stonecrandall Page 124
Page 124
Wu Luzhen and other Chinese military and political officials inevitably held a special meeting to discuss the situation after the peace talks in India, which essentially meant that the remaining officials also wanted to return to China. As some have said, it was clearly inappropriate for them to be living leisurely lives in India while the war against Russia was raging in China.
Of course, in Lin Xinyi's view, it wasn't so much that people were unwilling to enjoy peace, but rather that they couldn't accept life in a foreign land. Not only was the language different, but the climate was also vastly different from back home, and even the customs and food were different. Having lost sight of their original mission objectives, everyone naturally wanted to go home.
Especially after Japan joined the Sino-Russian War, several Japanese members of the team wanted to go back even more. Seeing this situation, Lin Xinyi had to admit a reality: pursuing world revolution was indeed very difficult, because most people had a view of overseas revolution as an "other's revolution." They did not oppose such revolution, but it was difficult to connect the significance of overseas revolution with that of domestic revolution.
For example, several Japanese and Koreans from the Naval Landing School who participated in the expedition initially did not share the patriotic sentiments of the Chinese Expeditionary Force resisting the British invasion of Tibet. They also did not believe that defeating the British in Tibet would bring any benefit to Japan or Korea. However, as the Chinese Expeditionary Force continued to win victories, they began to change their minds and realize that what they were doing was meaningful.
The Chinese Expeditionary Force's entry into India, with its claim that it was to help the Indian people's national liberation movement rather than to occupy Indian territory, initially aroused considerable skepticism. After all, they had gone through so many arduous battles to enter India, and the expectation that they would contribute to the liberation of the Indian people naturally disheartened many.
Lin Xinyi has spent a lot of energy trying to understand and resolve this emotional shift within the team. Ideological work is indeed a real task, and it was during this process that he came to understand.
Chapter 440 Wu Lin's Dialogue
Before the meeting, Wu Luzhen first went to see Lin Xinyi and had a private conversation with him. For these northerners, January is probably the most pleasant month in Burnia, similar to autumn in the Jiangnan region, with clear skies and crisp air, perfect for strolling and talking under the trees.
Wu Luzhen came to Lin Xinyi to understand his views on future changes in India, so he could decide his stance at the meeting. Faced with Wu Luzhen's inquiry, Lin Xinyi did not hesitate and frankly told him: "Although India's national self-liberation movement has achieved certain results, it does not mean that India will necessarily move towards socialism."
In my view, within the next ten years, Indian nationalists may still know to unite Asian nations against the British. However, if Indian nationalists truly establish themselves after ten years, some will inevitably begin to consider India's national and ethnic interests, placing them above those of other nations and peoples.
Upon hearing this assessment, Wu Luzhen frowned and said, "So, does this mean that India and our country might have border disputes in the future? Then is it still necessary for us to firmly support India's national liberation movement?"
After looking at him in silence for a while, Lin Xinyi said, "Nationalist sentiments within various Asian nations do indeed develop along with national liberation movements. This is true of Japan and China, and naturally, India and other Asian nations are no exception. This is a reality that conforms to objective laws, and we cannot deny it in reality."
Wu Luzhen suddenly realized that Lin Xinyi was Japanese, not Chinese. He often forgot this, but it was not his fault. He always remembered the identities of other Japanese people, but he always forgot this in front of Lin Xinyi because all the judgments the other party made were not based on the perspective of a Japanese person.
Indians felt the same way about Lin Xinyi, which is why only Lin Xinyi could criticize everyone without any reservations during the meeting, never caring about the identity of the person being criticized, and the person being criticized did not feel that they were being treated differently because of their ethnicity. It was difficult for others to do this.
Seeing the slight embarrassment on Wu Luzhen's face, Lin Xinyi didn't feel anything special. The reason he could view the revolution from a more detached perspective was not because he was a true revolutionary idealist, but because the current Qing Dynasty simply couldn't gain his approval.
In fact, the Chinese people after 49 and the Chinese people before 49 can almost be called two different ethnic groups. The China that Lin Xinyi identified with was the People's Republic under the republican system, not the Qing Dynasty under the imperial system, nor the aristocratic republic under the rule of the Han landlord class. Therefore, he could not possibly fight for any interests for the Qing Dynasty or the Han landlord class.
However, even the most radical Han nationalists of this era joined the revolution to preserve so-called Chinese culture and to overthrow the Manchu emperor, not the Han landlord class. If the Eight-Nation Alliance invasion hadn't shattered the last vestige of Chinese people's attachment to their traditional culture, so many revolutionaries wouldn't have turned to more radical revolutionary ideologies, viewing this tradition as the biggest obstacle to China's progress.
Wu Luzhen was such a nationalist. He believed that all of China's problems lay in the rule of the Manchus. He thought that as long as the Manchus were overthrown and the country was led by Han Chinese, China could rise again. Therefore, he was Lin Xinyi's staunchest supporter when China marched into Tibet and recovered Shannan. However, he hesitated to support the Indian national liberation movement because Indian independence seemed to affect China's control over the Shannan region.
If he had been the leader of this war, Wu Luzhen might have prioritized reaching an agreement with Britain rather than expending so much effort to help the Indian people arm themselves, which would have risked attacks on Chinese soil by the British. No Chinese nationalist of that era would have taken such a risk.
Wu Luzhen continued to support Lin Xinyi reluctantly because they were winning. Given their current record, no nationalist would dare to oppose Lin Xinyi, as they knew they were incapable of doing so.
However, Lin Xinyi had no intention of criticizing Wu Luzhen on the issue of nationalism at this time. World War I had not yet begun, and the October Revolution had not yet broken out. Nationalism was the prevailing ideology of the time, and it was not an ideology that he could suppress with a few words of criticism. Only through the tens of millions of lives lost in World War I and the victory of the proletariat brought about by the October Revolution would the lie of nationalism be truly exposed.
All he can do now is suppress this nationalist sentiment within the alliance and wait for the external environment to change before systematically criticizing the idea of national democracy. That time is still far off.
Lin Xinyi pondered in his heart, and said aloud: "A nation is an imaginary entity. Just like the caste villages in India and the clan villages in China, under the small-scale peasant economy, a person has almost no contact with the outside world from birth to death, but within the caste village or clan village, he has a fixed position."
Therefore, many farmers place great importance on their position within a group. They believe that if they lose their place, they become abandoned wanderers, making it difficult for them to survive outside. Even if they are oppressed within the group, they consciously prioritize the group's interests over their own when upholding the group's interests.
The nation and the people are almost simply an amplified version of this small-scale peasant economy. As long as the essence of the small-scale peasant economy is not changed, the rigid class structure and xenophobic mentality within the group cannot be significantly altered.
Don't be fooled by our current land reform efforts in rural India. If the agricultural economy doesn't change, new, rigid class groups will soon re-emerge in these villages. To protect the interests of these groups, xenophobic ideas will quickly resurface in the minds of the farmers.
So what we now perceive as creating a new world is actually just an illusion. We have merely broken the rule of the old ruling class and then pushed a new ruling class to power, without fundamentally solving the root cause of class oppression.
This is my view: India will gain independence in the future, but it may not necessarily embark on a true path of liberation. Therefore, we cannot be overly optimistic about the future of the Indian revolution; everything has only just begun.
Under the warm sunshine, Wu Luzhen pondered for a while before asking, "So what do you think we should do to prevent India from going down the path of xenophobic nationalism? Or, can the industrialization of India that you advocate solve this problem?"
After a moment of silence, Lin Xinyi said, "The industrialization of India and China actually have only one purpose: to dismantle the small-scale peasant economy of the feudal era. Without breaking this small-scale peasant economy, the feudal personal dependency relationship cannot be eliminated."
Even if we replace the landlord class with communes to manage the countryside, we still cannot change the closed environment of rural areas. Only the exchange activities between agriculture and industry brought about by industrialization can truly break down the closed countryside and destroy the personal dependence relationships under the small-scale peasant economy.
Only when large-scale socialized production replaces the small-scale farming and handicraft production model can the relationships between people form a shared social understanding through the production-exchange model. That is, production is for exchange, and exchange is for satisfying one's own needs. In this society, no one is more noble than anyone else, and no person or party is indispensable. Workers are equal; no one is special.
The landlord class, emperors, nobles of the past, and capitalists of today have always tried to tell workers that the world cannot lose them, because without their existence, workers cannot produce, exchange, or satisfy their own needs.
What we need to do is tell the workers that they can produce and exchange freely, thus satisfying their needs without the control of landlords, emperors, nobles, and capitalists.
Industrialization aims to solve the problem of workers' freedom of production, enabling them to freely exchange goods and services. This is precisely the purpose of establishing the Asian Democratic Revolutionary Alliance. Under this alliance, we will establish industrial and agricultural production systems for all Asian nations, thereby meeting their diverse needs.
Just as current capitalism controls global trade through the international gold standard, thereby satisfying the needs of a segment of the bourgeoisie, socialism, if it wants to defeat international capitalism, must bypass the international gold standard and establish fair trade based on the value of labor. If we cannot establish an exchange system that belongs to the workers, then capitalism is invincible…
Among his peers, Wu Luzhen rarely respected others, because he felt that they were far inferior to him in terms of thought and ability. The only people he truly respected were a few, such as Qin Lishan and Cai E, because they could understand each other without much explanation during their conversations.
But only in front of Lin Xinyi, who was younger than him, did he always feel that his mind was often insufficient. This insufficiency was not because the other was much smarter than him, but because the other's vision was always far beyond what he could see. This conversation was no exception. He originally wanted to understand the other's views on the future of India, but it ended up being a one-sided lecture.
However, Wu Luzhen could still tell that the other party wasn't just making empty promises, but was genuinely outlining a plan. It was just that the plan was too difficult for him to understand—not because the other party wasn't detailed enough, but because of his lack of experience. At least he knew that the British had already begun targeting the American stock market according to Lin Xinyi's plan, and several representatives of the Indian Labour Party had disguised themselves as members of the Indian Tea Association and traveled to the United States to oversee the plan's implementation. The British, at least, weren't fools.
Chapter 441 Groups
On January 22, Lin Xinyi and Wu Luzhen saw off the fifth batch of returning personnel. Kishida Gentaro, Domoto Keiichi, and Furukawa Shunga were among them. The reason why the three of them returned with this batch of personnel was not only because they were homesick, but also because they had finally received a secret order from the Naval General Staff.
In fact, the Naval Ministry had long wanted to bring them back to Japan, but the British and this Tibetan expeditionary force were locked in a fierce struggle, and the Naval Ministry was not confident that it could contact them without alerting the British, so it had to remain silent. However, with the change of British cabinet and the Liberal Party-led British government's attempt to peacefully resolve the issues of India and Tibet, the blockade of the insurgency-ridden areas in India gradually eased.
The Naval General Staff, under the guise of exchanging ideas with the Nepalese Buddhist community, sent a spy disguised as a monk into India. Unlike Lin Xinyi, Kishida, Domoto, and Furukawa had no choice but to obey the General Staff's orders. However, Lin Xinyi didn't take it seriously, saying that he hadn't finished his business in India and told the three of them to go back and report first.
Before leaving, Kishida Gentaro was still uneasy about Lin Xinyi's disobedience to the General Staff's orders and even tried to persuade him to return with them. Although Kishida Gentaro had not been convinced by Lin Xinyi before coming to China, he now naturally placed himself in a subordinate position in front of Lin Xinyi.
Not only Kishida Gentaro, but the other two also felt the same way in front of Lin Xinyi. To them, Lin Xinyi was no longer just a respected senior at school, but the true leader of their group. Although they might not fully agree with Lin Xinyi's political ideals, having followed him to this point, they found it difficult to separate themselves from him.
This is probably a characteristic of the Japanese. Once a group is formed, few people will actively break away from the group on the grounds of ideological differences. Even if the group's founding principles aligned with their own when they joined, they will not feel betrayed when the group leader changes the original principles. Instead, they will feel that they should follow the leader and change their own principles.
From Tibet to India, the group led by Lin Xinyi not only achieved its initial goal, but also accomplished a goal they had never dared to imagine before. At this point, they could no longer leave the group, because they felt that they would never be able to reach this level again.
Lin Xinyi's refusal to accept the orders issued by the Military Command left them feeling bewildered, as they did not know what to do after returning. However, they could not refuse the orders of the Military Command because they felt that they were still members of the Navy and how could they disobey orders and act on their own?
Seeing the confusion of Kishida and the other two, Hayashi Shinji kindly comforted them, saying, "I am different from you. You were brought here by me, so I have already explained it to Minister Kawahara and Vice Minister Togo in a letter. They will make appropriate arrangements for you."
However, if you have a choice, I suggest you don't choose China or the mainland. The future of the navy lies in Southeast Asia. Going to China would be a waste of time, and staying on the mainland won't give you the necessary experience. Going to Southeast Asia, on the other hand, would allow you to put what you learned in India to good use.
Before Kishida and Furukawa could react, Domoto tentatively asked, "Does the commissioner mean that the navy will soon be making significant moves in Southeast Asia? In that case, will our opponent be the United States or the Netherlands?"
Domoto Keiichi was mainly responsible for intelligence and communications work by Lin Xinyi's side, so it was not surprising that he reacted faster than others. Lin Xinyi looked around and saw that there was no one else, so he bluntly said: "Since the United States has torn up the agreement reached with us and forcibly promoted the construction of the Panama Canal in the name of supporting the independence of the Panama region, it means that the competition between the United States and Japan in the Pacific has begun."
Since the Americans were able to incite the independence of Panama, we can certainly support the complete independence of the Filipinos from American rule. At least until the Panama Canal is completed, the United States is powerless to directly intervene militarily in Southeast Asia; they can only use economic means to coerce our country.
This three-way war between Japan, China, and Russia has given American capital an opportunity to control our country's debt. Can we simply stand by and watch the Americans gain control of this bridgehead in Asia and allow their power to penetrate the region? If that happens, the forces Britain withdrew from East Asia will ultimately be replaced by the United States, and Japan and China will ultimately be unable to escape the control of the white empire.
If American forces could be expelled from Southeast Asia, the Dutch would be unable to continue their colonial rule there, because without the support of Britain and the United States, the Netherlands simply would not have the strength to suppress the tens of millions of people in the Dutch East Indies.
Now that we have the support of the Indian people, it means that if Britain wants to intervene in the national liberation movements in Southeast Asia, it will be resisted by the Indian people. Under such a world situation, Britain will eventually abandon its support for the Dutch and carefully guard the Straits Settlements to prevent the national liberation movements in Southeast Asia from spreading to the Indian Ocean region.
As for the United States, it does not yet have a unified national consciousness and cannot be called a true country. In essence, the United States is a regional alliance organized by a common social consciousness.
Therefore, American imperialism didn't even garner widespread domestic support. What truly mobilized Americans wasn't imperial interests, but a broad ideology: the defense of freedom and rights. This is the ideological root behind why the American people supported Panama's independence but opposed direct American rule over the Philippines…
Domoto Keiichi, Kishida Gentaro, and Furukawa Shunga listened with puzzled expressions. They couldn't quite understand what Lin Xinyi was saying. They found it hard to imagine that the people of a country were not loyal to a specific figure, but rather identified with a vague and intangible set of values.
Seeing the expressions on the three men's faces, Lin Xinyi could only hastily draw a conclusion: "Simply put, defeating America doesn't depend on destroying how many American troops and warships you take, but on destroying the American faith, letting them know that the American consensus they uphold doesn't exist. American capitalists are no different from European nobles; they too will trample on the freedom and rights of other nations and the proletariat, just to maintain their own privileges..."
As he watched Domoto and the other two leave, Lin Xinyi knew they still didn't quite believe his conclusion. But as a time traveler, he knew he was right, because he would rather acknowledge a non-existent People's Republic of China than accept the Qing Dynasty as China. Perhaps Li Hongzhang or someone else would say, "Without a motherland, you are nothing."
But as for the Qing Dynasty now, any sensible time traveler would want it to die. Who would consider the homeland of the Manchus and the landlord class as their own? The idea that the nation is inherently the object of all citizens' loyalty, and that those who are disloyal to the nation are traitors, is best exemplified by Showa-era Japan. Who would want to be a Showa-era Japanese?
Unconditional patriotism is essentially the same as unconditional love for one's parents—it's just blind loyalty and filial piety. It demands that children unconditionally love their parents, even if they are beasts; it demands that citizens unconditionally love their country and emperor, even if it's a fascist state.
If you expect your children to love you, then you must first ask yourself if you have fulfilled your parental responsibilities. If you expect citizens to love their country and its leader, then you must ask yourself what is it about that country and its leader that makes them worthy of love? The most ridiculous thing in the world is that "aphids, fed on plant sap, claim that they have nurtured the plants."
As Kishida Gentaro, Domoto Keiichi, and Furukawa Shunga bid farewell to Lin Xinyi and boarded the train, Russia's situation in the Far East became increasingly precarious. On January 21, Chinese troops occupied the Nanshan area of Jinzhou, thus placing the Russian troops within the city within the range of Chinese artillery fire.
At that time, Jinzhou was mostly comprised of courtyard houses and single-story buildings similar to those in Beijing, with virtually no high-rise buildings. Therefore, Nanshan was a strategic point for Jinzhou; whoever controlled Nanshan controlled the security of Jinzhou. This was quite clear to the Chinese, given that during the Ming-Qing War, Huang Taiji was able to capture Jinzhou by securing the surrender of the Ming troops at Nanshan.
The Russian generals in the city were not unaware of this, but with the 17th and 71st Divisions defeated and the 54th Division largely wiped out by the Chinese, the Russian West Manchuria Group had essentially lost its ability to defend the entire front. Lieutenant General Sobolov could only select a few areas around Jinzhou for key defense.
However, the most important factors in defensive warfare are sufficient material reserves and the soldiers' belief in victory. The West Manchuria Group had previously placed most of its supplies at the front lines, which were subsequently captured by the Chinese. Although Jinzhou was the logistical center of the Russian army's western front, Kuropatkin greatly reduced the transfer of supplies to Jinzhou in preparation for the Japanese-led Battle of Liaoyang.
Now, the Chinese have sabotaged the railway line from Heishan to Xinmin, causing a sudden shortage of supplies for the Russian troops in Jinzhou. Of course, what is most damaging to the morale of the Russian troops is that the Russian troops in the Fengtian region have been unable to open up the railway line from Xinmin to Yixian, making the Russian troops in Jinzhou feel as if they have been abandoned by Fengtian, and they are even less willing to hold out in Jinzhou.
The reason why the Russian army in Fengtian was unable to open up the railway line from Heishan to Xinmin for so long was twofold. First, the Japanese did not stop their advance, especially the First Army led by Kuroki, which pressed closer to the Shahe area after the Russian army retreated. Kuropatkin naturally could not mobilize a large force to relieve the West Manchuria Group. Second, the Chinese army was not simply holding the railway line from Heishan to Xinmin. They were constantly moving their troops to attack the Russian army's flanks and rear, and even crossed the Liao River to attack Tieling, making it even more difficult for the Russian army to concentrate its forces to maintain the passage between Jinzhou and Fengtian.
On the evening of January 21, Kuropatkin finally had no choice but to accept the unanimous request of the senior Russian generals of the West Manchuria Army Group, led by Lieutenant General Sobolov, to withdraw from Jinzhou. From January 22 to January 25, Lieutenant General Sobolov led the remaining 50,000-plus troops of the West Manchuria Army Group to the Xinmin area, where they re-established a defensive line along the Liao River.
The Battle of Jinzhou ended on January 26th. Yuan Shikai achieved his goal of capturing Jinzhou, but the Second Division of the Beiyang Army was no longer able to fight and had to retreat to the rear for reorganization. In this battle, the Chinese army lost nearly 1 men, equivalent to the loss of a complete division, while the Russian army also lost 3 men. Kuropatkin could no longer ignore the Chinese army to the west.
Chapter 442 A New Model of War
When the Russian troops in Jinzhou retreated, Aoki Nobuyuki was watching the battle from Nanshan Mountain. As a major supporter of Yuan Shikai's formation of the Beiyang Army, the Japanese advisor was actually quite active in the Beiyang Army. The Third Division of Beiyang was actually organized with the help of Major Teranishi Hidetake, a Japanese advisor.
Although Japanese advisors did not participate in the frontline defense when Russia declared war on Beijing in order to maintain Japan's neutrality, they still devoted a great deal of effort to the Beiyang Army's defense plans and the establishment of reserve divisions.
After Japan joined the war, these Japanese advisors to the Beiyang Army quickly participated in the Beiyang Army's offensive against Jinzhou. To be honest, Yuan Shikai's determination to use the core of the Beiyang Army in this battle was inseparable from the active persuasion of Aoki, Teranishi, Sakanishi, and others.
However, Aoki Nobuzumi soon discovered that although they had assisted in training the Beiyang Army, it was still no match for the Imperial Army on the actual battlefield. In exercises, the Beiyang Army's drills might be on par with the Imperial Army, but on the real battlefield, the Beiyang Army lacked the will to fight to the bitter end.
When the Second Division of the Beiyang Fleet launched its attack on Jinzhou as the vanguard, it relied entirely on the plans of Japanese officers. However, on the battlefield, the Second Division was repeatedly repelled by the Russian army, completely failing to achieve the Japanese officers' operational plans. Because of this result, some discord finally arose between the Japanese officers and the Beiyang generals. The Japanese felt that the Beiyang generals were too focused on preserving their own strength, while the Beiyang generals felt that the Japanese were like someone else's child who would never be completely wiped out.
The Beiyang generals, who originally intended to rival Wuhan through a victory, eventually shifted back to supporting the Wuhan-led operational model, showing no trace of their pre-war desire to challenge Wuhan's dominance in the operation.
Of course, while Aoki Nobuzumi verbally disagreed with the complaints of the Beiyang generals, he could actually understand them. His long-term life in China had made his way of thinking closer to that of the Chinese than the Japanese.
He was well aware of the circumstances under which Yuan Shikai had established the Beiyang Army. This army was essentially the foundation upon which Yuan Shikai and the Beiyang generals stood; without it, they would have lost their power and positions. Therefore, no matter what name this army had, or what new weapons or training methods it used, it could not change its fundamental nature as a private army.
This means that although Yuan Shikai and the Beiyang generals wanted to enhance the Beiyang's influence through battlefield victories, they could not afford to suffer too many losses, because private armies were difficult to replenish. The Beiyang New Army could not summon a soldier with just a postcard, as the Imperial Army did, or even if it were possible, Yuan Shikai could not fully trust such an army.
In contrast, the army commanded by the commander in Wuhan was actually the one that could truly bear the casualties. Like the Imperial Army, the Wuhan army implemented conscription in its own territory. Although they did not establish a system of loyalty to the Emperor-led state, they managed to get the people to accept conscription through land reform.
In fact, rural China had a considerable surplus of manpower. After the land was redistributed, many families had hope for a better life. At this time, each family was naturally willing to send one or two children to serve in the army to secure their land ownership. The good food and training provided by the Wuhan army fostered a sense of belonging among these young men.
Just as many young men from rural areas in the Imperial Army ate their fill of rice for the first time after joining the army, most soldiers in the Wuhan Army also ate pork, sugar, and even chocolate and coffee for the first time after enlisting. The food expenses for the Wuhan Army were actually twice that of the Imperial Army; as troops fighting on their home soil, they clearly ate better.
As a result, the gap between the Wuhan army and the Beiyang New Army on the battlefield continued to widen. In order to complete their mission, the Wuhan army could even endure nearly 30% casualties, while the Beiyang New Army could not hold on for more than 5% casualties. The Russian army could not tolerate about 7% casualties, while the Imperial Army, under the call of loyalty to the Imperial State, could endure 10-15% casualties.
Therefore, nearly 4% of the casualties suffered by the Chinese army in the Battle of Jinzhou were borne by the Wuhan army, while the Beiyang Army had three times the number of troops. This means that the Wuhan army was the backbone of the Chinese army in this war. Without the Wuhan army holding the line, the Russian army would obviously not have been able to withdraw from Jinzhou.
After the Russian army began its withdrawal from Jinzhou, the Wuhan troops also halted their advance for rest and reorganization, and the Beiyang Army as a whole slowed its pursuit of the Russians. Aoki Nobuyuki's subordinates, watching the Russians retreat without hindrance, were all quite indignant. One of the younger men even said rudely, "If Feng Guozhang had committed all his troops to this, he could have completely crushed these Russians. But they just sat there and watched them retreat; it's utterly incomprehensible..."
Watching the Russian troops slowly retreat along the railway line in the distance, Aoki didn't believe that the Beiyang Army could easily defeat them by pressing forward with all its might. After all, the Russian troops hadn't completely lost their fighting spirit. Judging from their alternating retreat formation, to completely crush them in the pursuit, the Beiyang Army would need to suffer at least 1 to 2 casualties, a price that the Beiyang Army couldn't afford.
From the Japanese perspective, the Beiyang Army's all-out attack and defeat of the current Russian army would relieve pressure on the Imperial Army's attack on Fengtian. However, from the perspective of the Chinese or the Beiyang Army, this war is far from over. It is obviously not worthwhile to invest all resources at this time just to leave behind a small Russian force.
He stood on the cliff for a long time, finally sighing, "It seems our future adversary will be Wuhan, not Beiyang. If a continental power were to rise from here, it would be our greatest misfortune..."
The Japanese standing behind Aoki were speechless for a moment. They had no different opinion on Aoki's judgment. Wuhan's performance in this war was truly remarkable, no less than that of the Imperial Army on the battlefield. They knew the Beiyang Army like the back of their hand, but they did not know much about the Wuhan army. If Wuhan really took control of China, then it would indeed be a formidable opponent, just like the Russian army.
The victory in the Battle of Jinzhou indeed greatly enhanced the prestige of Yuan Shikai and the Beiyang government. British and American diplomats congratulated him and expressed their willingness to further support him in gaining power in China.
However, faced with the losses and expenses reported in this battle, Yuan Shikai nearly fainted. Although the Beiyang Army had begun to form the Seventh and Eighth Divisions, he believed that his core Beiyang force actually consisted only of the Second and Fourth Divisions. This battle had almost crippled the Second Division. Feng Guozhang couldn't help but express his grief in a telegram to him, saying, "This battle is truly the first major battle since the formation of the Beiyang Army. Although our army has won, the sight of our Beiyang soldiers lying dead on the battlefield fills me with sorrow..."
Feng Guozhang's emotionally charged telegram was actually a roundabout way of telling Yuan Shikai that if two or three more major battles like this were fought, there would be no Beiyang Army left. While Yuan Shikai was indeed saddened by the losses suffered by the Beiyang Army upon reading the telegram, he quickly realized its true meaning and summoned Tian Wenlie to ask, "The number of casualties in Wuhan is not small. What is the situation?"
Tian Wenlie replied to Yuan Shikai: "The wounded and dead soldiers of the Wuhan army have begun to be transferred to the south. Although the soldiers are deeply saddened by the deaths, I have not heard of any war-weariness. In addition, the reserve troops in Wuhan arrived in Tianjin yesterday... In my opinion, the Wuhan army at the front will soon be able to restore its fighting capacity."
After listening to Tian Wenlie's words, Yuan Shikai remained silent for a long time before speaking: "Why can Wuhan replenish its troops so quickly? You are also in charge of battalion affairs, tell me, why can't we replenish our troops after the battle?"
After hesitating for a moment, Tian Wenlie said, "Wuhan has a conscription system, while our Beiyang Army has a volunteer system. They can forcibly conscript soldiers, but we can't."
Upon hearing this, Yuan Shikai immediately asked with dissatisfaction, "Why is it acceptable for others to forcibly levy taxes, but not for us?"
Tian Wenlie said, "Although they forcibly conscripted soldiers, they distributed land to the farmers, so the conscripted soldiers dared not desert for fear that their land would be confiscated. We can use them as transport laborers, but if they are really taken to the battlefield, they all desert immediately."
Yuan Shikai finally fell silent. Whether or not to distribute land to landlords was the fundamental reason why gentry in various regions opposed Wuhan and supported him. If he were to distribute land to landlords like Wuhan, then no one would support him, and even if he won this national war, he would still not have a good ending.
By this time, Yuan Shikai finally realized that Jinzhou was probably the Beiyang Army's final victory in this war, and the subsequent battles would have nothing to do with the Beiyang Army, because the Beiyang Army had too little capital to afford to fight.
This major battle not only inflicted heavy casualties on the Beiyang Army, but also cost them over 1500 million yuan in military expenses. They still owe the Hanyang Arsenal over 300 million yuan in ammunition. Although the Jiangnan Arsenal, Jinling Arsenal, and Tianjin Machinery Factory could all manufacture firearms and ammunition, their output was rather meager.
Although the Japanese provided the Beiyang Fleet with a batch of munitions, as Japan continued to expand its battlefield during the war, they could no longer guarantee the supply of ammunition to the Beiyang Fleet. Therefore, the Beiyang Fleet's ammunition supply came partly from overseas purchases, mainly from Germany, and partly from the Hanyang Arsenal. The latter was actually the most stable source of ammunition supply for the Beiyang Fleet, because overseas purchases were not only delayed but also prone to unforeseen circumstances.
The Battle of Jinzhou shattered some of Yuan Shikai's unrealistic illusions. He believed that his meticulously trained Beiyang Army was enough to overwhelm the Wuhan army in terms of quality. However, the actual performance on the battlefield told him that in such a major battle, the quality of the army was closely linked to its sustained combat effectiveness. The era of being able to dominate for decades by training an army was over. What everyone was now expending on the battlefield was steel and will, not combat skills.
Chapter 443 War Dividends
Although the Battle of Jinzhou was somewhat of a loss for Yuan Shikai and the Beiyang generals, it had a profound impact on the perceptions of the great powers towards China and on the internal political situation in China.
Firstly, Japan no longer viewed China as a passive force to contain Russia. Although the Japanese strongly encouraged Yuan Shikai to launch the Battle of Jinzhou, they did not believe that the Chinese could achieve any real results. What they needed was for the Chinese offensive to draw away the Russian West Manchurian Group, preventing this armed force of 80,000 to 90,000 men from being used elsewhere.
The total number of troops that China mobilized was only 110,000 to 120,000. The difference in troop strength between the two sides was not enough for the Chinese to gain an overwhelming advantage. In addition, the Japanese believed that the field combat capabilities of the Chinese army were far inferior to their own. Therefore, the Chinese naturally could not drive the Russian army out of Jinzhou with such a small force.
However, the current results have shown the Japanese that the Chinese army is not entirely useless in open field battles, meaning that the Chinese army can actually supplement the Japanese army's insufficient manpower. Oyama Iwao, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army in South Manchuria, had always wanted to achieve a decisive victory against the Russian army in the Battle of Sedan before the war. However, after being reminded by the navy, the Japanese General Staff proposed a northward attack plan, which dispersed the Japanese forces in South Manchuria, effectively thwarting his plan.
However, now that the Japanese army has captured Vladivostok, the Russian army has been forced to divide its forces in Harbin and other places. The Battle of Liaoyang ended with a Japanese victory. The Chinese then launched the Battle of Jinzhou, which once again weakened the Russian army. At this time, Oyama Iwao felt that it was feasible to replicate the Battle of Sedang with the goal of the Battle of Mukden. As long as the Chinese army could continue to maintain pressure on the direction of Mukden and Tieling, the Russian army in Mukden would be in a situation of being attacked from three sides.
Despite repeated defeats suffered by the Russian Far East forces thanks to St. Petersburg's efforts, the total number of Russian troops in Manchuria still outnumbered the regular Chinese and Japanese forces by a desperate gamble of sending reinforcements to the Far East, roughly 40 to 30. However, the Russian Far East forces were divided and surrounded in various areas, and the situation looked unfavorable.
Both General Oyama Iwao, Commander-in-Chief of the Manchurian Army, and General Kodama Gentaro, Chief of Staff of the Manchurian Army, believed that although the Russian army was at a disadvantage on the battlefield, Russia's national strength overwhelmed Japan and China. Under Russia's reckless troop reinforcement model, it was Japan that first felt its strength was insufficient.
According to the plan, after the Second Army, which was fighting in the north, captured Vladivostok, it should have actively launched an offensive against the Harbin area in order to cut off the Russian army's logistical routes in South Manchuria. However, the Russian army transported troops at twice the speed that the Japanese had calculated before the war, so that although the Second Army captured Vladivostok, it also lost the opportunity to capture Harbin.
During the Japanese capture of Vladivostok, Russian troops continuously reinforced Harbin from Europe, rapidly increasing the number of troops there from less than 2 to more than three times. Although these Russian troops, urgently transported to the Far East, had many problems in combat effectiveness, they were still capable of digging fortifications and carrying out defensive operations.
Therefore, after summarizing the intelligence transmitted from various places, Oyama Iwao once again proposed the idea of a decisive battle in southern Manchuria, but with slight modifications to the plan, taking into account the strength of the Chinese army.
Kodama did not actually want to use the Chinese army to complete the final battle against Russia. He raised two questions about the plan: "If we rely on the strength of the Chinese to win the war against Russia, how should the status of Manchuria be handled after the war?"
Although the Beiyang Army held a favorable view of my country, Wuhan remained wary and unwilling to engage in much exchange with my country regarding military equipment and training. Our request for joint operations with the Chinese implied that the Imperial Army was incapable of independently defeating the Russian army. Would the Chinese then make concessions to us after the war?
Kodama's position represented the thinking of a segment of continental expansionist military figures. They believed that although there were three belligerent nations in this war, the war actually determined Japan and Russia's dominance over the Far East, and that China was not yet qualified to sit at the table for the distribution of postwar benefits.
Kodama's stance was actually much more radical than Yamagata's. Although Yamagata shouted about lifelines and interests, his pre-war objective when he went to war with Russia was to control the Korean Peninsula. He hesitated for a time about the plan to attack Russian territory, fearing that it would trigger a long-term confrontation between Russia and Japan. He believed that Japan could not tolerate a long-term confrontation with such a large country.