In August and September 1904, the Japanese army launched two large-scale attacks in Liaoyang, and although certain results were achieved in the offensive war, they were forced into a stalemate because of the stubborn resistance of the Russian army, and then developed into a war of attrition.

Since July, Japan and Russia have been in contact with each other in the Liaoyang area, and then the two sides have successively increased their troops and launched an offensive or counteroffensive, and the Japanese strength alone has increased from tens of thousands to more than 100,000 to more than 200,000, and the strength of the Russian army has also been reinforced from less than 100,000 to more than 300,000, but in this process, there are also many dead and wounded on both sides, and at least 80,000 Japanese troops on the Liaoyang front line alone have been killed, and more than 10 people have been injured.

More than 20,000 people died due to diseases such as trench foot, beriberi, and frostbite.

The Russian army on the opposite side is no better there, although the Russian army adopts a strategic defensive posture in the Liaoyang meat grinder, but even if it is a strategic defense, it is necessary to carry out a local counterattack, in this battle of Liaoyang, which has been going on for five months, the actual battle situation is that the two sides are constantly fighting for certain strategic points, and then forming a war of attrition with heavy casualties.

For example, Shiguantun and Mantou Mountain, the strategic support points on the left flank of the Liaoyang Campaign, have changed hands more than 30 times on both sides in the past few months, and almost the entire Mantou Mountain is covered with the corpses of soldiers on both sides, and the shells fired by the artillery of both sides have almost flattened Mantou Mountain.

In the face of such a predicament, both the Russian army and the Japanese army are at a loss, for the Japanese army to be unable to take Liaoyang, and the inability to take Fengtian means that it will not be able to lay the victory in Manchuria, once the Russian army has received enough reinforcements one after another, and then launched a large-scale counteroffensive, then it is impossible to guarantee whether it can be stopped, including Dashanyan.

The strategic situation of the Russian army is also bad, because the army was blocked on the Liaoyang line, Kuropatkin successively sent troops south twice in June and October, trying to break through the Japanese blockade to rescue Lushun, and then they were intercepted by the Japanese army and failed, not only failed but also suffered heavy losses.

In that reinforcement operation in October, he commanded nearly 300,000 troops to launch a local counteroffensive, and tried to cover the 60,000-strong Lushun reinforcement detachment to the south, but was strongly intercepted by the Japanese army, and finally the reinforcement detachment was forced to retreat after more than 20,000 dead and wounded, which also declared the complete failure of the second Lushun rescue operation of the Russian army, and the Russian army has not been able to organize the third rescue operation in the months after the defeat.

As for the Lushun side, it is still the same, although the Japanese army is not afraid of death and injury, but still has no way to take the Lushun fortress, it is worth noting that the casualties of the Japanese army in the Battle of Lushun are not much larger than Zhao Dongyun expected.

Although Nogi Noshinori has been shouting for the meat 'bomb charge, but in the face of the Lushun fortress whose defensive strength is much stronger than the history, Nogi Noshinori did not stubbornly let the soldiers launch a death charge as in history, because it has been fully proved in the previous Lushun operation and the Liaoyang operation that the meat 'bomb tactic does not work.

In addition, in the past few months, the Japanese army has suffered heavy losses on the Liaoyang front, and in order to intercept the large-scale counteroffensive of the Russian army in October, the Japanese army's first and third armies have suffered extremely heavy losses.

In this case, after Nogi Noshinori launched the first general attack and suffered heavy casualties, even if his head was muddy, it was impossible to let the soldiers die in vain, so he adopted the construction of many subordinates, and took the approach of digging trenches and gradually approaching the surprise attack, blasting, and continuous shelling of a large number of heavy artillery, anyway, it was slowly grinding.

However, this practice of the Japanese army made the Japanese navy quite dissatisfied, especially after the Second Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy had already set off from the Baltic Sea in October, and the Japanese navy was even more dissatisfied with the delay of the Japanese army in attacking Arthur.

Many officers of the Young Zhuang faction of the Japanese Navy even clamored for the heavenly punishment of Nogi Noshinori, who had been unable to conquer Lushun for a long time, and many people even ran to Nogi Noshinori's house to throw stones to protest his incompetence in the Battle of Lushun.

History is so funny, in history, Nogi Noshinori was severely criticized by the country for insisting on launching an attack on Lushun, which caused heavy casualties to the Third Army, but Nogi Noshinori in this time and space was blamed for being conservative and delaying the launch of the second general attack on Lushun.

In fact, it is difficult for both the Japanese navy and the Japanese people to understand the current predicament of the Japanese army; if it is said that in the first few months of the war, the army fought extremely smoothly, but in the last few months, the army has fought extremely hard.

The Liaoyang front, which has been stalemate for several months, needs to be filled with the lives of many soldiers and countless shells every day, not to mention launching an offensive from Liaoyang to break through the Russian defense line, and even now it is extremely difficult to defend against the Russian army's counteroffensive.

In this case, the Japanese army finally made a different choice from history, at the end of November, the Fifth Army, which was reorganized by the Yalu River Army, left the Yalu River defense line, but they did not follow the temporary military railway all the way north to reinforce the Liaoyang front, but turned to the northeast and went to the Xingjing area, and looking at the march route of the Fifth Army, then you will find that their target is no longer Liaoyang, or even Mukden, but has become the Liaoyuan and Changtu areas in the north of Fengtian.

Its strategic purpose is very obvious, that is, it will be hoped that the Fifth Army, a new force, will bypass Liaoyang, and then capture Changtu and then cut off the railway connection from Mukden to Changchun, Vladivostok and the Russian mainland, once it can capture Changtu and cut off the railway connection between Fengtian and Jilin and Heilongjiang, then it can be said that the supply line of the Russian army on the first line of Liaoyang and Fengtian has been cut off.

There is nothing worse for a modern army than being cut off from supply lines!

At the same time, the Russian army also transferred all the troops of Changchun Prefecture, Jilin Prefecture, and Hailong Prefecture to evacuate all the troops, and then marched south between Tuchang and Xingjing. Then I will dare to cut off the supply lines and retreat routes of your Fifth Army, and I don't know who will surround who at that time!

After entering December, the war situation between Japan and Russia seemed to have suddenly changed from the previous positional war to a mobile war, as if the Liaoyang front, which had devoured hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the two armies, was no longer important, and the strategic center of gravity suddenly shifted to Changtu, Xingjing, and other places.

However, the reason for this situation is actually because the Liaoyang front line is too perverted, both the Japanese army and the Russian army have been operating here for several months, and almost the entire front line is trenches and fortresses, and there is no way to break through from the front, so in this case, the Japanese army seeks to break through from other directions, and it is normal for the Russian army to also want to take this opportunity to launch a counterattack against the Japanese army from the flank.

However, the good wishes of the commanders of both sides were not realized, and the Japanese Fifth Army was not able to go to Changtu at all, and was initially intercepted by the Russian army in the area of Dongliao, but the interception of the Russian army failed, but at this time, the Japanese generals found that a large number of Russian troops were found in Hailong and other places in the northeast, and the Japanese Fifth Army took the initiative to retreat for fear of being encircled.

Immediately after the two sides came into contact in the area of Liuhe, and a large-scale field battle broke out, this time the battle was different from the same positional battle in Liaoyang, because both sides did not have enough time to prepare, so that this battle became one of the few battles in the Russo-Japanese War with a strong Franco-Prussian style of fighting, the machine guns on both sides basically did not play a big role, but the cavalry on both sides played a very large role.

The Akiyama Yoshiko Cavalry Detachment, which retreated from the Liaoyang front and reinforced to the Fifth Army, broke the protection of the Russian infantry with a strong attack when the two sides first came into contact, and successfully destroyed the artillery of two entire battalions of the Russian army. But the cavalry of the Russian army is not bad, they do not play strong attacks, but learn from Akiyama Yoshiko a few months ago, directly use the cavalry's horses to pull more than a dozen heavy machine guns around the Japanese flank, and then build a machine gun position on the spot to act as a reef in the torrent, not only killing and injuring many Japanese soldiers, but even forcing the Japanese army to abandon the original route to the west.

It has to be said that although the machine gun shines in this war, the cavalry has not lost its great strategic value, and the cavalry units on both sides still play an important role, not to mention the traditional reconnaissance and circumambulation, and the most important thing is that the mobility of the cavalry is still irreplaceable by other arms.

When the cavalry becomes horse infantry, they can use their mobility to maneuver behind the enemy in a short time, and if they bring cavalry guns and heavy machine guns, they can still play a huge strategic role.

In this contact battle in the area of Liuhe, it is difficult to determine the victory or defeat of the two sides, because everyone suffered similar casualties, all of them killed or wounded about seven or eight thousand people, and none of them achieved their respective strategic goals. The purpose of the Fifth Army was not to escape, they were originally going to capture Changtu, Liaoyuan and other places, and the purpose of the Russian army was to try to stop this Japanese army from behind.

Now after the two sides fought a battle in the area of the Liuhe River, the Japanese Fifth Army was forced to retreat to the southwest, and the Russian army did not dare to pursue because of its considerable losses and the emptiness of its two wings.

That is to say, a series of exchanges between the two sides around the east of Fengtian did not change the situation of Liaoyang and Fengtian, and the Japanese and Russian sides were still in a stalemate, but with the increase of the warring forces on both sides, the extension of the battle line was actually not limited to Liaoyang now, and by March 1905, the battle between the two sides was still centered on Fengtian, and broke out at the same time on multiple fronts such as Liaoyang, Benxi, and Liuhe.

In the direction of Lushun, Nogi Noshinori was forced to launch a second general offensive in December last year due to strong domestic pressure, and after more than 10,000 people were killed and wounded, he gave up the attack, and then hoarded supplies and replenished troops, while also waiting for the winter to pass. It was not until March 1905 that Nogi Noshinori, who had been criticized at home, launched a third general attack on Lushun, hoping to capture Lushun in one fell swoop before the Russian Pacific Second Fleet arrived in the Far East.

When Japan and Russia come and go, China does not stop, and Zhao Dongyun naturally does not pay too much attention to other things, but the political changes in Fengtian in March made Zhao Dongyun nervous all of a sudden.

In March, news came from Baoding and Jingshi that the imperial court, which was dissatisfied with the continued deterioration of the situation in Fengtian, was about to recall Zengqi back to Beijing to report on his work.

Zengqi returned to Beijing to report on his work, whether it would be over or even end his political career, but the overall situation of Fengtian cannot be left unattended for a day, that is to say, during Zengqi's return to Beijing to report on his work, no matter whether Zengqi returns to continue to be his Shengjing general or the imperial court appoints someone else to be the new Shengjing general.

During this period, it is necessary for someone to take charge of Fengtian's affairs first, that is, there must be an 'acting General Shengjing' to take full control of Fengtian's military and civilian affairs during the period of Zengqi's debriefing.