Many years later, when people look back at history, they will find that the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War was a complete tragedy from the beginning, and the two warring sides never really considered negotiations from the beginning, and everything was headed for the war.

For both sides, this is still a battle of shame.

In the past few days, dozens of ravine roads along the vast mountainous area from Benxi to the Yalu River have been crowded with a large number of people, and a large amount of military supplies have been continuously transported to the frontline battlefield with the transportation of more than 600,000 people, 400,000 horses, and two railway lines.

This kind of transportation work had been going on for several months, but during this period it suddenly became more frenzied, and no longer made any disguise, and the troops rushing out from the remote ravines and mountains, as well as the troops from Fushun, Liaoyang, Benxi, Huanren, and other places, rushed over as many as 100,000 people.

In this tide, the Northeast First Artillery Army, which had been unable to hide, finally gathered in Kuandian.

In this war, all the previous negotiations and ultimatums were false, from the very beginning, both sides only wanted to go to war, all they lacked were suitable reasons for war and all kinds of military preparations, and at the beginning of April 1911, both sides actually thought that they were fully prepared for war, and everything was just waiting for war.

……

In war, you must first make sure that you cannot make mistakes.

The Northeast Army, or Army Center, may seem strong on the surface, but in fact it has a fatal flaw, that is, the lack of command ability at the rank of general, and the general lack of experience, and the size of the army is too large, just as during the Soviet Civil War, a large number of Soviet Red Army commanders were too young and inexperienced.

In view of this characteristic, Song Biao continued to adopt the tactics of Trotsky and Frunze to reduce the command level of the troops again, and the general staff of the group army directly commanded the regimental-level combat units of the non-main forces, and adopted the strategy of separating and concentrating artillery and land forces as much as possible, taking advantage of the superiority in numbers and firepower to attack the opponent regardless of casualties.

At the same time, he gave the command of the main infantry division and artillery unit as much as possible, so that the main force had more decision-making power on the battlefield in large-scale battles, and this usually came at the cost of a large number of non-main forces.

Although Song Biao has been staying in the Beijing division in the past, through General Martos and Chen Qicai, who arrived at the front line in advance, Song Biao still established a front-line command system as perfect as possible according to his own ideas and needs, and almost sent all the officers he valued most to into battle, especially in the level and number of staff officers at all levels of troops, and not too weak at all than the Russian army.

The commanders of the 47 newly formed regiments of the Northeast Patrol Army were born in the first Far Eastern Continental Scholar Training School, and their military theoretical literacy may be poor, but they all participated in the Russo-Japanese War six years ago, squatted at the grassroots level all the year round, had a more solid foundation, and were absolutely loyal to the emperor in spirit.

The soldiers of the patrol corps have generally undergone training for a period of one to three years, and even if there is a lack of a sufficient number of lieutenants between the soldiers and the regimental commanders, and the lack of military training and exercises for the surname, the overall combat level is far from that of the main forces, and the number of machine guns and mortars is not much lower than that of the main forces.

Reserve officers, staff officers, and a large number of patrol soldiers of the Northeast Army were transferred to the new army in Guannai and the towns of the Beiyang system, and at the same time the level of equipment was improved, so that the new army in each town that was rapidly reorganized also had higher combat effectiveness in theory.

When Ben owned the two super battleships Satsuma and Aki, Song Biao's Northeast Army also had more than 13,000 Madsen light machine guns and 16,200 Popning submachine guns, as well as more than 2,450 heavy machine guns, 1,800 barreled artillery, 5,500 mortars and grenadiers.

Such a level of equipment will inevitably lead to the rapid depletion of the Northeast Army's ammunition stockpile, and Song Biao has no intention of fighting a long-term war of attrition with the Yue Army.

April 5, 1911, 5:10 a.m.

Five hours after the Chinese Empire officially declared war on the Empire, the artillery bombardment of the two sides across the Yalu River never stopped, sparsely and sporadically testing each other's artillery positions.

The Third Infantry Division of the Northeast Army will be the main force as the main force to officially launch the battle of crossing the river at dawn two hours later, and from the mouth of the river to the south, the First Artillery Corps of the Northeast will also start its first large-scale artillery attack since its formation, covering the Third Infantry Division to set up a pontoon bridge over the Yalu River, at that time, 12 newly formed regiments, four militia regiments, and the engineer brigade directly under the military headquarters will be put into this work, and it is necessary to ensure that the Third Infantry Division crosses the Yalu River to attack Shuozhou within two hours, and the First Infantry Division's river-crossing operation in Jiulian Town will start at the same time. The 2nd Artillery Brigade was responsible for containing the 6th Division of the Chinese Army stationed in Uiju and Sinuiju.

After the 3rd Infantry Division and the 14th Infantry Division rushed across Hekou Island and arrived at Cheongseong County in North Korea, other infantry divisions and new regiments would also cross the river one after another, divide their troops into three routes to flank the 5th Division of the Yue Army stationed in Soju, and force the two divisions of the Yue Army stationed in Gucheng and Uiju to come to the rescue.

This was the first battle of the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War.

Song Biao led several first-class staff officers to Hekou Island to personally inspect the situation.

The Northeast Army's preparations for crossing the river in the past few days have been extremely large, and it is impossible for the army not to be aware of it, and it is constantly strengthening the defensive line of the river embankment, but Hekou Island in the center of the river has always been under the control of the Northeast Patrol Army, and the distance from Hekou Island to the opposite bank is only 500 meters.

There are many narrower places in the lower reaches of the long Yalu River, and the railway bridge from Dandong to Sinuiju is only 955 meters wide, and both sides currently occupy half of it, and many small-scale military clashes around the railway bridge have continued for the past six months, but neither side has considered plans to blow up the bridge.

The advantage of landing on the beach from Hekou Island is that the opposite bank is a relatively flat and hilly area, while the rest of the land is mountainous, either the south bank is mountainous, or the north shore is mountainous, for example, the north side of the Taiping Bay area is a large continuous mountainous area, which makes military build-up very difficult.

The lights on the opposite bank of the army were brilliant, and several large illuminating lights constantly swept across the river to prevent the Northeast Army from spending time at night.

The occasional burst of artillery shells from both sides seemed to never stop, and the soldiers on both sides of the river waited in a state of fear for the sudden outbreak of a large-scale battle.

The road is one foot high, and the magic is one foot high.

It is said that Ben's intelligence work in the three eastern provinces is very cautious, but the intelligence secrecy work in the three eastern provinces has also been forced to become more sophisticated in this environment.

Life in the world is purely based on acting skills.

In the words that Song Biao emphasized in his teaching of the Far Eastern Army, military affairs are deception, and the Northeast Army strictly enforces the military secrecy mechanism, and a large number of troops are hidden in various military reclamation bureaus, and in addition the intelligence of the Secrecy Bureau and other intelligence agencies is misleading, there have always been serious errors in the army's estimation and statistics of the total strength of the Northeast Army in the past few years.

It was precisely because of this error that the army had been in an active offensive posture in the deployment of the previous months, and when the Northeast Army was actively preparing to cross the river, the army was actually very active in doing the same work, and it was not until the recent half month, when the size of the patrol force exposed in various parts of the Northeast Army far exceeded the limit of the army's initial estimate, that the army intensified its fortifications along the river.

Or is it a question of intelligence work.

The Northeast Army's deliberate exposure of its strength in many places and its preparations for organizing fortifications to cross the river caused the Manchurian Army to continuously misestimate the Northeast Army's strong crossing points, and the main areas to guard against were Dandong and Yizhou, and it was not until a week ago that the Army realized that the most likely crossing point for the Northeast Army was Hekou Island.

In the past few days, the Fifth Division stationed in Shuozhou has been massively mobilized to the defense line along the river on the other side of Hekou Island, as well as to garrison the surrounding high ground to re-establish artillery positions.

The 3rd Infantry Division and the 14th Infantry Division were responsible for crossing the river here, followed by the 15th Infantry Division and seven new regiments, while six militia regiments assisted the 1st Engineer Brigade in building two pontoon bridges.

Because the army could not expose its artillery positions prematurely, four sandbag bridges had already been erected from the river embankment to Hekou Island, and more than 30 machine-gun forts had been set up on the defense line built on the island, so that the southern river bank could be suppressed by arms when crossing the river.

When Song Biao arrived at Hekou Island, more than 6,000 people from two militia regiments, under the leadership of the engineer section lieutenant, assisted the engineer brigade in preparing materials for repairing the bridge, and more than 100,000 bags of sandbags alone were prepared, enough to build 2,000 temporary bridge piers on the 600-meter-wide river, enough to ensure that the four pontoon passages were built at the same time, and the temporary bridges laid in this way could be quickly repaired even if they were attacked by the army.

On the river, more than a thousand wooden ships and steamers of various sizes are moored along the riverside, waiting for the final time for the general attack.

The sky has gradually revealed gray-white brilliance, the morning light is faint, in the hazy light, Song Biao stood in the fortress on the edge of the island and observed these ships on the riverside with a telescope, he knew that this would be a real battle of the Dadu River, the scale would exceed the estimate of the army by several times, and the number of troops participating in the subsequent attack, as well as the level of firepower and equipment, including all other aspects, would greatly exceed the estimate of the army.

If it is a correct tactical deployment, the army only needs one infantry wing in Shuozhou, even if it is attacked, it can quickly retreat, gather the main force on both sides of the Sino-Korean railway, use the navy to deter the Northeast Army, curb the strong attack of the Northeast Army along the coast, and gradually shrink the entire defensive line, concentrate the main force in the Pyongyang area for a decisive battle, and expand the supply line of the Northeast Army, because the larger the size of the army, the more difficult the supply, the longer the supply line, The greater the probability of being defeated.

At this time, even if the army wanted to adjust its strategy, it was too late.

With only twenty minutes left before the final artillery attack and crossing the river, Song Biao left Hekou Island under the protection of his entourage officers and soldiers and returned to Sudiantun, the temporary headquarters of the front.

The reason why the army initially failed to predict that the Northeast Army would force its crossing on Hekou Island was very simple, that is, the Chinese territory on the north shore of Hekou Island was full of mountains, and only a small tunzi such as Sudiantun was surrounded by mountains.

The Northeast is like this, where there are mountains, there are ravines, and where there are ravines, there are tuns.

From Kuandian to Sudian, there are dozens of small tunzi such as Maodian and Yongdian in the middle, and there are such places where mountains and ravines are intertwined for dozens of miles, and the Northeast Army chose to force the crossing here because it is easier to hide the army in these places.

However, after the detachments of the patrol force with the largest real strength of the Northeast Army were reorganized into new regiments of the Central Army, these units that had been trained and stationed in the mountains and forests for a long time could be easily hidden, making it difficult for the troops to detect them.

In the command post in Sudian, there was a constant exchange of communicators, more than 20 wireless telegraph planes were constantly receiving all kinds of new information from the command headquarters of the Jingshi and Benxi, intelligence teams and spies conducting reconnaissance in the DPRK also sent back information from time to time, and other branch units reported the latest situation by telephone.

There is always a gap between the level of the commander-in-chief of the Manchurian Army, Oshima Yoshimasa, and people like Oyama Iwa and Kodama Gentaro, if it weren't for the death of Kuroki and Nozu Kando, and the fact that Okuho Gong was an army general who was not from the Nagasa line, the position of commander-in-chief really wouldn't have been his turn.

Oshima Yoshimasa was completely confused by the Northeast Army's false intelligence and his own judgment, and misjudged the entire operational plan of the Northeast Army, so that the Fifth Division was placed alone on the front line of Shuozhou, and on the surface the Third, Fifth, and Sixth Divisions formed a three-legged mutual support posture, but in fact, because of the problem of mountainous areas, it was relatively difficult to support the Fifth Division.

Song Biao's countermeasure was to divide the Western Front Army into two armies, and at the same time make a strong offensive posture, but in terms of intelligence, he consciously leaked the plan to attack Sinuiju and seize the railway along the road, and repeated the old situation of the Liaoyang Battle of the Russian-Russian War. The hilly terrain of Bochuan and the Daning River built huge fortifications to intercept the main force of the Yue army, and a repetition of the Battle of Liaoyang in this area eliminated the main force of the Yue army through defensive operations.

This information and various ostensibly realistic deployments were simply very Song style, which made Oshima Yoshimasa and the Yue army believe that it was true, and they were unable to mobilize the Sixth Division to the north to support the Fifth Division, and at the same time sent the only reserve brigade of the First Army of the Manchurian Army to Sinuiju.

Actually, this scenario is half right and half wrong.

In short, Song Biao's strategic layout will be greatly beyond the scope of what the army can imagine.

It's getting dark.

More than 1,500 body-barreled artillery pieces concentrated on the fortifications along the river to carry out a covering assault attack, and the cannons deployed on the other side of the river also made their efforts, and even some artillery shells were constantly fired on the estuary island.

The Fifth Division used to be a real steel army, after being wiped out once, the main force was lost, and the officers were drawn from other reserve divisions on a large scale, and the actual combat effectiveness was not as good as before, at this time Lieutenant General Fukuda Yataro served as the division commander of the Fifth Division, but Lieutenant General Fukuda Mataro was not on the defensive line, and it was Major General Takayuki Yamada, the brigade commander of the 9th Brigade, who was responsible for guarding the defense line along the river.

Major General Takayuki Yamada, who was observing the position with a telescope on the ridge near the command post, was startled by the sudden outbreak of large-scale artillery attacks, and the bank along the river, which was only a few hundred meters away from him, was covered by more than 1,000 shells in an instant, and almost all the important strongholds on the four-kilometer-long river bank were within striking range.

Just listening to the sound, Takayuki Yamada confirmed that the enemy's artillery is not only numerous, but also more powerful, with a longer firing range, and the caliber difference is large, 3-inch, 4.8-inch and larger-scale 150mm caliber heavy guns are available, and they are about scattered into fourteen artillery positions for a strong attack.

Takayuki Yamada was completely shocked by this situation, and he suddenly felt that the strength of the opponent was several times higher than that of the Fifth Division and the Manchurian Army, and this battle could not be fought at all.

Takayuki Yamada hurriedly called the 5th Field Artillery Wing directly under the division headquarters, so that the wing could not directly return fire no matter what, but at the same time that he asked the deputy officer of Mu Dasen to send a telegram to the division headquarters, the artillery fire of the Northeast Artillery Army began to extend to the inside of the position with the difference in caliber, and quickly spread to the position of the 5th Field Artillery Wing. The coverage was expanded to attack in depth, and the entire defense line along the river was devastated and suppressed, and the Northeast Army crossed the river on a large scale under the nose of the army, and at the same time sent tens of thousands of militiamen and an engineer brigade to build pontoon bridges.

Takayuki Yamada was the kind of general who was absolutely not afraid of danger, so he took the risk to stand on the hillside near the command post to observe the situation, and through the telescope of the Zeiss company, he was extremely frightened by the large formation he could see.

The Northeast Army's posture of building four pontoon bridges at the same time was too rampant and crazy, and the Ninth Brigade could not stop it at all, so it could only watch the Northeast Army rush over.

It was only a few minutes, and Takayuki Yamada was completely dead, and he knew that he was probably going to return to the shrine sideways today.

He returned to the command post a few dozen paces away and called his superior, Lieutenant General Masataro Fukuda.

After connecting with each other, Major General Takayuki Yamada concisely reported the information, and said to the commander of the Fukuda Mataro Division: "Your Excellency, Division Commander, I am sorry that I will die in a different place from you, maybe before you send troops to support, our department will destroy the whole brigade together, so please give up the plan to defend Shuozhou as soon as possible, shrink the troops back to Guicheng to join the Sixth Division, and be sure to hold Guicheng, the operational plan of the Chinese Army must be to think of a breakthrough and attack Dingzhou all the way." ”

"I don't want you to teach you a lesson about this kind of thing, Yamada-kun, please do your best, the emperor will protect the imperial army and the fortunes of the country."

Lieutenant General Masataro Fukuda seemed a little cold, he really felt that Takayuki Yamada had said too much, now was not the time to show that he was an afterthought, he didn't hear 1500 cannons firing at the same time, he really couldn't understand Takayuki Yamada's despair at the moment.

The powerful artillery unit made the whole battle of crossing the river appear to be unusually smooth, and the 5th Field Artillery Wing was forced to several counterattacks were quickly suppressed by the Northeast Artillery Army, whether in terms of accuracy, range or power, the 38-year-old 75mm mountain gun of the 5th Field Artillery Wing was really not the opponent of the three-inch field gun and the 122mm Schneider field gun, and was quickly suppressed by the dense shells that came from nowhere.

Seeing the boats and militia pouring like ants on the opposite shore, pushing all four pontoon bridges forward at the same time, while his own forward position could not move at all, and it was difficult to suppress the slightest firepower, Takayuki Yamada could only feel a deeper tragedy.

He didn't feel sorry for himself, but he felt that they were so stupid that they would provoke such a war, and he had never known that the Northeast Army had so many barreled artillery.

War is like this, and the strength of the strong is always able to prevail.

In many cases, things in war are not transferred by will, strong is strong, weak is weak, ten times stronger is ten times stronger, and it cannot be reversed by someone's will at all.

The promising Yamada Takanokun-kun has lost any possible countermeasures, and although he is not an exceptionally intelligent person like Akiyama Yoshiko and Kodama Gentaro, he also knows that the army is about to be finished again.

The army has always been the guy whose artillery decides everything.

The opponent's artillery is not only several times larger, but also has an absolute advantage in the quality and caliber of the artillery, and even the training and command level of the artillery is also first-class, at least surpassing the level of the army as Yamada Takayuki knows.

It's really over.

While Yamada Takanokun-kun was disheartened, all the officers and men of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Northeast Army were as excited as if they had been beaten with blood, and rushed ashore under the cover of the 14th Infantry Division, attacked Qingcheng, and swept the coast eastward.

Once the 3rd Infantry Division was allowed to go ashore, it was tantamount to letting the tigers into the mountains and forests, and the cheetahs were running wild, and the trench defense line built by the 9th Infantry Brigade on the high ground on both sides and the defense line in the middle could not stop their attack at all.

Many of the reasons for this are also attributed to the astonishing proportion of military spending occupied by the navy, and it is not only the navy that needs high military spending, but also the abundant military spending, and the army is unable to put the new war theory into practice and action, and even the new equipment that supports the new war theory cannot be introduced.

Theory determines practice, and if we have not even thoroughly understood the military theories of the Franco-Prussian War era, in this era of the new army that is developing rapidly, the armed forces of any country will be rapidly abandoned by the times.

The gap between the two sides in operational theory was exposed almost at the first moment, and the theory of artillery and infantry coordinated operations implemented by the Northeast Army has penetrated extremely deep into the operational rules of the unit and has been familiar and mastered by every noncommissioned officer.

The artillery fire extended forward, the mortar squads of each platoon provided point-type assault and support, the front was the suppression of machine guns, the flanks were flanked by assaults with Popnin submachine guns, and the tactics penetrated from small places, like soapy water penetrating into a sponge, and every little bit of penetration and breakthrough formed the advance of multiple main regiments of the entire infantry division, as well as the retreat and loss of the 9th Infantry Brigade of the army.

The gap between the two sides in theory and equipment was sharply widened, so that the 9th Infantry Brigade's 6,000-strong troops were wiped out in two hours, and the rescue of the 21st Infantry Brigade and a reserve infantry wing was blocked by the rapidly inserted 108th Infantry Regiment, and then the 14th Infantry Division made a detour to attack the flank of the 21st Infantry Brigade, and under the long-range support and deep attack of 122mm howitzers, the 21st Infantry Brigade and the Reserve Infantry Wing were constantly cut into three parts.

The gap between the Northeast Army and the Northeast Army is as big as the gap between the Chinese Navy and the Northeast Army, and this is a very painful thing, because the Fifth Division encountered the most elite Third Integrated Infantry Division of the Northeast Army after all, and the predecessor of the 14th Infantry Division was the Fourth Town of the Beiyang Department and the two main detachments of the Fuzhou Patrol Army.

The cruelty of war never changes because of the opponent, nor because of the gap between the two belligerents, and once the war starts, it will always be cruel.

Thousands of artillery pieces were pushed through the mountains and flat lands one after another, developing backwards and depths layer by layer, bombarding indiscriminately, and only the defensive positions organized by the Yue army on the high ground of the mountains could withstand this kind of attack, but they could not stop the offensive of grenades and mortars, and the cross-suppression of light and heavy machine guns and submachine guns made the Yue army miserable.

On the Chunniling Heights, where the 41st Infantry Wing of the Japanese Army was stationed, the 3rd Infantry Division encountered the most stubborn resistance, and the fire suppression and counter-suppression of both sides continued until the evening, and finally it was forced to call in two 37mm rapid-fire machine guns and several sharpshooters to suppress the opponent hiding in the strong fortress.

The defense on the heights was always superior, and only a few machine guns with no shortage of bullets were needed to frantically suppress the attack of an infantry battalion.

At the same time as encircling the Chunniling Heights, more than 70,000 troops poured up like a tide, encircling and dividing the entire Fifth Division in Shuozhou, and the Sixth Division was forced to rescue in advance and was blocked by the 15th Infantry Division, which was also inserted from the rear row, in the area around Daguanling.

The gap between the two sides in terms of operational theory, equipment level, and personnel scale was too huge, and Army General Yoshimasa Oshima, commander-in-chief of the Manchurian Army, was completely unprepared to deal with such a large-scale Northeast Army; after the Northeast Army concentrated its main forces to besiege the Fifth Division and launch the river-crossing offensive, the Fifth Division and the Sixth Division were quickly contained, and before the Third Army of the Manchurian Army came from Pyongyang for reinforcements, the second major offensive of forcibly crossing the river at the ferry port on the west side of Taiping Bay was opened again, and in the absence of support from other troops, The 3rd Division of the Japanese Army, which was stationed at Uiju and Sinuiju, could hardly divide its forces to intercept this large-scale river-crossing offensive.

After the 3rd Infantry Division occupied the Chunniling Heights, Song Biao personally arrived at the front line to inspect.

Thousands of wounded were rushed to field hospitals along the banks of the river and on the island at the mouth of the river, while the prisoners of the Japanese army were taken back to the prisoner concentration camp in the Hejiagou area.

Labor is always an important resource.

In the original plan, all the captives would be imprisoned in the area of Kuandian to do manual labor, responsible for opening mountains and roads, transporting stones and stones, and using this opportunity to build a permanent railway bridge and stone bridge on Hekou Island to connect Kuandian and Shuozhou.

The reason why the Northeast Army wanted to build such a bridge was the same reason that the army had to garrison Shuozhou, which was to occupy this large gold mining area between Soju and Taecheon in North Korea, which, according to the exploration estimates of the Far East Mining Corporation, contained at least more than 1,000 tons of gold.

This is an asset that is impossible to give up, both for Yuben and for China, and the reason why Yuben took the risk of fighting this battle is largely because of the direct reason to occupy this gold mining area.

Song Biao stopped on the mountain road to watch, and coldly watched as hundreds of prisoners of war and the wounded of the Yue army supported each other, escorted by the militia team, and went all the way south.

What a tragic thing war is.

Whether they won or lost, killed or wounded, the soldiers didn't even get a single bit of gold.

If the officers and men of the Northeast Army fought to defend the territory and the great recovery of the Chinese nation, then what did the officers and men of the Yue Army fight for?

For the sake of aggression and oppression of the Chinese people?

What an ugly people!

(To be continued)