In the great battle between the Japanese navy and the Russian navy in the Tsushima Strait, although the Japanese navy won a crushing victory at the cost of killing 1,000 enemies and losing 800 of itself, in any case, the Japanese navy achieved the strategic goal of Heihachiro Togo, that is, to send most of the Russian warships to the bottom of the sea.

Although a small number of warships, including three Russian battleships, fled to Vladivostok, the Japanese then mobilized a detachment to follow them and completely blocked the exit from Vladivostok.

As a result, although the Japanese navy suffered heavy losses and could not even muster a few capital ships to escort the convoy, the Japanese navy still controlled the sea supremacy, and the Japanese sea supply and transportation lines were reopened after being threatened and blocked by the Russian navy for a month, and a large number of Japanese transport planes departed from various ports and then went to Andong at the mouth of the Yalu River and several ports on the Liaodong Peninsula, sending a large amount of supplies to the Japanese army that lacked ammunition supplies.

Sometimes the victory or defeat of the war is not based on how much the two sides lose, but on whether their respective strategic objectives have been achieved, and in the contest between the Japanese and Russian navies, it is obvious that the Russian navy has suffered a crushing defeat, and it has failed to complete the task of blocking Japan's supply lines on the sea. Relatively speaking, the Japanese navy was naturally victorious, and it ensured the smooth flow of supply lines at sea.

However, the victory of the Japanese navy did not increase their chances of victory for their army, and although the sea supply line was reopened, the Japanese could have regained supplies from the Yellow Sea during the Mukden operation, but the Japanese army still could not change much on the Mukden battlefield.

In front of the cloth machine gun fortress and barbed wire and trenches, the so-called "decisive battle of Mukden" plan launched by the Japanese army in March 1905 was declared a failure after only eight days, during which the Japanese army once again tried to go around the heavily defended Liaoyang and detour to Mukden from the east, but at the beginning of the detour was intercepted by the Russian cavalry, and the Russian Cossack cavalry who pulled heavy machine guns and cavalry guns had already given up their sabers and used machine guns to build a battle line as an interception point, and the 5,000 Russian cavalry blocked the detour of the day. The Fifth Army's nearly 60,000 men lasted for a whole day, which can be called a model of cavalry interception warfare in modern history.

When the main Russian forces were mobilized, more than 60,000 Japanese Fifth Army and more than 50,000 Russian troops engaged in fierce battles, and then formed a war of attrition in which the tactical points were repeatedly contested, and finally the Japanese Fifth Army, which suffered more than half of the casualties, was forced to stop the offensive.

If we add the coordinated operations on the secondary front, in this 'Fengtian decisive battle', the Japanese army successively invested more than 300,000 troops, and the opposite Russia was even more, reaching more than 400,000 people, from the beginning of the Fifth Army's detour to the end of the Japanese army's offensive, it took eight days, the Japanese army had more than 20,000 people, and more than 60,000 people were wounded.

And how much have they achieved? The Liaoyang front advanced about 100 meters, and the northeast front advanced about 10 kilometers in a roundabout way, but after being intercepted by the Russian army, it did not advance an inch, and finally was forced to retreat back to the starting point, which means that the northeast front line did not make any advance.

In addition, 20,000 Russian troops were killed and 70,000 wounded.

The reason why the casualties on both sides were so large was not because both Japan and Russia were so stupid to rush directly to the machine gun fortresses and barbed wire on the Liaoyang front, but because after the campaign was launched, both sides repeatedly fought over some tactical points, and then formed a brutal war of attrition.

After this 'decisive battle of Mukden', the Japanese army, which suffered heavy losses, also had no ability to continue the offensive, and it was good that the Russian army could hold it, and there was no way to carry out a counteroffensive at all, so in the months after March, the front line of Liaoyang and Mukden was relatively calm, and both Japan and Russia were licking their wounds and accumulating strength to launch the next battle.

So in the summer of 1905, the land battles between Japan and Russia were mainly concentrated in Arthur!

In June 1905, the Japanese Third Army launched its fourth general assault on Arthur Fortress, and the purpose of this general attack was very clear, that is, to conquer Heights 203 and then drive the Russian fleet out of Port Arthur.

Nogi Noshinori's strategy is so clear, the Russian side naturally knows the importance of the 203 heights, and on June 8, the Japanese army conquered the 203 heights for the first time, but only a few hours later, it was recaptured by the forces organized by the Russian army.

Then, throughout the month of June, the Japanese conquered Heights 203 four times, but the occupation time was relatively short, and the longest was only three days.

It's just that although the Japanese army has not completely conquered the 203 heights at that time, in the face of the Russian army, which has run out of ammunition and food, it is a matter of time before the 203 heights are conquered, so that the Russian fleet is forced to leave Arthur, and there is the later naval battle of the Russo-Japanese Tsushima Strait.

Since our fleet has left Port Arthur, Port Arthur has lost its due strategic value as a strategic support point for striking Japan's supply lines at sea, and there is no need to continue to hold on to the 203 Heights, considering that our own ammunition and troops are already insufficient, and considering that Port Arthur's final task is to delay as much as possible in order to contain Japan's own forces.

Therefore, the commander of the Russian Kwantung Army, Konstantin 61 Smirnov, ordered to take the initiative to abandon the 203 heights in order to avoid continuing to consume troops with the Japanese, and then concentrate valuable troops and ammunition in the headquarters of the Arthur fortress.

When the Battle of Lushun has been carried out to this point, it can be said that the result of the Battle of Lushun has been predicted by everyone, and it is only a matter of time before the Japanese army conquers Lushun, and the only question is how many casualties does the Japanese need to pay to take Lushun?

However, after the brutal war of attrition on the 203 Heights, the troops and ammunition in the hands of Nogi Noshinori were very scarce, and at this time, Lushun had lost its threat to the Japanese's naval and land armies, so despite Nogi Noshinori's opposition, the commander of the Manchurian Army, Dashan Yan, ordered to suspend the attack on the Lushun fortress, and then transferred more than half of the troops of the Third Army to the Liaoyang front line north.

That is to say, at this time, the Japanese army has actually given up on continuing to attack Lushun, and anyway, whether it can be conquered or not conquered will not have much impact on the war situation, so naturally there is no need to sacrifice the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers to forcibly conquer it.

After the crushing victory of the Japanese navy, the Japanese urgently needed to concentrate their forces to conquer Mukden in order to achieve a decisive victory and end this damned war.

The Sixth Army was formed in late July with two divisions and regiments drawn from the Lushun front, plus three divisions and regiments reinforced from within the country.

In the following months of July and August, countless men and supplies were transported from Japan's homeland, and they prepared to launch a larger battle.

On the one hand, it continued to transfer troops and materials from the country through the Guò Far Eastern Railway, and on the other hand, it collected all kinds of war materials from the northeast to deal with the next offensive of the Japanese army.

Naturally, a deal with Zhao Dongyun is indispensable here!

"Mr. Andrey, how is it, the last batch of machine guns are still satisfactory to your army?" Zhao Dongyun smiled and took the bank check handed over by Andre.

Andrei said: "According to the reaction of our army, the performance is quite good, not inferior to what our country has produced at all, but the quantity is still too small!" ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "Now the amount of forty heavy machine guns a month is a lot, and most of the machine guns of the Fuyuan Machine Factory have been taken away by you!" ”

Since the Russians sent people to help Zhao Dongyun set up a heavy machine gun production line last year, the Fuyuan Machinery Factory soon set up a production line for MG01 heavy machine guns, with a monthly output of as many as 50 units, but most of these outputs were sold by the Russians, and the remaining 10 or so per month were purchased by the Beiyang army.

Andrei naturally knew that it would be difficult for him to get more machine guns from Zhao Dongyun, he was just habitually complaining!

From the beginning of 1904 to the present, the arms trade between Zhao Dongyun and the Russians has been going on for a year and a half, and both the Russians and Zhao Dongyun have reaped a lot of benefits from it.

Although the Russians seem to have paid an expensive price, they have obtained a lot of valuable war materials, especially heavy machine guns, in 1904, half of the heavy machine guns used by the Russian army were sold to them by Zhao Dongyun, although the proportion dropped a lot in 1905, but you can easily see the Fuzao heavy machine guns sold to them by Zhao Dongyun.

These weapons and ammunition are difficult for the Russian army to buy!

On the other hand, Zhao Dongyun also reaped huge profits, the weapons and ammunition he sold to the Russians were basically doubled, and if the purchase price was one tael of silver, he basically sold two taels of silver, even if he subtracted many costs such as transportation and personnel, Zhao Dongyun also made a profit.

However, nominally all this money was earned by Zhao Dongyun, but in fact, this money cannot be said to be Zhao Dongyun's private property, but belongs to the collective property of the third town, and it is included in the small treasury of the third town, but then again, this small treasury cannot be put on the table, and it was controlled by Zhao Dongping from the beginning, and even Chen Guangyuan knew how much money the small treasury of the third town had, not to mention Wang Zhanyuan and them.

Because the accounts are not public, so in the past two years, the small treasury of the third town has gradually become Zhao Dongyun's private treasury, this year Zhao Dongyun has quietly taken at least 500,000 silver from it, of course, he took these silver not to eat, flowers, etc., but to invest in several subsidiaries of Fuyuan Yarn Factory, in order to let the Zhao family continue to control the many subsidiaries under his name.

In a certain sense, Zhao Dongyun's behavior can be regarded as embezzlement of public funds and embezzlement of collective property.

The 500,000 yuan taken by Zhao Dongyun is a small head, and the big head of the small treasury in the third town is still used to raise the army.

Zhao Dongyun now has the third town and two Fengtian mixed associations, although the third town is supported by the imperial court, but there is a shortage of tens of thousands of taels of silver every month, and as for the two Fengtian mixed associations, Zhao Dongyun has to raise them.

Fengtian's property income is so small, Zhao Dongyun has to rely on his own small treasury to raise the army, but it is not a matter of relying on the small treasury accumulated by fishing for deviations, so Zhao Dongyun has to find a way to make money, otherwise as soon as the Russo-Japanese War is over, without the profits of the ordnance trade, he can't afford to raise a town and two mixed associations.