My Italian: Chapter 491 The sad reminder of the 2nd Pacific Fleet

With the arrival of 1904, the tumultuous world still has not been calmed down. At present, the war in the Far East is still going on, and there is a growing trend.

However, a major change occurred on the battlefield at this time. The Japanese army captured the Lushun Fortress. 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 pulling up the 280mm caliber howitzer for 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 took such a lot of trouble, and their power was extraordinary, in the shelling of the 203 Heights. Destroy its strong fortifications one by one. In addition to heavy artillery, the base camp also transferred the only active division remaining in the mainland, the seventh division reorganized from the Tuntian Army, to Lushun.

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

After occupying the 203 Heights, the Japanese army took the initiative on the Lushun battlefield.

Then the Japanese army pulled the siege artillery up to the 203 Heights, and then used the heavy artillery to bombard the Russian military ships in the port and the Russian military facilities in the urban area, and the combined fleet outside the port was also tightly sealed to prevent the remaining Russian fleet from escaping. open sea. The First Pacific Fleet, which is trapped in an isolated port, is now blinded, and even a famous general like Makanov has nothing to do.

Subsequently, the only remaining Poltava and Nicholas I in the Russian Pacific Fleet were sunk by heavy Japanese artillery.

Then, the Japanese army stepped forward step by step, like pushing a multi-bone rice card, first conquered a series of Russian fortresses, and then occupied more and more urban areas of Lushun.

On January 11, 1904, Stessel led tens of thousands of defeated soldiers and surrendered to the Japanese army. In addition to conquering the Lushun Fortress, the Japanese army also had an unexpected joy. The two Crown Prince and the Victory, which were being repaired at the dock, were captured by the Japanese army.

Faced with this unexpected joy, Togo Heihachiro was naturally overjoyed. After watching the two warships being repaired overnight, he immediately sent a report to the headquarters, requesting that the country immediately send enough shipyard workers to repair the two Lushun ships. A gift from the defenders.

When the news of the fall of Lushun Fortress came out, the Russian Second Pacific Fleet serving as reinforcements was still in the Indian Ocean. The Second Pacific Fleet that circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope was full of disasters. Not to mention the difficulty of circumventing the African continent, because the German profiteers only talk but not practice, and it is difficult to guarantee timely supply. The Tsarist Russian fleet had to load as much coal as possible.

Russian sailors filled the deck, engine room, officer cabin, and even bathrooms with coal bags. The dust on the warship was like a coal mine, and many sailors suffered from respiratory diseases. When passing through the tropics, the Tsarist Russian Navy also closed the ventilation pipes, making the number of people who fell ill from pouring coal (unlucky) even higher.

In addition, since there was no sleep in the cabin, the Russian sailors had to sleep outside the cabin. The problem is that there is coal everywhere outside the cabin, and the unlucky sailor has to sleep on the coal bag. These unlucky ghosts who eat and sleep with coal evenly sprinkle coal in the boiler every day, and have to extinguish the fire to clean the boiler every three or four hours. Due to the huge coal pouring work, the Second Pacific Fleet of Tsarist Russia even set a world record of adding 120 tons of coal in one hour.

After finally being lucky enough to complete a long-lost docking and repairing, the nearly collapsed sailors flocked to leave and went ashore, squandering the small amount of military pay on taverns, prostitutes and gambling. This also means that no one will clean up the algae, seaweed and other debris wrapped around the ship, let alone conduct training. The commander, Lieutenant General Roger Stevenski, was temporarily absent due to mental failure, but hoped to resume sailing on January 14, 1904.

During this period, the Russian military's logistics department lived up to expectations and created a lot of trouble. Due to the chaotic management, the supply ship that came from the mainland was actually loaded with shells that the fleet didn't need at all. There were even special ships that sent a bunch of winter military uniforms to the officers and soldiers under the scorching African sun, bringing the fleet into a situation where even military uniforms were not enough.

In addition, the radio equipment of the fleet was mainly provided by the Germans. Once the engineer leaves, it will become scrap iron due to frequent failures. There was also a power system failure on a refrigerated ship, causing hundreds of tons of fresh meat in stock to go bad, forcing officers and soldiers to purchase local food at high prices.

It is a pity that the news of the fall of Lushun 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 winning rate of the decisive battle against Japan, they formed the Third Pacific Fleet in a superfluous manner. As a result, 3 battleships and 1 coastal defense battleship were transferred to the Indian Ocean. Therefore, Roger Stvinsky was asked to stay in Madagascar and wait for reinforcements to arrive before he could go on the road again.

But shortly afterwards, the French colonial authorities, who did not want the Russian fleet to stay longer, came to drive people away.

Faced with such a situation, Roger Stvinsky had no choice but to take the reluctant naval officers and soldiers of the Second Pacific Fleet and leave in the battleship.

So after a bad repair, the Second Pacific Fleet continued to march towards the remote Pacific Ocean.

Lieutenant Admiral Roger Stevinsky also recovered from his mental breakdown, and UU Kanshu www.uukanshu.com started intensive fleet training work.

Despite the lack of clothing and food and the collapse of morale in the army, the irascible coach did not take any effective measures to remedy it. On the contrary, he patrols back and forth on the flagship every day, checks the folding of the quilts of the soldiers, checks whether the subordinates are neatly dressed, and turns a blind eye to the officers' behavior of beating and scolding soldiers. Then I went into the office and corrected the spelling mistakes in the report like a language teacher.

Such iron bar education also quickly reaped results. Four officers and soldiers were hospitalized due to mental illness, 28 were choked out of tuberculosis by the soot flying all over the sky, and more people lost combat effectiveness due to tropical diseases. The incidents of suicide by jumping into the sea from time to time are the true portrayal of this painful expedition.

Even the battleships carrying this group of vulnerable people were overwhelmed by no one to clean the bottom of the aquatic plants and serious overload problems. The average speed of the fleet has dropped to a very dangerous 7.5 knots.

But fortunately, Germany extended a hand of friendship at this time and was willing to open the Port of Manila to it, so they only need to cross the Indian Ocean, cross the Strait of Malacca, and sail in the South China Sea for a while, then they can get a chance to recuperate.

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