In the autumn of 1905, the eyes of the imperial court were focused on the peace negotiations after the end of the Russo-Japanese War and the constitutional controversy internally. For Shandong Province, no one pays attention to it for the time being.

In fact, before the Battle of Mukden was settled, the Russian Baltic Fleet (renamed the Second Pacific Fleet) came to the aid of thousands of miles, and the great powers began to mediate based on their own positions.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was not the U.S. leader who was re-elected for four terms at the outbreak of World War II, launched a large-scale mediation campaign. Roosevelt had seen Russia's performance since the beginning of the war, and he feared that Russia would not be able to defeat Japan and would be completely defeated. By that time, Japan's attention will be turned away from Russia and toward the United States.

France, because of the German factor, was a traditional ally of Russia, and had a huge investment in Russia, but at this time it was also worried that the investment would be lost, and it also strongly demanded that Russia make peace with Japan.

Kaiser Wilhelm II had his own set of calculations, believing that Russia's military prestige would be lost if Russia concluded a peace treaty after its defeat, which might lead to the death of the Tsar, or even the collapse of the Russian monarchy, thus giving rise to democracy. And democracy, born in barbaric and backward Russia, will show a horrible face completely different from that of civilized society! (William's prediction is surprisingly accurate) Therefore, Russia should not make peace, but drag on the war! Even if it drags on for another year. It is much more expensive for Japan to maintain a large military overseas than it is at home, and its financial problems will bring Japan down.

Japan did not want to sit down with Russia until it won the Battle of Tsushima, believing that the chips were insufficient. The Russians will not give in easily.

A few months later, the situation changed completely when the huge Russian fleet crashed into the Tsushima Strait. With the exception of a very small number of people, such as Evans, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and Beresford, commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, no one could have predicted that the Battle of Tsushima was not a battle, but a massacre. President Roosevelt no longer hesitated and immediately set about mediation.

Russia was willing to cease the war, and the danger of the collapse of the tsarist system deepened even more before the war dragged on for a month. Tsar Nicholas II was well aware of this. In fact. From January 19, 1905 onwards. He didn't dare to make a public appearance in the capital. On that day, when the parade of the Baptism of Jesus was held on the banks of the Neva River in front of the Winter Palace, the Peter and Paul fortress on the opposite bank did not fire a salute, but let a real cannonball fly over the head of the tsar! The Russian top brass no longer has the courage to carry on the war!

For Japan, it is exhausted. Its problems are primarily financial. Huge military spending dragged Japan down! Throughout the Russo-Japanese War. Japan's war expenses were 1.86 billion yen. 7.6 times the war budget it made in 1903. Passed six batches of domestic debt. A total of 680 million yuan was raised, and the five foreign debts borrowed from Britain and the United States totaled 927 million yuan. , equivalent to 107 million pounds. Japan's national debt rose from 600 million yen to 2.4 billion yen. 110 million yuan of interest is paid every year. The per capita tax burden doubled from 5 yen per year to 10 yen in 1906! Now that Japan had achieved its goal of monopolizing Korea and expelling the Russian forces from South Manchuria, after the end of the Battle of Mukden, Japan maintained a huge force of 340,000 men in Manchuria, equivalent to 150% of its standing army! Exhausted the human resources for the defense of the Japanese archipelago! Domestically, many village chiefs reported to the government that most of the rice fields in the village had been abandoned due to the conscription of young men into the army, and that a famine was inevitable the following year. The situation at the front was not good either, and one of the Japanese wings broke up at the slightest encounter of a Russian counterattack in the direction of Gongzhuling, discarding the guns and other equipment they had brought with them. Senior General Kodama Gentaro, Chief of the General Staff of the Manchurian Army, and Admiral Gonbei Yamamoto, Minister of the Navy, who played a decisive role in the conquest of Arthur, both advocated the immediate signing of a peace treaty.

Thus, peace talks began. After several twists and turns, the venue of the negotiations was set at the Portsmouth Military Port in New Hampshire. The Treaty of Portsmouth was signed from 9 August 1905 until 5 September.

Even if Russia was defeated, it would not be the Manchu Qing at the mercy of Japan.

Russia transferred to Japan the lease of the Kwantung region, the South Manchurian Railway, the cession of South Sakhalin, the recognition of Japan's absolute rights to Korea, and Japan's right to fish off the coast of the Russian Far East.

But not a penny of compensation for Japan!

Japan wanted huge war reparations. Most of the Japanese people believed that Russia would cede all of Sakhalin, Vladivostok, Primorsky Province, and Kamchatka Peninsula, and receive 2 billion yen in compensation. Even the most conservative bourgeoisie thought that a billion yuan would be paid in reparations.

However, Japan did not receive a penny of reparations, except for the 46 million rubles (equivalent to 30.67 million yen) paid by Russia for food in order to ransom the prisoners of war.

Korea became a colony, the South Manchurian Railway was in hand, and it also got a military port of Arthur (Japan, unlike Russia, it has no shortage of good military ports), and Sakhalin (Sakhalin) also got half of it. It is said that Japan's war, which cost hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded and nearly 2 billion yen, was not fought in vain, but the account cannot be counted in this way.

It's like doing business, it takes time to realize what you get, but the debt you have is real! Don't take the yen exchange rate a hundred years later, the yen at this time is quite valuable, the yen and the silver dollar in circulation in China are about one to one, and the relationship between the silver dollar and the silver two is 1;.07, that is, Japan spent 1.3 billion taels of silver to win the Russo-Japanese War!

spent 1.3 billion, but only got back more than 3,000 food expenses for prisoners of war! In addition to those territories that have not yet received benefits, how can Japan, which has tasted the sweetness of war reparations in the two wars from the First Sino-Japanese War to Gengzi, be embarrassed? You must know that battleships are the most combat-effective and largest ships in the navy. The two battleships "Fuji" and "Yashima" ordered from Britain in the early afternoon, and the cost of returning to the sea, each amounted to just over 10 million yuan.

The contents of the Portsmouth Treaty were transmitted back to Japan, and it immediately sparked a frenzied nationalist political wave. Many Japanese cities flew flags at half-mast to protest the signing of the peace treaty. Workers wrapped their arms in black yarn gathered at Hibiya Park in Tokyo. Against this humiliating (no reparation) peace treaty. After the rally, the crowd burned down the Interior Minister's Residence, the Foreign Minister's Residence, the Kokushitun's Gazetteer and other buildings near the park. Even Prime Minister Katsura Taro received a threat of assassination. Japan called the incident the "Hibiya Shoda Incident." The incident did not subside, and the Japanese spread the targets of attacks from politicians to businessmen in Britain and France. Because it is said that they threatened not to borrow money if they did not sign the contract. On September 6, four American churches and one French church were burned down. The riots continued to spread, spreading from Tokyo to Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama and other cities. This rebellion eventually led to the fall of Katsura Taro's cabinet.

The stupid Manchu government did not study the opportunities or crises that the Russo-Japanese War presented to China. Since the First Opium War in 1840, when the country was knocked on by the British, until its demise, the Manchu government has never taken the initiative to respond to any crisis in the world.

The crisis seems to be interpreted as a dangerous opportunity. Opportunities are in danger, but few can spot them and seize them.

At the turn of the summer and autumn of 1904, Cai Yuanpei, who was "tricked" by Zhang Shizhao into coming to Shandong to serve as the president of Shandong Normal University, was invited to participate in a seminar entitled "The Consequences of the Russo-Japanese War". Strange to say. The seminar was organized by the Economic Research Association of Huayuan Industrial Group. However, the military and political leaders of Shandong Province participated, and the presidents of Shandong University and Shandong University of Technology were also invited.

It is said that the Economic Research Society meets regularly, but Cai Yuanpei is attending for the first time. I have been in Shandong for a year, and many new things have emerged one after another. has given Cai Yuanpei a certain immunity to new things. But he was still surprised by the establishment of an economic research society by an industrial group. And. This study group went so far as to study international political issues. This made Cai Yuanpei even more surprised.

The main report of the meeting was made by Fang Shengyuan, a senior senator of the Fifth Town, and the title of the report was "The Policy Direction of the Japanese Government after the Russo-Japanese War"

The topic is big enough. Cai Yuanpei is more concerned about the international situation, and he thinks that he can't make such a report.

The meeting room in the headquarters building of Huayuan Group is Western-style. It's very simple. A lectern hung with a blackboard, with three rows of wooden chairs underneath, is different from the usual old-fashioned chairs with round armrests, but foldable chairs without armrests, which are undoubtedly products of Huayuan Furniture Factory.

Cai Yuanpei's seat was in the first row, next to General Long Qian, the commander of the fifth town. Cai Yuanpei didn't like to deal with soldiers, and several soldiers in crisp uniforms in the conference room made him uncomfortable. But Cai Yuanpei already knew that in Shandong, the fifth town was not only a military existence. Its power penetrates into every aspect of the city and the countryside, and no one can avoid it. Cai Yuanpei looked at Long Qian, and Long Qian smiled slightly.

Before Fang Shengyuan's main report, Situ Jun, chief of staff of the Fifth Town, gave a brief account of the course of the Russo-Japanese War.

Situ Jun hung a map marked with red and blue colors on the blackboard, and in front of the map, he concisely described the course of land and naval warfare. It took twenty minutes to finish.

Although Cai Yuanpei does not understand military affairs, he also understands it very clearly. When he first saw this neatly groomed young officer, he thought to himself that the chief of staff could infer the shrewdness of the chief of staff by giving a clear account of a great battle that had lasted a year and a half in twenty minutes. The level of the Fifth Town, which has such a shrewd staff, can be imagined. However, how did the fifth town, which is far away in Shandong, get such detailed information? The process of the battle between the two sides is so clear that even the casualty figures of both sides have been obtained?

Thinking of this, Cai Yuanpei couldn't help but look sideways at Long Qian, the commander of the Fifth Town, who was listening to the lecture with half-squinted eyes, it was really hidden. What he didn't know was that Situ Jun's report omitted the role of a Chinese army in the Battle of Mukden. And with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Manchuria, North Manchuria will become a military vacuum. The armament of one division is enough to run rampant throughout North Manchuria! What Cai Yuanpei didn't know was that just four days ago, the top level of the Fifth Town and the patrol battalion secretly held a seminar on land warfare in the Russo-Japanese War, and Deng Qinghua, who had sneaked back to Shandong, gave a detailed report on the process of the "Bailing Detachment" participating in the war and analyzed the equipment and tactical characteristics of the Japanese and Russian troops. The meeting lasted for two days, and then a 140,000-word article entitled "A Study of the Tactics of the Russo-Japanese War" was produced for the senior officers of the Mengshan Army to study and used as a textbook for the advanced classes of the Armament Academy.

It was too late for Cai Yuanpei to think about it, and the next main report attracted him even more.

Fang Shengyuan's Japanese government's post-war foreign policy trend for Russia to turn its attention to Europe after the defeat and trigger a series of reactions from European countries was not something that Cai Yuanpei could figure out at once, but the two changes in the Japanese government that Fang Shengyuan asserted next shocked him. The first change is that Japan will pursue a "continental policy." Its sights were first on annexing and digesting Korea, and then on the South Manchurian Railway to extend the tentacles of aggression to Kwantung. As they tasted more and more sweetness in the Kanto, the radical Japanese military was bound to target the Chinese mainland with its aggression. The second change is the militarization of Japan.

"Of course, it is Japan that has had the greatest impact. At the end of the war, Japan will completely regain its tariff autonomy, Britain and the United States and other powers will certainly raise the diplomatic level to the ambassadorial level, and Japan's international status will be greatly enhanced. In the eyes of many Japanese, Japan is already a big country in the world, and such arguments as "pan-Asianism" and "Asia is the Asia of Asians" are destined to become loud. The Japanese nation as a whole, and the armed forces in particular, will inevitably develop an impatient and rash mood, believing that all disputes can be resolved by force, that waging war against foreign countries is a good way to solve all problems, and that diplomacy is regarded as an incompetent way. With the deification of generals such as Nogi Noshinori and Heihachiro Togo, the Japanese military class should be regarded as gods by the people, and the Japanese military will have a great sense of superiority at home. As a result, the military has since been isolated from the needs of the government and diplomacy, without the supervision and control of the government, and diplomats can only rely on the snort of the soldiers. Japan's General Staff Headquarters will have the power to dictate foreign policy. After the death of Aritomo Yamagu, a veteran of the Japanese Army, there was no one to restrain the radicals in the army, especially the young soldiers. Since then, Japan has been on the road to extinction, and the beginning of everything is the victory in the Russo-Japanese War. ”

What a convincing and shocking assertion! Cai Yuanpei couldn't help but feel that the trip was worthwhile.

"The Russo-Japanese War was a case of great success for the Japanese adventurous group. As a result of this incident, nationalism in China, India, and Thailand, which had suffered greatly from colonization, had become a target for them to emulate, and it was inevitable that China would learn from Japan in an all-round way. ”

Situ Jun concluded his report.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is just the opinion of the research society, and it is for reference only, not enough to be disseminated." Zhou Xuexi, who presided over the meeting, said in the end, "In today's world, the whole body is affected by one hair. Although we are in Shandong, we cannot but pay close attention to the situation in the world, especially the changes in China. You are all elites from all walks of life in the military, government and business circles of Shandong Province, and Shandong's achievements today contain your hard work. For the sake of Shandong, for the sake of the country, we can no longer let Jiawu and Gengzi reappear! (To be continued......)