro as Japanese Navy Marshal and Admiral, Kawakami Soroku, Katsura Taro, and Kodama Gentaro were appointed as vice admirals and greatly expanded the army and navy. At that time, the total population of Japan was about 40 million, and Saigo Congdao mobilized more than 200,000 reservists, and one out of every three young and middle-aged people was conscripted into the army, expanding the total strength of the army to 300,000, of which 250,000 were ready to fight outside the Japanese archipelago, and the production of 1,100 artillery pieces and 140 machine guns was expanded. The navy itself modeled 50 warships with a total tonnage of more than 150,000 tons, and the ministers of the Lord's peace, Inoue Shin and Endo Shinsuke, were all pushed out of Tokyo.

When Okuma Shigenobu saw this situation, he risked his life in a wheelchair to go outside the palace to see Emperor Meiji. At that time, it was pouring rain in the sky, and there were lightning and thunder from time to time, and Okuma Shigenobu did not let anyone hold an umbrella, and shouted in the rain: "Saigo is crazy from the road, just like his dead brother Saigo Takamori, it will definitely bring deep disasters to the Yamato nation!" At this time, the power of the military headquarters was too strong, nationalist sentiment was high, and Emperor Meiji could not help himself, so he did not summon Shigenobu Okuma, and Okuma returned to his hometown of Saga Castle in Hizen Domain.

After Saigo's army expansion was completed, he vigorously preached militarism, chauvinism, and the spirit of martyrdom of "bushido" among his officers and soldiers, and his army was divided into three armies, with three lieutenant generals Kawakami Soroku, Katsura Taro, and Kodama Gentaro as commanders. Each army has 100,000 men, and each army has two divisions under its command, with the division as the largest tactical unit, and each division has two brigades. In addition to the cavalry regiment and artillery regiment, the whole army has a unified operational thinking, and the core of studying the theory of the famous German general Moltke is to emphasize the offensive. Emphasizing "attacking and attacking again", it was declared that in this way the Imperial Japanese Army would be invincible!

With a strong military force, Saigo is full of confidence! In order to incite national sentiments, Saigo secretly organized Japanese ronin to besiege the embassies of Britain, the United States, France, China, and other countries, announcing the abolition of the unequal treaties signed with Britain, the United States, France, and other countries, the abolition of foreigners' extrajudicial privileges in Japan, and the withdrawal of Japan's tariff autonomy to Nagasaki and the ports of Shimonoseki, and issued an ultimatum. The Russians were asked to return the disputed Sakhalin and other northern islands. This caused strong resentment in Britain and the United States, France, and Russia.

Russia is especially dissatisfied! Because Sakhalin covers an area of 76,400 square kilometers. It is a particularly large island, twice the size of the whole of Taiwan. Tsar Nicholas II's Slavic and Agrarian complexes reached a pathological level, when Tsarist Russia already had a continental area of 22 million square kilometers. But he wasn't satisfied.

When he was young, Nikolai was weak and indecisive. He never won the favor of his father, Emperor Alexander III, and Alexander III did not seriously consider letting him succeed to the throne, but in the end Alexander III died suddenly and Nicholas II ascended to the throne of the Tsar. This experience made Nicholas II both inferior and arrogant. Therefore, after the coronation of Nicholas II in 1896, he carried out ** at home and prepared crazy aggression and expansion abroad. Nicholas II reprimanded to his face the representatives of the local bureaus who wanted to participate in politics: "Some of you are thinking nonsense! It is considered that representatives of the local self-government should participate in the administration of the State. I hope everyone knows that I will unswervingly maintain the principles of the ** system, just like my unforgettable father! ”

In 1898, he was already the emperor of all Russia, the king of Poland, the Grand Duke of Finland, etc., but he was still ambitious, dreaming of adding titles such as "Emperor of China" and "Emperor of Japan" to himself. In fact, during Nicholas II's trip to the Far East from 1890 to 1891, he coveted the territory and wealth of Japan and China, and at the beginning of the nineteen-nineties, Russia began to build the Trans-Siberian Railway, in an attempt to strengthen the struggle for hegemony in the Far East through the railway.

In addition, Nicholas II had a grudge against the Japanese, and in 1891, as the crown prince of Russia, Nicholas went to Vladivostok to preside over the opening ceremony of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and visited Japan. On May 11, when Crown Prince Nicholas was visiting Otsu, the garrison Tsuda Sanzo suddenly assassinated Nicholas, and Tsuda assassinated Nicholas because he thought that Russia was dissatisfied with Russia's forcible occupation of Sakhalin Island and other "northern Japanese islands."

In fact, the name of Sakhalin comes from the Manchu language, which was originally the land of China! At the latest in the Tang Dynasty, the Ainu tribe of the Liugui country on Sakhalin Island paid tribute to the Tang government, and the Tang king also crowned his envoy She Zhi as a cavalry captain. In 725, the Tang Dynasty set up the Heishui Mansion in the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, and exercised effective jurisdiction over the tribes such as the Sumo Jian, the Heishui Jian, and the Gushuo. In the 10th century AD, the envoys of the five kingdoms of the Liao Dynasty of China ruled Sakhalin Island. In the 12th century, Sakhalin was under the jurisdiction of the Jin Dynasty. In 1264, the Mongol Empire sent 3,000 troops to conquer Sakhalin Island, and the local inhabitants "Guwei" paid tribute to the Mongols, and the Yuan Dynasty brought them under the jurisdiction of Liaoyang Province. This is the first time that China has included Sakhalin in its administrative scope. In 1858 and 1860, Tsarist Russia forced the Qing government to sign the unequal Sino-Russian Treaty of Aihun and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Peking, ceding more than 100,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory, including Sakhalin Island, to Tsarist Russia.

But the Japanese have always coveted Sakhalin Island, 76,000 square kilometers, which is equivalent to the land area of one Taiwan and one Hainan Province, which is too big! In 1593, Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent his general Matsumae Yoshihiro to conquer all Ezo (i.e., Ainu) lands, including the Ainu-controlled part of Sakhalin. In 1679, Kuharu Kodan, who came from Matsumae Domain, established the town of Omarari Town on Sakhalin Island, and the Japanese began to develop fishing grounds on Sakhalin Island. On October 10, 1806, the fleet of Khvostov, an officer of the Russian-American Company, attacked the tax office of the Matsumae feudal lord at the southern tip of Sakhalin Island, burned down the warehouses, and declared Sakhalin to be owned by Tsarist Russia, and an armed conflict began between Russia and Japan over the ownership of Sakhalin.

So Tsar Nicholas II received an ultimatum from Saigo in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, demanding the return of Sakhalin and other northern islands, Nicholas II was so angry that he struck the marble floor of the Winter Palace with the Tsar's scepter, and roared: "Go and find Bezobrazov, Previ, and Aleksayev at once, and I will send 100,000 troops to Japan to land in Japan, defeat its native troops, quell the people's resistance, occupy the capital, and capture the Japanese emperor alive!" ”

Imperial Minister Alexander? Bezobrazov, Interior Minister Vyacheslav? Plevy and Far Eastern Governor Alekseev, all three of whom were fanatical chauvinists and imperialist adventurers, also believed that Japan was "a small state and vulnerable" and "could overwhelm it by throwing a hat", and supported the Tsar's use of force against Japan!

At this time, Foreign Minister Ramsdorf also rushed to St. Petersburg, and Nicholas II knew that he had never advocated the use of troops in the Far East, and before he could speak, he said: "You don't have to persuade me to wait until the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway before using troops abroad, this time the Japanese are obviously provoking and don't take our Russian Empire seriously!" ”

Foreign Minister Ramsdorff said: "Your Majesty, I am not here to persuade you to withdraw your troops this time, you see, this is a personal letter from Chinese President Song Xiaofei to you. The Chinese ambassador to Russia hopes that China and Russia can join hands and use troops against the Japanese! The United Kingdom and the Americans also agreed to join. ”

It turned out that Song Xiaofei had received a telegram from Huang Zunxian, the Chinese ambassador to Japan, that Japan was mobilizing its troops, gathering 50,000 troops, and plotting to launch an attack on Nagasaki and Maguan Harbor, where the Beiyang Fleet was stationed, and began to send Wu Tingfang to lobby various countries: "The Japanese can only understand the sound of artillery!" Japan has now expanded its army to 300,000 in a short period of time, six times the original size, and the Japanese will certainly want to invade the whole of Asia, including Burma and India, and this will seriously endanger the interests of Britain and the United States and other countries in Asia. Moreover, Japan is now unilaterally abrogating the treaties it signed before, and there is evidence that it is not Japanese civilians at all who are besieging the embassies of various countries, but Japanese soldiers, which is a serious violation of international law and a serious challenge to the international order! China is willing to dispatch 100,000 troops and 20 warships to eradicate the cancer of Japanese militarism! I hope that all countries will join hands to strangle the Japanese militarist regime! ”

In order to provoke the anger of various countries against Japan, Song Xiaofei also sent people to secretly infiltrate Japan, put on the uniforms of the Japanese army, and took advantage of the chaos to attack foreigners in Japan, adding fuel to the fire. In addition, the military junta of Gonbei Yamamoto and Saigo Norido was very tough on the outside world, and turned a blind eye to the demands of the foreign powers for the arrest of the rioters in Japan, and the countries were furious. The British ambassador to China, Zhu Erdian, even received a gift of 100,000 silver dollars from Song Xiaofei, and tried his best to persuade Britain to send troops to give the Japanese a "lesson"! In the end, the British government agreed to send 5,000 troops and nine warships to protect the expatriates in Japan. The United States also sent two thousand men and six warships to Nagasaki. Not far behind, France sent 3,000 troops and four warships.

In the letter, Song Xiaofei explained the situation of Britain and the United States preparing to send troops, and also invited the Russians to send troops to Japan, stipulating that once Japan was defeated, Kunashir Island, Iturup Island, Hebamayi Island, Hamai Island, and Shikotan Island in the South Chiba Islands could be occupied by the Russians.

When Nicholas II saw the letter, he was so pleased that he immediately wrote a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II, also inviting Germany to send troops. Nicholas II's Empress Alexandra. Feodorovna is a German Hesse. Alix, the daughter of Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Darmstadt, had good relations between the two countries, and Kaiser Wilhelm II promised to send 2,000 troops. Austria-Hungary and Italy then sent 500 soldiers each to join the coalition.

In March 1898, the Eight-Nation Coalition Army marched to Nagasaki to assemble, preparing to occupy Tokyo and deal a heavy blow and lesson to the arrogant Japanese soldiers!