In late March 1904, after more than a month of preparations, the Japanese army finally crossed the Tsushima Strait, landed from the Korean town of Nampo, and quickly advanced to the north, at the same time the Russian army also completed the initial build-up.

It is worth mentioning that in this war, although the Russian army was full of confidence and arrogance, maintained a general contemptuous attitude towards the Japanese army, calling the war a 'military walk', and believing that one Russian soldier could defeat three Japanese soldiers.

The reason for this boasting and contempt for the Japanese army is not that the top generals of the Russian army are stupid, but out of the need to encourage morale, although the Russian navy was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War in history, the army's appearance is still okay, and it is not as vulnerable as later generations generally believe, here look at the comparison of casualties between the Russian army and the Japanese army, and the Japanese army has many more dead and wounded than the Russian army.

Although the Russian army generally maintained a contemptuous attitude towards the Japanese army, the military strategy adopted was very conservative and cautious, and after more than a month of the war, the Russian army did not enter Korea in an offensive posture, but instead gathered its forces on the north bank of the Yalu River, the Liaodong Peninsula, Yingkou to Haicheng, plus the Liaoyang and Mukden areas, and put on a defensive posture.

Because many high-ranking generals of the Russian army believe that even if a Russian soldier can defeat three Japanese soldiers, they should still take defense when the number of troops in the early stage of the war is too small, wait for reinforcements from the mainland, and only launch a counteroffensive after forming a threefold superiority in troops, go directly south to Korea, and then land on the Japanese mainland with the cooperation of the navy.

Although this strategy of the Russian army was considered too conservative and pedantic by many later generations, it was a realistic strategy for the Russian army at that time, but although the Russian Minister of War Aleksey 61 Kurobetkin, who formulated this strategic plan, was cautious and conservative enough, he did not estimate that the combat effectiveness of the Russian army had declined.

In particular, the middle and high-level generals can be said to be the worst in Russia's thousand-year history, after the commander of the East Manchurian detachment, Lieutenant General Zasulich, led his troops to be stationed on the north bank of the Yalu River, he did not order the reinforcement of a large number of fortifications, and the reserves that accounted for half of the total strength were deployed 10 kilometers behind the battle line, and the front-line troops were scattered and attached to a wide front, not only the infantry battlefield did not have any cover, even the artillery positions did not have any cover.

When General Fogk of the South Manchurian detachment defended Jinzhou, the 18,000-strong Fourth Division sent only one infantry regiment to participate in the battle, and when the Japanese army attacked Jinzhou in the ensuing year, the main force remained stationary, and sat back and watched the Jinzhou garrison be defeated by the tenfold Japanese attack......

This kind of military deployment, which is almost mentally retarded and can even be brought to court-martial, is not at all like an arrangement made by a professional modern general, and he can do better than them if he is commanded by a grassroots officer of the Beiyang New Army.

In this way, the Japanese army in the Russo-Japanese War is like opening the halo of the protagonist, well, the point is not how awesome the protagonist is, but how mentally retarded the opponent is......

In the Russo-Japanese War, in fact, the combat effectiveness of the Russian soldiers and the suzhì of the basic officers were quite good, in line with the level of the Western powers, but the suzhì of the senior generals was outrageous.

Zhao Dongyun knew in his memory that the Russian army would be defeated, but he did not study the Russo-Japanese War in detail in his previous life, and even he had never heard the name Kurobertkin in his previous life.

So at this time, he didn't know that several high-level generals in the Russian army were all in the country, but when the Russian army adopted a conservative strategy, Chen Bing on the north bank of the Yalu River, the line from Yingkou to Haicheng and the Liaodong Peninsula, he still agreed with this strategic deployment, thinking that the Russian commander Kurobertkin still had a strategic vision.

He even thought that if the Russian army of more than 20,000 people guarded the Yalu River, even if it was more conservative, it should not be a problem to block the Japanese First Army.

However, his estimate of the Russian army was still too optimistic, and the Russian army's East Manchurian detachment was completely defeated by the Japanese First Army in less than a month, and the department was forced to retreat to Liaoyang, while the Japanese First Army was out of the Phoenix area after capturing Jiulian City, and the front of the troops was directed at Liaoyang.

After the victory of the first phase of the First Army, the Second Army of Japan also landed on the Liaodong Peninsula with the support of the navy, and launched an attack on Lushun from north to south, and then approached Jinzhou at the end of May.

The situation of the war has developed to such an extent that it can be declared that the first phase of the Japanese operation has been a complete success, with the First Army in the Korean direction gaining the door to advance into the northeastern hinterland, and the Second Army successfully cutting off the land connection between Arthur and Mukden.

"The next move of the Japanese army is not difficult to predict, it is nothing more than the capture of Lushun and the north to Mukden!" In the headquarters of the third town of Jinzhou, Zhao Dongyun and a large group of officers in the third town gathered around a simple sand table to express their opinions.

Although the Third Town did not participate in the war between Japan and Russia, Zhao Dongyun and other officers of the Third Town still maintained great attention to this war that happened around them, in addition to paying attention to the movements of the Japanese and Russian armies at any time to prevent them from undermining China's external neutrality and entering the western Liaoning region, they also paid close attention to the specific situation of the two armies, mastered a lot of military intelligence of the two armies and some tactics used by the Japanese and Russian armies, and so on.

The large-scale war between Japan and Russia will undoubtedly affect the development of the world's army, after all, this is not the battle between Britain and those natives in South Africa a few years ago, this is a large-scale war between the two countries with modern civilizations, and the appearance of the army and navy of the two sides can be said to have attracted the attention of relevant military personnel around the world.

Naturally, the Beiyang New Army, which was staying on the sidelines, would not let go of this opportunity, from openly dispatching military attaches to observe the battle and collecting secret or public information on its own, trying to obtain more information from this war.

Meng Enyuan continued to point to the sand table and said: "The next step for the Japanese army, the most likely is to leave a part to contain Lushun, and then the main force will go north, and attack Mukden after joining up with their first army, as long as they can take Mukden, then they will win more than half of this war!" ”

However, as soon as his words fell, Chen Guangyuan said: "If the nail of Lushun is not taken, the Russian Navy will be able to use this forward naval base to attack the Japanese supply line on the west coast of Korea at any time, how can the main force of the Japanese army be able to safely go north on a large scale?" ”

"Lushun is run by the Russians like a hedgehog, how can it be conquered lightly?" Meng Enyuan, as a cavalry general, is good at long-distance raids, and naturally has no good impression of attacking fortresses, in his opinion, the Japanese army will definitely not gnaw on the hard bone of Lushun, but should leave a part of the force to contain Lushun, the main force quickly went north to Mukden, and after taking Mukden and even taking Vladivostok, even if there is still one Lushun left in this war, it is a victory.

Wang Zhanyuan on the side said: "Doesn't it mean that the European fleet of the Russians has already set off for Asia, if they can rely on the forward base of Lushun after arriving in Asia, the Japanese themselves will have no way to maintain the supply line on the west coast of Korea, and may even be defeated by the navy." Once the Japanese navy is defeated, then this war will be lost! ”

Zhao Dongyun nodded secretly after listening to Wang Zhanyuan's words, this person's point of view is not like that of a traditional army officer, most of the army officers present basically focused on the army battlefield, thinking that the Japanese army would be able to win after capturing Mukden.

But in fact, it is not so simple, and when fighting against an island country like Japan, especially if it is still fighting across the sea, it is good to be able to win on land, but if it cannot be won, as long as it defeats the navy of Japan itself, then it can also win the war.

For Russia, even if the army is defeated, but if the navy can defeat the Japanese navy, then the victory will still belong to Russia.

If you consider it from this point of view, then you will find that Lushun is a strategic point for the Japanese army to determine the outcome of the war, and Russia may not lose if it loses Lushun, but if Japan can't fight, it will definitely lose......

However, Wang Zhanyuan said so, naturally some people disagreed with his opinion, Chen Guangyuan just quickly spoke: "There are many troops needed to conquer Lushun, and it takes a long time to conquer the Lushun fortress, if too many main forces are dragged in Lushun, then it will have a heavy impact on the capture of Mukden, and many generals in Japan will never fail to see this......

Zhao Dongyun watched his officers spitting and arguing, but he didn't say anything, today's argument is not a formal military meeting, but just looking at the strategic deployment of Japan and Russia from the perspective of a third party, mainly to improve the tactical literacy of his officers.

After an argument, Chen Guangyuan suddenly said: "But as far as I know, there are a lot of machine guns on the Russian side, but they don't seem to be used much?" ”

The Beiyang New Army is equipped with a large number of heavy machine guns, so they are also more concerned about the heavy machine guns of both sides during the Russo-Japanese War, but they found that the Russian army has a large number of heavy machine guns, and the Japanese army seems to have them but not much, but the Russian army, which is equipped with a large number of heavy machine guns, has not brought out the power of heavy machine guns.

They didn't know that in addition to the original machine guns, the Russian army purchased about 100 heavy machine guns from Zhao Dongyun in January, but they were not additionally assigned to the East Manchurian and South Manchurian detachments, some of which were assigned to the Kwantung detachment on the Lushun side, and the other part were assigned to the main force in Mukden.

The East Manchurian detachment and the South Manchurian detachment that fought against the Japanese army before did not receive additional machine guns, so it is normal for Chen Guangyuan and others not to see a large number of heavy machine guns brought out by the Russian army to fight!

Just listening to Chen Guangyuan talk about machine guns, Zhao Dongyun had some expectations, how much damage could the Russian army, which has almost twice the number of machine guns in history, cause to the Japanese army?

The Japanese army all over the mountains and fields launched a dense formation to charge the machine gun positions of the Russian army, but they fell one by one, this scene is really exciting!

After the Japanese suffered too many casualties and lost the original small advantage in history, could they still capture Lushun? It was also possible to capture Mukden, and if it could, how many more casualties would the Japanese have compared to history? 50,000 or 100,000?

What if the Japanese army suffered too many casualties than the historical ones, thus changing the outcome of history, for example, if the Japanese army failed to take Lushun? For example, the Japanese army failed to take Mukden? How will the situation develop then?

Zhao Dongyun himself can't say for sure about these problems, but the only thing he can be sure of is that if history doesn't change, then he won't get any benefits, so no matter what the changes are in the future, Zhao Dongyun has to let it change, whether it's good or bad and change history first!

It's still the same sentence, it's good to touch the fish when the water is muddy!