On March 31, 1884, after half a month of "painful marching", the Japanese First and Second Armies withdrew to Pyongyang one after another, while the Third Army had just arrived at Anju, 75 kilometers from Pyongyang, on the banks of the Cheongchon River.

The hardships and hardships along the way were unimaginable, and the Japanese army relied on robbing the Korean people of wheat, mixed beans, and potatoes to sustain their lives. Later, even mules and horses were killed and cooked, including slaughtered war horses.

For the Japanese cavalry, the war horse is a comrade-in-arms, so it would rather die than eat horse meat. But later, he was so hungry that he could only kill those who should be killed, not to mention that some people had already started eating human flesh in private, not to mention horse meat. Seeing that his faith was destroyed, the famous Japanese cavalry general Akiyama Yoshiko committed suicide on the way.

Zuihou, the horse meat has also been eaten, so I can only go to the fields that have just begun to thaw to dig wheat seedlings, hairy grass roots, pick up frozen sweet potatoes, and pick up dried red taro leaves to satisfy hunger.

Exhausted by hunger, the officers and men searched everywhere for something to eat, and all the small villages along the way were repeatedly ransacked several times.

In order to keep warm, even the graves on the side of the road were opened and the coffins inside were dug up for firewood. Hunger and coldness make people desperate, the living suffer, and the dead do not have peace.

Even so, the Japanese troops who were starved to death, frozen, sick, exhausted, and attrition along the way reached tens of thousands, including Prince Nohisa Kita-Shirakawa Miya, the commander of the Guards Division of the Third Army, who also contracted acute pneumonia and died on the way.

The retreat into Pyongyang did not improve the situation of the Japanese army in the slightest, but Kim Ok-gyun and others, who fled from the south, brought even worse news: Inchon had been lost.

Now there is a blockade in front and a chasing army in the rear, and at the same time, the ammunition is exhausted, the attack cannot be attacked, the defense cannot be defended, there is no way to go to the sky, and there is no way to enter the ground.

On the same day, Army Group North had followed to the Kiyocheon River, and on April 1 launched an attack on the Japanese Second Army, the battle was completely one-sided, but the Japanese army still frantically resisted under such a huge disadvantage, and this resistance had completely transcended the category of human beings, but belonged to the category of beasts.

Determined to die for the emperor, these Japanese young men did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives in order to bite the enemy, and refused to surrender even when they were surrounded by regiments, and caused thousands of casualties in the process.

The battle lasted all day, and by dusk there were only sporadic gunfire. The Japanese Second Army suffered a devastating blow, more than 20,000 people were killed, the Guards Division was almost completely annihilated, and the acting division commander, Yamaguchi Sotomi, was killed by bombs. The Fifth Division lost most of its losses, with the commander of the division, Major General Obao Gong, committing suicide by disembowelment, and staff officer Tamura Eszo led more than 4,000 remnants to Pyongyang.

At the same time, Army Group South had also moved north to the area around Shariwon, which was only 100 miles away from Pyongyang.

Seeing that the Chinese were attacking from both sides, Yamasan-Yama Youpeng was helpless and could only order the troops to abandon Pyongyang and go to Wonsan, a port on the eastern coast. Because there were occasionally one or two Japanese transport ships that could sneak across the blockade line to Wonsan. He also had a glimmer of hope for the country, but he did not know that the country had already abandoned these land forces, because for every shipload of material that had to be shipped, it would cost more than a dozen ships to be sunk, so the Japanese government had in fact stopped trying.

However, not all Japanese soldiers were willing to continue to escape, and the long escape exhausted their will, and everyone actually knew in their hearts that even if they fled to Wonsan, it was only a dead end. Under the domination of despair, some officers and soldiers, including commanders, demanded to stay, "preferring to die in Pyongyang rather than starve to death and die of exhaustion on the way to escape."

Eventually, the 1st, 4th, and 5th Divisions remained, and the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Divisions left Pyongyang for Wonsan, and the puppet regime of the Korean Enlightenment Party also survived and followed to Wonsan.

On 4 April, the two armies of the Guards Army in the north and south encircled Pyongyang, and the two sides met at Seonghu and Liupuri, which were left and right in Pyongyang. The top soldiers who had previously reconnoitred had already discovered the division of the Japanese army, so Liu Jintang decided that the Southern Army would be responsible for besieging Pyongyang, and the Northern Army would pursue Wonsan.

By April 9, the Japanese troops who had fled to Wonsan were also surrounded by the Northern Group Corps, which had arrived later, so that on the Korean Peninsula, the main force of the Japanese army was divided in half and besieged separately, and the day of Zuihou was soon approaching.

At this time in Tianjin, the Japanese negotiating delegation was also living like a year, and the Chinese left them here without asking, three meals a day, and were not allowed to go anywhere, completely like prisoners, which made these Japanese deeply humiliated, and Kuroda Kiyotaka was even more angry and wanted to commit suicide.

Although they did not have freedom, they were still able to see the situation of the war in Korea from the Chinese newspapers that were delivered every day, and the contents were "where they were captured today" and "how many Japanese died today." and so on, which made these negotiators suffer a lot, thinking that China was trying to make it clear that Japan did not have any bargaining chips in its hands. They feel like a flock of lambs to the slaughter.

By mid-April, Pyongyang had become a hell on earth, and there were dead Japanese officers and soldiers everywhere, and at first they organized corpse collection teams to pick up corpses on the road, and then no one cared about them.

In broad daylight, wild dogs eat people on the road, growing fat and strong, and people eat dogs. It won't be long before the wild dogs won't be seen, and they've all been eaten.

Inside the house, outside the house, at the door, on the side of the road, there were dead people everywhere, their skin was green, and their bones were white and flowery. The weather had begun to warm up, and after a few days, the corpses had begun to decompose, and there were black-pressed green-headed flies everywhere, and maggots were everywhere. The Chinese guards outside the city are not afraid of the sky or the earth, and they are most afraid of strong winds, and when a strong wind blows, the smell will make people dizzy.

In this inhuman shijie, a part of the relatively weak-willed Japanese army finally began to surrender. Among them, the 4th Division stationed in Mudantai in the east of the city came from Osaka, and many of its members were originally small traders and hawkers, and their minds were a little flexible, but now they are thinking about finding a way to survive.

On April 17, after a riot, the commander of the 4th Division, Hasegawa Yoshimichi, finally surrendered with 8,000 remnants at the behest of the soldiers, while his deputy, Yasumasa Fukushima, scolded him for being a coward and subsequently committed suicide.

After the surrender of the 4th Division, the eastern gate was wide open, and the Guards took advantage of the situation to enter Pyongyang City, and the remnants of the 5th Division were held strongly.

Zuihou only the 1st Division was still holding on to the area of Xicheng, and the Guards were persuaded to surrender many times, and the Japanese commanders Nozu Michikan, Ueno Yusaku, and Prince Arisugawa Michihito, etc., insisted on not surrendering.

On April 19, Feng Zicai ordered a general attack, more than 20 heavy artillery, more than 200 light field artillery, like a mountain of seas, so that these Japanese troops completely understood the gap between China and Japan in weapons and equipment, the division chief of staff Ueno Yusaku told Nozu Michikan before he died: "We don't know ourselves and don't know the other, we start a war rashly, and we will destroy ourselves, and the country will have many disasters and difficulties since then, and we can't turn a blind eye to death!" ”

Nozu Michikan Zuihou also committed suicide by caesarean section and entrusted Prince Arisugawa Miyashihito to serve as the "interrogator". Prince Ariasu Kawanomiya Chihito then wanted to commit suicide, but after he cut his belly twice, his desire to survive suddenly increased, and he didn't want to die, so Zuihou became a prisoner of the Guards, and this was the first royal family to be captured alive by China!

By dark, the battle was completely over, with a total of nearly 40,000 Japanese troops, 8,000 surrendered, 2,000 captured, the rest nearly 30,000 killed, and the Guards also lost 2,000.

At this time, Wonsan was also staging Zuihou's struggle.

Yama County Youpeng ordered the 2nd Division to garrison the outskirts of Wonsan and the 6th Division to defend the city, and ordered all troops to resist desperately. And Yama Prefecture himself, as well as Katsura Taro, Prince Akihito Komatsumiya, and staff officer Ogawa Mataji, with the 3rd Division, actually cut down trees on a large scale on the coast of Motosan, and had already made thousands of wooden rafts, in an attempt to escape to the island, and even to Japan.

On the 17th, Liu Jintang gave an order, and the general offensive began!