Chapter 140 The Beginning of the Trench War

Not to mention the large number of ordnance ammunition and other combat materials provided by Zhao Dongyun to the Russians. In addition to the heavy machine guns, bullets and shells that have not been stopped, there are also barbed wire, and important strategic materials such as cement have also been supplied.

Although there are no large-scale steel mills in many factories under the Fuyuan system in Zhao Dongyun's hands, there is only a small-scale steel mill under the Fuyuan Machinery Factory. As for the large-scale steel mill that Fuyuan Machinery Factory was only financing and preparing to build at the beginning of the year, it has not even shipped the equipment back to China!

But this does not mean that Zhao Dongyun can't make barbed wire. He doesn't have much steel and other raw materials. It is not a big problem to import or buy it directly from Hanyang Iron and Steel Factory. After having raw materials, there is no technical or production capacity problem to produce barbed wire directly from Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

Although Fuyuan Machinery Factory is only an arsenal on the surface, in fact, large arsenals these days are all integrating machine manufacturing, chemical industry, coal, steel, wood and many other departments. Basically, a large arsenal can contain most of the contemporary industrial systems. There are more than a dozen branches under Fuyuan Machinery Factory, such as chemical plants that make sulfuric acid and other compounds, synthesize smokeless gunpowder, *, such as steel and iron factories that produce steel and iron, bullet factories that produce bullets, gun lengths that produce shells, and production. In addition, there are gun factories that produce machine guns and rifles, artillery runs and research. The gun factory, which produces artillery, specializes in producing wood, gunstocks and *wood handles, and then there is a leather factory that produces bullet bags, gun belts and even military shoes, and then there is a knife factory that produces cold weapons such as bayonets, sabers, command knives, etc.

Basically, as you can imagine in the military industry, there will be internal departments to produce these things in Fuyuan Machinery Factory, large or small.

Even Fuyuan Machinery Factory has some sideline businesses. For example, in order to provide production equipment and maintenance equipment for other subsidiaries of Fuyuan Yarn Factory, it has also set up a machine manufacturing factory to imitate foreign spinning machines, looms and even produce some industrial machine tools.

Therefore, Fuyuan Machinery Factory cannot be regarded simply as an arsenal that can only make guns and cannons, just like the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau can not only produce Type 88 rifles, but also naval warships and long-barreled heavy guns.

Therefore, for Fuyuan Machinery Factory, there is no technical and output problems in the production of barbed wire. The key is that the raw materials are purchased, resulting in high production costs. Anyway, Zhao Dongyun himself is reluctant to use too much on the Jinzhou defense line. Basically, he has a batch of reserves for wartime reuse.

But the Russians don't care about the so-called cost. How many shells there are? Naturally, the slightly expensive barbed wire is also how many.

There is also cement. Although this thing is also a relatively novel thing, many cement factories have emerged in China in recent years. Of course, it is not called a cement factory at this time. It is generally called 'foreign ash factory' and some people will also call it 'fine cotton soil factory'. For example, Tangshan already had 'Tangshan fine cotton factory' in 1889. Soil factory'.

As the most dynamic in northern China after the year of Gengzi, it attracted countless capital to try to invest in the Fuyuan Yarn Factory. After investing in a series of subsidiaries such as Fuyuan Machinery Factory and Fuyuan Weaving Factory, it also invested in the construction of Fuyuan Yanghui Factory in Tangshan in 1903. The factory was wholly owned by Fuyuan Yarn Factory in the early stage, and in the later period and its His subsidiary also dispersed its shares in order to expand its scale and attract funds, but Fuyuan Yarn Factory still occupies more than 80% of the shares.

In addition to the Fuyuan ash factory under the name of Zhao Dongyun, there are several other ash factories in Zhili and northern China. Zhao Dongyun collected a lot of cement from these manufacturers and then transported it to Jinzhou by railway. In addition to some of them for his own use to build the Jinzhou defense line, more It was sold to the Russians.

After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Zhao Dongyun sold a lot of materials to the Russians, especially in February, March and April. In the early months, there were not only ordnance, but also cement, barbed wire and even grain. Most of the materials sold in the early stage were transported to Lushun to strengthen the Lushun Fortress, making the completion of the Lushun Fortress higher than in history.

For example, the fortifications of 203 Heights, historically, the fortifications in this place were not completed at all when the Japanese attacked. Although they are still not able to repair all the fortifications, they are also seven or eight. Coupled with Zhao Dongyun's point, the Russians also found the importance of this 203 highland in the war. In the early stage, heavy troops were stationed for defense.

Zhao Dongyun believes that Ri himself wants to conquer Lushun, and it is estimated that more people will die than in history!

Moreover, Zhao Dongyun's intervention also caused a deviation in the historical trajectory. The Japanese army failed to take over the front positions of Lushun on August 15. Without taking these front positions, they could not launch an attack on the fortress of Lushun itself, let alone capture 203 Heights or directly shelling the Russian warships in the port of Lushun. Team.

So the Russian naval breakout did not happen as scheduled around August 10 in history!

The reason why the Russian navy in Lushun Port took a breakout in August was that after the Japanese army occupied Dagu Mountain and several other forward positions, they set up a shelling command post to command long-range heavy artillery to shell the Russian fleet in Lushun port, which forced the Russian navy to leave the port and try to rush in the direction of Vladivostok. Surrounding.

However, now the Japanese army has not even captured the big lonely mountain, so naturally it can't talk about threatening the Russian fleet in the port.

Once history is biased, it will cause a series of deviations. The Japanese army failed to capture the forward positions such as Dagu Mountain in time, that is to say, the Russian army's defense tactics in Dagu Mountain have been greatly successful, resulting in the acquisition of Constantine Smirnov, the main war general responsible for the defense of the area. With the support of most of the garrison generals in Lushun.

At this time, it broke out that the Russian commander-in-chief concealed the telegram. Anatoly Stessel, the commander-in-chief of Russia, was removed from his position by Kulopatkin, the supreme commander of the Russian Far East, and appointed Smirnov as the commander-in-chief, but An Natoli Stessel concealed the telegram, which made the latter know nothing about the appointment. However, when he won a great victory in the defense of Dagu Mountain, Kubert King once again sent a telegram to the front line of Lushun. At this time, Stessel, who had repeatedly advocated surrender, had no chance to continue to conceal the telegram, resulting in concealing the telegram before. The report was exposed.

Immediately, Anatoly Stessel was expelled from power by his former subordinates and placed under house arrest, while Constantine Smirnov became the commander of Russia*.

This person is a determined main war faction. He did not adopt the strategy of passive defense and shrinkage like Stsell before, but adopted active defense. In addition to carrying on Dagu Mountain and Xiaogu Mountain, he also launched a counterattack to regain the front position of Hill 203.

These changes are one after another, and this is not the result directly promoted by Zhao Dongyun. In fact, Zhao Dongyun does not know the details of the offensive and defensive war in Lushun in history, and he does not know who is better to preside over the defense of Lushun. All he did was remind the Russians of the importance of Hill 203 and provide Russia with some machine guns, ammunition and other combat supplies.

He himself does not have the ability to directly affect the appointment of high-level generals of the Russian army. However, many things have a butterfly effect. He sold so many machine guns and other combat materials to the Russians, which naturally affected the results of the Russian army more or less, and these victory and defeats that are different from history naturally affected the Russian army. Some personnel appointments.

So with Zhao Dongyun, this Russo-Japanese War can't be the same as history!

The change is not only in the Battle of Lushun, but also in the Battle of Liaoyang. The large number of applications of machine guns, trenches and barbed wire have caused the Japanese army to be almost unable to go further in the past month. As a result, the only large-scale attack launched by more than half of the casualties of a division in one day...

So there was also a stalemate in the battle of Liaoyang. Japan urged the Third Army to take Lushun as soon as possible and then reinforce the front line of Liaoyang!

However, in the past few months, not only the Russian army has recognized the important role of heavy machine guns, but also the Japanese army has also recognized the important role of heavy machine guns!

Japan urgently ordered heavy machine guns from France, the United Kingdom and even Germany. Russia also searched for many heavy machine guns, especially from Germany and France, and shipped from Europe to the Far East. In addition to shells and bullets, heavy machine guns and heavy machine gun bullets have become the best. Materials transported first.

"According to the return of our war attaches, the Russian army has built a relatively complete trench defense system after several months of operation in Liaoyang. Judging from their trench defense system, it should refer to our Jinzhou defense system!" Chen Guangyuan pointed to the layout map of the Japanese and Russian armies in Liaoyang on the table and continued, "Look at the layout of their machine gun fortress, which can completely form cross machine gun firepower!"

Meng Enyuan, who was beside him, also said, "The Japanese army has also dug trenches now, and the layout is similar to that of Russia!"

As he spoke, he smiled bitterly and said, "It's only been a few years. Why are you using machine guns and trenches!"

Meng Enyuan's words revealed a strong unwillingness. Although this machine gun was used on a large scale by foreigners, it was the Beiyang Army that proposed the machine gun or even large-scale application of machine gun tactics and trench tactics. The Beiyang Army was influenced by Zhao Dongyun in 1901 and has developed a complete set so far. The combination of machine guns, trenches and barbed wire is a combination of defense tactics.

Even before the Russo-Japanese War, only the Beiyang family knew this tactic. Others used heavy machine guns as artillery battalions and trenches as chest walls. There was no systematic trench tactics at all.

However, after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Zhao Dongyun not only sold machine guns to the Russians, but also taught them to dig trenches and arrange machine guns. Then after waiting for the machine guns to play a major role in the early stage of the Liaoyang Battle and maimed a Japanese division within a day, the heavy machine guns became the Russian army almost overnight. At the core of defense tactics, without Zhao Dongyun's guidance, people are just beginning to study how to make better use of machine guns.

The result is obvious. A few months later, Russia in the Liaoyang Theater dug out trenches with a total length of hundreds of kilometers and deployed nearly 300 heavy machine guns. The trenches were covered with barbed wire.

And the learning ability of the Japanese army on the opposite side is not bad. They are the ones who suffer from machine guns in the front, so they also have the same. When Akiyama's cavalry fought with the Russian cavalry, instead of playing immediate melee, they played machine guns. As a result, they defeated the Russian cavalry.

So the Japanese army on the front line of Liaoyang also began to learn from the Russian army to dig trenches and urgently buy heavy machine guns from foreign countries...

When the machine gun became a pivotal weapon that could even determine the victory or defeat of the war, the Russian army also sent Andrea again. Andre still looked like an old gentleman as before, but he was not polite when he saw Zhao Dongyun. The first sentence was: "We hope Buy more machine guns from the general!"