When the time came to August, a piece of news caused a sensation in the whole world. The war in the Far East, the Russians could not afford to negotiate peace.

That's right, it was this news that caught the world's attention, because the two did not match their strengths. Russia has the reputation of being the steamroller of Europe, although Russia lost a lot in the Crimean War a few decades ago, but it was Britain and France joining forces, and the eldest and second joined forces to fight the third, can this not lose?

And then Russia beat the Ottomans again, showing that they are still the woolly bear that people can't ignore.

This time, however, Russia was defeated by an emerging country, which surprised the European countries. Moreover, Japan, an emerging country, defeated the woolly bear without anyone directly helping, making countries look at Japan.

In fact, there is no way to let Mao Xiong be forced to sue for peace, because before, they were all big losses in naval and land battles, and they did not achieve a decent victory at all, because after the fall of Lushun, it was even more unfavorable to the Russian army, because the Japanese Third Army was liberated by Lushun.

As far as the Japanese army is concerned, to gain a strategic advantage, of course, it is necessary to expand the results of the battle and put Russia at the negotiating table as soon as possible. It was thought that as the war progressed, the Japanese government could no longer afford to spend it. By the time Lushun was conquered, the Japanese government had spent 1.52 billion yen on the war, and the treasury was already empty, and if it were not for the British government's covert support for Japan's issuance of war bonds in London, Japan would have declared bankruptcy long ago. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Finance, even if the peace talks are held now, Japan will need to spend about 35 percent of its total fiscal revenue every year to repay its debts and pay interest.

Therefore, defeating Russia as soon as possible and ending this war has become the consensus of the Japanese government.

As the commander of the Manchurian Army, General Dashanyan of course also knew this, so the Third Army, which had just finished the Lushun offensive and defensive battle, did not have time to take a breath, so it was ordered to rush to the front line of Mukden and prepare to drive the Russian army out of Mukden. To this end, at the end of February, the Japanese army gathered 235,000 men and 982 artillery pieces of five group armies on the front line of Shahe, and completed preparations for the attack.

On the opposite side of them, the Russian army of 290,000 men and 1,437 artillery pieces led by General Kuropatkin organized a positional defense on a frontal line 150 kilometers south of Mukden.

In terms of strength and equipment, the Japanese army was at a disadvantage and dared to take the lead in launching an offensive.

Of course, there must be a reason why the Japanese army dared to attack, the Russian army was corrupt and incompetent, and the morale of its officers and men was even more low after several defeats. Since ancient times, wars have been a situation in which the difference in strength between the two armies is not too large, and the side with high morale has an advantage. So from March 2, the two sides started a big battle around Mukden.

After 16 days of fighting, the Russian army was defeated, and after paying the price of more than 90,000 casualties, it was forced to withdraw from the Mukden line and retreat all the way to Siping.

And the victorious Japanese army was also uncomfortable, with more than 70,000 casualties, and was unable to catch up with the defeated Russian army.

The main reason for the higher casualties of the Japanese army than in history is the reason for the training equipment of the Japanese army, because Japan's finances are lower than in history, so it is allocated less to the army. However, in the case of reduced funds, it is necessary to expand the army on a large scale for this purpose, so in many places, it is possible to save money, and the intensity of training has also been reduced a lot. Even in the later stages of the war, there were many reinforcements who were brought to the battlefield after three or four weeks of training and without touching the guns a few times.

On the other hand, the Russian army is equipped with a lot of machine guns. The famous Makqin machine guns were equipped with more than 300 Russian troops on the front line in Mukden, and these machine guns used as fire support points made the charging Japanese troops suffer enough, so that the Russian soldiers who operated the Makqin machine guns were killed by the angry Japanese officers and soldiers after surrendering.

On land, now the Japanese and Russian armies could not fight, and in the face of this situation, Russia could only put its hope at sea, because everything could only be counted on the sea, because the Second Pacific Fleet led by Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky finally arrived in the Far East.

With a total tonnage of 360,000 tons and 59 combat ships, including 11 battleships and five large armored cruisers, the huge Second Pacific Fleet is nearly twice the size of the Combined Fleet.

Although among these warships, there are many indiscriminate and full of people, but such a huge scale of warships puts a lot of pressure on the combined fleet. For this reason, the commander of the Combined Fleet, Heihachiro Togo, on the one hand, stepped up his urging on the shipbuilders to repair the two Genoa-class battleships as soon as possible to replenish the strength of his combined fleet, and on the other hand, he judged and analyzed the route of the Russian fleet.

At this time, because Port Arthur had fallen into the hands of the Japanese, the Russian fleet could only sail to Vladivostok. There are two shipping routes to Vladivostok: either through the Tsushima Strait into the Sea of Japan, or through the Soya or Tsugaru Straits, and from near Hokkaido.

Heihachiro Togo judged that Rogerstvensky would definitely take the Tsushima Strait, so he concentrated the combined fleet on the Tsushima Islands and the bay of Korea and waited for the arrival of war. In addition, he sent four armed merchant ships and two old cruisers to reconnoiter the East China Sea in order to determine the position of the Russian fleet.

While Heihachiro Togo was waiting for the arrival of the Russian fleet, Rozhestvensky led the Russian Second Pacific Fleet, which was being repaired in Manila.

Because of the large number of Russian fleets, the dockyard in the port was unable to repair and maintain all the warships. Rodestvensky was only able to prioritize maintenance of the more advanced ships, so three Genoa-class, two Borodino-class battleships, and three Garibaldi-class cruisers were prioritized for maintenance. In addition, the exhausted Russian officers and men, who were almost crumbling, were given a chance to recuperate, and they spent their only energy in taverns, prostitutes, and gambling.

Of course, with the influx of a large number of Russian officers and soldiers into Manila, there were also a lot of pickled praises, such as robbery, blackmail, fighting, forcible (harmonious) rape, and many other things, all of which were done by these Russian hairs, for which the Manila police arrested more than 30 Russian officers and soldiers in one day. So much so that the Governor of Manila sent a serious warning to Rozhest Stevensky for this, and if he did not stop it, then he would drive them out of Manila.

In the face of the threat of the governor of Manila, Rozhestvensky sent the military police accompanying the ship to arrest these old sailors and punish them, so that these presumptuous sailors could know that they were restrained.

However, the good time in Manila did not last long, and a telegram from St. Petersburg disrupted Roger Stvensky's good mood. The tsar ordered them to rush to Vladivostok as soon as possible in order to facilitate the offensive against Japan from the sea.

In the face of the tsar's strict orders, Rodger Stvensky had no choice but to order the officers and men to return to the ship, and as for the officers and soldiers arrested by the police station, they were released back into the ship after paying a high bail.

Rozhestvensky then set off and headed for Vladivostok with a large fleet. However, he still had the common sense of naval warfare and knew that the huge auxiliary ships would only slow down his pace, so after leaving Manila, except for the four faster transport ships and two hospital ships, the other auxiliary ships were allowed to leave.

And the news of the departure of the Russian fleet from Manila was soon learned by Japan.

The combined fleet concentrated all the warships and was already gearing up, waiting for the Russian troops coming from the east and giving them a heavy blow. One more thing to say here, the two Genoa-class battleships were finally repaired before the departure of the Russian ship from Manila. Of course, Heihachiro Togo, who had two more battleships, was overjoyed, and now he was even more sure.

On the night of June 12, Rozhestvensky and the Russian fleet quietly planned to cross the Tsushima Strait, but the Japanese armed merchant ship spotted one of the Russian fleet's medical ships. Although Roger Stevensky ordered the lights to be controlled, the hospital ship with the noble lady was discovered by the Japanese ships because of its brilliant lights. After careful consideration, the armed merchant ship sent a telegram spotting the Russian fleet heading northeast.

After receiving the news of the Russian ship, the combined fleet was fully dispatched, and finally discovered the Russian fleet in the early morning of the 13th. And so in the Tsushima Strait, one of the biggest naval battles of the twentieth century began.

Next, Heihachiro Togo raised the Z-shaped flag on the flagship Japanese battleship Mikasa, and issued the famous order, and the Imperial Kingdom was abolished in this battle, and everyone worked hard together.

The naval battle began at eleven a.m. and lasted until nightfall. After a grueling naval battle, the Combined Fleet won this naval battle. More than 40 Russian ships were sunk and captured, 5,879 people were killed and 7,137 were captured.

Led by Rear Admiral Norbergatov, the Russian ships Eagle (formerly the Italian Garibaldi class Francisco), Osliavia (formerly the Italian Genoa-class Bologna), Nikolai I, Oriel, Aprakshin, Sinyavin, the great Sisoy, Navarin, Admiral Nakhimov and the cruiser Emerald escaped in the direction of Vladivostok.

Rear Admiral Ankerwest had already left the battlefield before nightfall, and sailed south with the cruisers Orzi, Aurora, and Pearl, and finally sailed to Manila to be disarmed.

The total tonnage of the remaining warships of the huge Russian Second Pacific Fleet is only more than 90,000 tons, and they are basically some old warships. It can be described as a big loss, and there is no power to fight back.

Of course, the victory of the combined fleet in this naval battle was not without paying a price, and more than ten warships such as Shikishima, Yakumo, Asama, Takachiho, and Zhenyuan were sunk in this naval battle. The Japanese suffered 2,741 casualties and lost more than 40,000 tons.

There are two main reasons for the greater casualties in the Combined Fleet than in history. First, the morale of the Russian fleet has been restored to a certain extent because it has been repaired in Manila for a long time. Second, the number of Russian warships is relatively large, and the tonnage is also superior, so it is purely normal to have the idea of trying to be superior.

The sea and land sides were hit hard, so that Russia had no hope of victory. At this time, there were also internal problems in Russia, and the revolutionary mood in Russia was originally high, and the Russian government originally wanted to use the victory of a war to alleviate the internal contradictions, but it lost on the battlefield one after another, which led to more prominent domestic problems.

In December 1903, a strike took place in St. Petersburg, and the number of people who agreed to the strike continued to grow, and the number of strikers climbed to 80,000.

On January 12, 1904, an Orthodox clergyman, Fr. Gaipon, led an organization of about 30,000 workers to a peaceful demonstration in the square outside the Winter Palace, with the aim of presenting a petition to the Tsar to express the plight of the working class and the people at the bottom of society.

Nicholas II has moved to Tsarskoye since January 8 and was not in the Winter Palace on the day of the peaceful demonstration. At that time, the armed soldiers who were responsible for guarding the palace confronted the demonstrators, and the number of people gathered gradually increased to 200,000. The soldiers later fired warning shots into the air and soon after opened fire on the crowd, who fled in panic and jostled for action. A conservative estimate is that there were about 1,000 casualties at the time. This bloody repression aroused public outrage, the Russian people no longer hoped for the Tsar, and a series of large-scale strikes broke out everywhere.

In Lodz, Poland's industrial powerhouse, workers responded with the motto "Down with the dictatorship!" Down with the war! As a slogan, a general strike was held, and at the same time, strikes, demonstrations or demonstrations took place in Warsaw and other industrial centers. On January 28 of the same year, at the instigation of the Polish Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, a mass strike was called, which was joined by more than 400,000 workers throughout Poland and lasted for four weeks.

At the same time, the demonstrators demanded better working conditions and more autonomy for Poles, and in February Polish university students joined the demonstrations, and later even secondary and primary school students, who protested against Russification and demanded the right to learn Polish.

At the time of successive domestic turmoil, even Tsar Nicholas II wanted to continue fighting, but he was unable to do so.

Therefore, in the end, Russia had no choice but to put forward a demand for peace talks under the mediation of the United States.

As a result, on 19 August, Japan and Russia formally held peace talks in Portsmouth, USA, and signed the Portsmouth Peace Treaty on 9 September. It was the end of the Russo-Japanese War, which had been going on for more than a year.

The Portsmouth Peace Treaty stipulated that Russia recognized Japan's political, military, and economic "superior interests" in Korea and that it would not hinder or interfere with any Japanese measures against Korea.

In addition, Russia transferred to the Japanese government the lease of the territorial waters of Port Arthur, Dalian Bay and its adjacent territories, as well as other related privileges. The railway and all branch lines from Changchun (Kuanchengzi) to Lushunkou, as well as all rights, property and coal mines attached thereto, are transferred to the Government of Japan. In addition, the treaty provided that Russia's lease of the Liaodong Peninsula and all the islands in its vicinity were ceded to Japan in perpetuity.

In addition to establishing Japan's status as a great power, the significance of this war was more important: "For the first time in history, an Asian country defeated a European country, and it was a large empire."

Of course, it will not be easy for Japan to win this victory.

In this war, the two sides can be said to have come out with all their might.

Russia invested a total of 1.2 million troops, suffered 270,000 casualties and captures, lost 103 ships, and spent 2.3 billion rubles on its military expenditures. Japan participated in the war with a total of 1.09 million troops and 276,000 casualties (including 97,000 killed in battle). 96 ships were lost, and military spending was 1.93 billion yen.