With the arrival of 1904, the noisy world has still not calmed down. The war in the Far East is still continuing, and it is getting bigger and bigger.
However, a major change occurred on the battlefield at this time. The Japanese army captured the Port Arthur Fortress. At the cost of 74,000 casualties, the Japanese army finally conquered this strategic point.
Speaking of conquering this point, it was thanks to the Japanese army that they pulled up the 280mm caliber howitzers from the domestic coastal defense. In order to allow these heavy artillery to exert their power, the Japanese army also specially built a circular railway track, and these hard-earned coastal defense heavy artillery also targeted
of
It took such a long time to launch, and its power was extraordinary. In the artillery attack on Highland 203, its solid fortifications were destroyed one by one. In addition to heavy artillery, the base camp will also have the only active division left in the mainland, the 7th Division adapted from the Tuntian Army.
The division was also transferred to Lushun.
From December 25, 1903 to January 6, 1904, after 11 days of fierce attack, the Russian army on Highland 203 was finally eliminated, and the Japanese army captured the high ground. According to subsequent statistics, after the Japanese army captured Highland 203,
Only one living Russian soldier was found.
After occupying Highland 203, the Japanese army took the initiative on the battlefield in Lushun.
Then the Japanese army brought their heavy siege artillery to Highland 203, and then used heavy artillery to bombard the Russian warships in the port and Russian military facilities in the city. The combined fleet outside the port also tightly blocked the remaining Russian fleets in order to prevent them from escaping.
Outside the sea, the First Pacific Fleet, which is trapped in an isolated port, is now blind. Even a famous general like Makanov has no choice.
Subsequently, the only remaining Russian Pacific Fleet ships, the Poltava and Nicholas I, were sunk by Japanese heavy artillery.
Then, the Japanese army moved forward step by step, like pushing a multi-bone rice card, first conquering a series of Russian fortresses, and then occupying more and more urban areas of Lushun.
On January 11, 1904, Stessel led tens of thousands of defeated troops and surrendered to the Japanese army. In addition to conquering the Port Arthur Fortress, the Japanese army also had an unexpected surprise. Two ships, the Crown Prince and the Victory, which were being repaired in the dock, were destroyed.
Captured by Japanese troops.
Faced with this unexpected surprise, Togo Heihachiro was naturally overjoyed. After watching the two warships being repaired overnight, he immediately sent a report to the base camp, requesting that enough shipyard workers be dispatched from home to repair the two Lushun ships immediately.
A great gift from the defenders.
When the news of the fall of Port Arthur Fortress came out, the Russian Second Pacific Fleet was still in the Indian Ocean as a reinforcement. The Second Pacific Fleet circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope was plagued by disasters, not to mention the difficulty of circumnavigating the African continent.
, because German profiteers were all talk but no practice and could not guarantee timely supply, so the Tsarist Russian fleet had no choice but to load as much coal as possible.
The Russian sailors filled the deck, engine room, officer cabin, and even the bathroom with coal bags. The dust on the warship was flying like a coal kiln, and many sailors suffered from respiratory diseases. When passing through tropical areas, the Tsarist Navy also closed the ventilation
Pipelines have increased the number of people who are sick due to coal dumping (unlucky people).
In addition, since there was no room to sleep in the cabin, the Russian sailors had to sleep outside the cabin. The problem was that there was coal everywhere outside the cabin, so the unlucky sailors had to sleep on coal bags. This group of unlucky guys who eat and sleep with coal, also have to
Coal was sprinkled evenly into the boiler every day, and the fire was extinguished and the boiler was cleaned every three or four hours. Due to the huge job of pouring coal, Tsarist Russia's Second Pacific Fleet even set a world record of adding 120 tons of coal in one hour.
After finally completing a long-awaited docking for repairs, the nearly collapsed sailors flocked to ask for leave and went ashore, squandering the few military pay on taverns, prostitutes and gambling. This also meant that no one was going to clean up the things that were entangled on the ship. There were algae, seaweed and other debris, and no one would conduct training. The commander, Lieutenant General Roger Stevinsky, temporarily resigned due to mental weakness, but he still hoped to restart the voyage on January 14, 1904.
During this period, the Russian army's logistics department lived up to expectations and created a lot of troubles. Due to chaotic management, supply ships came from the mainland to load artillery shells that the fleet did not need. There were even special ships to provide supplies to the officers and soldiers under the scorching sun in Africa. A bunch of winter military uniforms were sent, putting the fleet in a situation where they didn't even have enough uniforms.
In addition, the fleet's radio equipment is mainly provided by the Germans. Once the engineers leave, it will become scrap metal due to frequent failures. There is also a refrigerated ship's power system failure, resulting in the loss of hundreds of tons of fresh meat in stock. It went bad, forcing officers and soldiers to purchase local food at high prices.
Unfortunately, the news of the fall of Port Arthur made His Majesty the Tsar furious. Then the Admiralty understood it and added a new problem to him at the right time. In order to increase the winning rate of the decisive battle against Japan, they superfluously formed the Third Pacific Fleet. From this point on, Three battleships and one coastal defense battleship were mobilized to the Indian Ocean. Therefore, Roger Stevensky was asked to stay in Madagascar and wait for reinforcements to arrive before he could hit the road again.
But soon afterwards, the French colonial authorities, who did not want the Russian fleet to stay longer, came to drive them away.
Faced with such a situation, Roger Stevinsky could only drive the battleship away with the reluctant naval officers and soldiers of the Second Pacific Fleet.
So after some bad repairs, the Second Pacific Fleet continued to head towards the distant Pacific Ocean.
Vice Admiral Roger Stevinsky also recovered from his mental breakdown and began intensive fleet training work.
Although the entire army was short of food and clothing and morale collapsed, the grumpy commander did not take any effective measures to remedy the situation. Instead, he patrolled back and forth on the flagship every day, checking how the soldiers folded their quilts and whether their subordinates were well dressed. He was tidy and turned a blind eye to the officers beating, scolding and corporally punishing the soldiers. Then he went into the office and corrected the spelling errors in the report like a Chinese teacher.
This kind of iron-rod education quickly yielded results. Four officers and soldiers were hospitalized due to mental illness, 28 people were choked by the flying coal ash and contracted tuberculosis, and more people lost their combat effectiveness due to tropical diseases. From time to time, people committed suicide by jumping into the sea. The incident is a true portrayal of this painful expedition.
Even the warship carrying this group of vulnerable people was overwhelmed by no one to clear the aquatic plants on the bottom of the ship and severe overloading problems. The average speed of the fleet has dropped to a very dangerous 7.5 knots.
Fortunately, Germany extended a hand of friendship at this time and was willing to open the Port of Manila to it, so they only needed to cross the Indian Ocean, pass through the Strait of Malacca, and sail in the South China Sea for a period of time before they could get a chance to repair.
