The year 1904 came, and the tumult of the world still had not subsided. The war in the Far East is still going on, and there is a growing trend.

However, at this time, a major change occurred on the battlefield, and the Japanese army conquered the fortress of Arthur. At the cost of 74,000 casualties, the Japanese army finally conquered this strategic point.

Speaking of overcoming this point, it is thanks to the Japanese army that pulled up the 280 mm caliber howitzers of the domestic coastal defense. In order to make these heavy artillery exert their power, the Japanese army also specially built circular rails, and these hard-drawn shore defense heavy artillery also took such great pains to play the right place, and its power was extraordinary, in the artillery bombardment of the 203 heights. Destroy their fortifications one by one. In addition to the heavy artillery, the base camp also transferred the only active division that remained on the mainland, the 7th Division, which was reorganized from the Tuntian Army, to Lushun.

From December 25, 1903 to January 6, 1904, after 11 days of onslaught, the Russian army on Heights 203 was finally wiped out, and the Japanese captured the heights. According to later statistics, after the Japanese army conquered Heights 203, only one living Russian soldier was found.

After occupying the 203 heights, the Japanese army seized the initiative on the battlefield in Arthur.

Subsequently, the Japanese army pulled the siege heavy artillery up to the 203 heights, and then bombarded the Russian ships in the port and the Russian military facilities in the urban area with heavy artillery, and the combined fleet outside the port also tightly sealed the open sea in order to prevent the remaining Russian fleet from escaping. The First Pacific Fleet, which was trapped in a lonely port, is now blind, and even a famous general like Makanov has no choice.

Later, the remaining Poltava and Nicholas I of the Russian Pacific Fleet were sunk by Japanese heavy artillery

Then, step by step, the Japanese army first conquered a series of Russian fortresses, and then occupied more and more of the city of Arthur.

On January 11, 1904, Stessel led tens of thousands of remnants of his army to surrender to the Japanese. In addition to the Japanese army's capture of the Lushun fortress, there was also a surprise that two Crown Prince and Victory, which were repaired in the dockyard, were captured by the Japanese army.

In the face of this unexpected joy, Togo Heihachiro was naturally overjoyed, and after watching the two battleships under repair overnight, he immediately sent a report to the base camp, asking the country to immediately send enough shipyard workers to hurry up and repair the two Lushun defenders to give them a great gift.

And when the news of the fall of Arthur Fortress came out, the Russian Second Pacific Fleet as reinforcements was still in the Indian Ocean. The Second Pacific Fleet, which circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope, was full of disasters and difficulties, not to mention the hardships of bypassing the African continent along the way, because it was difficult for German profiteers to ensure timely supply without practice, and the Tsarist fleet had to load as much coal as possible.

The decks, engine rooms, officers' cabins, and even the bathrooms were filled with coal bags by Russian sailors, and the dust on the warships was like coal kilns, and many sailors suffered from respiratory diseases. As it passed through the tropics, the Russian navy also closed ventilation ducts, adding to the number of sick people who fell ill with coal.

In addition, since there was no longer anyone sleeping in the cabin, the Russian sailors had to sleep outside the cabin. The problem was that there was also coal everywhere outside the cabin, and the hapless sailors had to sleep on coal bags. These unlucky ghosts, who deal with coal when they eat and sleep, also sprinkle coal evenly in the boiler every day, and every three or four hours they have to extinguish the fire and clean the boiler. Due to the huge work of pouring coal, the 2nd Pacific Fleet of Tsarist Russia even set a world record of 120 tons of coal in one hour.

When they were fortunate enough to complete a long-lost dock, the sailors who were nearly crumbling flocked to take leave to go ashore and squander their few salaries on taverns, prostitutes, and gambling. This also means that no one cleans up algae, seaweed and other debris that is tangled around the ship, and no one is going to train. The commander, Lieutenant General Roger Stvensky, was temporarily out of office due to mental exhaustion, but hoped to set sail again on January 14, 1904.

During this period, the logistics department of the Russian army lived up to expectations and made a lot of trouble. Due to the confusion of management, the supply ships that arrived from the mainland were loaded with artillery shells that the fleet did not need. There were even special ships that brought a bunch of winter uniforms to the officers and men under the scorching African sun, putting the fleet into a situation where there were not even enough uniforms.

In addition, the radio equipment of the fleet was supplied mainly by the Germans. Once an engineer leaves, it becomes scrap metal due to frequent breakdowns. In addition, the power system of one refrigerated ship failed, causing all the hundreds of tons of fresh meat in stock to spoil, forcing officers and men to purchase local food at high prices.

It is a pity that the news of the fall of Arthur at this time made His Majesty the Tsar furious, and then the Admiralty understood it and added a new problem to him at the right time. In order to increase the probability of victory in the decisive battle against Japan, they drew up the Third Pacific Fleet. As a result, 3 battleships and 1 shore defense battleship were transferred to the waters of the Indian Ocean. Therefore, Rogerstinsky was asked to stay in Madagascar and wait for reinforcements to arrive before he could go on the road again.

Soon after, however, the French colonial authorities, who did not want the Russian fleet to stay longer, came to chase them out.

Faced with such a situation, Rozhestvensky could only take the officers and men of the Second Pacific Fleet, who were reluctant, and drove away on the battleship.

So, after a terrible repair, the Second Pacific Fleet continued its march towards the distant Pacific.

Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky also recovered from his nervous breakdown and began intensive work on the adjustment of the fleet.

Despite the lack of food and clothing and the collapse of morale in the army, the grumpy commander did nothing effective to remedy it. Instead, he patrolled back and forth on the flagship every day, checking the soldiers' quilt folding to see if his subordinates were neatly dressed, and turned a blind eye to the officers' beating and scolding of the soldiers. Then he went headlong into the office and corrected the spelling mistakes in the report like a language teacher.

This kind of iron-clad education also quickly paid off. Four officers and soldiers were hospitalized because of mental illness, 28 were choked with tuberculosis by flying soot, and many more were incapacitated by tropical diseases. The occasional suicide by jumping into the sea is a true portrayal of this painful expedition.

Even the warship carrying this group of vulnerable people was overwhelmed by the lack of water to clean the bottom of the ship and the problem of severe overloading. The average speed of the fleet has dropped to a very dangerous 7.5 knots.

Fortunately, Germany had extended a hand of friendship and was willing to open the port of Manila to it, so they only needed to cross the Indian Ocean, cross the Strait of Malacca, and sail in the South China Sea for a while, and then they would have a chance to repair.