Chapter 86: The Changing Battlefield Situation

  Yang Da Boss's surprise attack on Osaka shocked the world, and the Ming Pao newspaper went crazy in Europe with a massive propaganda campaign, boasting that this was a righteous punishment for that barbaric nation. Although some small newspapers criticized the behavior of his subordinates in Osaka, these voices disappeared at the fastest speed like throwing a small stone into a turbulent wave. Especially after the German Emperor and the Vatican simultaneously praised this behavior, Yang Da Boss's burning, killing and looting were justified, this was a righteous burning, killing and looting.

  The Japanese are crying out in Europe about their various crimes, even biting the bullet and taking a portion of their already scarce funds to try to play the public opinion war, but unfortunately, there are too few who dare to take on this task. Everyone understands the consequences of opposing a huge wealth empire with assets worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Those media outlets that dared to speak out for Japan before will soon be followed by a large number of competitors trying to strangle them, and it's not hard to guess who is behind these competitors. So even if there's money to be made, one has to think twice about whether this money is worth the trouble. And let's be real, the amount of money Japan has is just a joke compared to the Yang family's wealth.

  The helpless Japanese had no choice but to continue to ask the British, hoping that the British government could intervene and restrain Yang Feng. After all, this kind of behavior that always stirred up trouble was also seriously against the interests of the British people. On this point, the British government was indeed very annoyed, but they were also very afraid of offending Yang Feng now, as the significance of diesel engines and steam-powered torpedoes had already been demonstrated in this war.

  If it weren't for those two destroyers holding back Oyodo and his First Strike Fleet, the outcome of the Battle of the Yellow Sea would have been rewritten. In this scenario, the Royal Navy had already regarded diesel engines as the future, and even a King George V-class battleship converted to diesel engines was completed. With four diesel engines, this 15,000-ton giant achieved a speed of 21 knots, leaving all active and under-construction battleships in the world far behind. European newspapers were shocked that this battleship made all warships obsolete overnight.

  The British Navy, while excited, also found themselves facing a major problem - they couldn't replicate the diesel engine themselves, even with Yang Power opening up all the blueprints and sending over large numbers of engineers to help. The engines produced were of similar size but had less than a third of the power of the originals, and had an astonishingly high fault rate, rendering them completely impractical.

  The engineers of Yang's power system company were also helpless, and they frankly told the British that more than a third of the parts in their diesel engines were made by Boss Yang in unknown places, and half of the remaining parts had to rely on machine tools and materials brought from unknown sources by Boss Yang. Without these things, they could not actually produce this type of diesel engine even in Sweden.

  The British then realized that they had been cheated by Yang Feng, not only the diesel engine but also the steam-powered torpedo. Their imitation products could barely reach the same range and speed, but the hit rate and explosion rate after hitting were simply incomparable to the original version. The engineers at Bofors also kindly told them that some of the parts inside were directly supplied by Yang's boss.

  In other words, as long as the British Navy wants to continue equipping these two things, they must rely on Yang Feng. At least before truly counterfeiting the same thing, the Royal Navy must stretch its neck into Yang Feng's hands and let him strangle it at will. This situation is very dangerous and theoretically absolutely not allowed to occur.

  But if they didn't use these things, the Royal Navy would be finished, because at this time Germans, Frenchmen, Austrians, and even Italians began to introduce diesel engines on a large scale. The German diesel-powered battleship had also begun construction. Even the small countries of Northern Europe had started purchasing Yang's shipyard high-speed destroyers in batches, and the Ottoman Navy had ordered six such destroyers and commissioned Yang's shipyard to build two diesel-powered armored cruisers for them.

  If the Royal Navy didn't use diesel engines, their massive fleet would be left behind by everyone in less than five years, that's a real nightmare! So now they must continue to maintain friendship with Yang Feng, compared to the future of the Royal Navy, the hardships of the Japanese are not worth mentioning. The British government not only rejected the request of the Japanese but also explicitly told them that their best option is to surrender, otherwise, when the German expeditionary force arrives, their troubles will be even greater!

  If we admit defeat, we will have to cede territory and pay reparations. Thinking of the scene where powerful countries flock in the future, Ito Hirobumi felt a chill run down his spine. If he didn't admit defeat, he would have to bear the cost of the enemy landing on the mainland. He was hesitant when good news arrived, the first good news in this war, and it was a huge piece of good news.

  Pyongyang Great Victory

  The First Army, led by Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, known as the father of the Japanese army, defeated the Qing army that had launched a counterattack at Pingrang and had already killed its way to the gates of Pyongyang.

  When Yang Feng heard the news, he was also speechless. To be honest, although Yiketang'a is a Manchu, this person has military talent and is also one of the veteran generals who followed Senggelinqin to kill his way out of the battlefield. He is not of the same nature as those idle rich young masters. Originally in history, he fought well with Nie Shichen at Motian Ridge, but why did he stupidly lead more than 20,000 people to attack nearly 40,000 Japanese troops? Did he really think that his soldiers had the ability to attack the Japanese army?

  "It's not easy for Yiketang'a either, this time he was appointed by the Empress Dowager to go to Korea and make a name for himself by defeating the Japanese army. After all, we Han people have been suppressing them in military terms since the Taiping Rebellion, and even then there was still the Monk King who could hold up their prestige. But after the Monk King's death, there hasn't been anyone who can hold up the flag. The Empress Dowager wants to take this opportunity to raise the banner of the Eight Banners again, so she directly ordered him with an imperial edict to defeat the Japanese First Army."

  In this case, Iketang A had no other choice but to launch a head-on attack against the Japanese army, even if he knew that their strength was far superior to his own. The imperial court did not know the true combat power of the Japanese army; all they knew was that our army of over 10,000 men at Yashan Mountain had fought three million Japanese soldiers to a standstill. Since this was the case, it would be no problem for an army of over 20,000 men to launch a preemptive attack.

  Actually, at the beginning, he fought quite well. After all, most of them were Huai Army, and it was said that Wei Rugui led his personal soldiers to participate in the attack and was even wounded by a bullet. However, the Japanese had also learned our trench warfare tactics, so after fighting for a day, both sides suffered losses of over 3,000 without making any progress. As a result, the Japanese launched a surprise attack at midnight, and Feng Sheng'a was the first to run away, followed by Wei Heng'e, a general under Yiketang'a, who also ran away with Liu Shengxiu, who had not intended to attack in the first place. This led to the complete collapse of all the troops. If Song Qing, who was left behind to guard Pyongyang, hadn't reacted quickly, the Japanese would have taken advantage of the situation and entered Pyongyang by now." Xue Fucheng said with a bitter smile.

  In fact, Yang Feng was blinded by the victory of Yashan, which is the real combat power of the Qing army. The entire Sino-Japanese War battlefield was defeated in this way.

  But it seems that this is not a bad thing either. If the Japanese army had clashed again in Ping'an and suffered heavy casualties, they might have lost the courage to fight on. Giving them a victory would also boost Ito Hirobumi's morale to continue fighting. If both sides stopped fighting, what reason would he have to continue harming the Japanese people? This guy has made a sinister decision to watch the excitement.

  The fact was just as he had guessed, the real fighting strength of the Qing army made Shan County have a crazy joy, in this battle he suffered less than two hundred casualties, and suddenly annihilated three thousand Qing troops, and also forced the main force led by Iketang'a outside Pyongyang, now there are only four thousand brave soldiers from Songqing's department in the city.

  Ito Hirobumi was already considering whether to let the British mediate a ceasefire between the two sides, even if it meant dividing Korea in half or withdrawing from Korea altogether, just to save some face. As for the Germans and Yang Feng, if they could really withdraw two divisions, they would basically be able to hold on. Yang Feng is a pirate-like character, those 5,000 people will not attack a city with tight defenses, and the Germans, who have come from afar, cannot last too long either. Later, as long as they can be made to understand the difficulty of attacking Japan, then paying some more compensation would also be enough to send them off.

  Now, however, Kōno is strongly opposed to this and has clearly told him that the Qing army can only fight in a few places like Yashan, and they do not have the ability to attack. The rest are useless, he brought the first army alone for a month and easily crossed the Yalu River, at which time negotiations would be possible, at least Korea would have hope, and at that time, it could also show its strength with victory on the battlefield. If negotiations take place now, everyone will regard Japan as weak, this will stimulate the powers' ambition towards Japan.

  He also made sense, if they could fight to the Yalu River, at least let Germany and Russia know that Japan is not easy to bully, and they will carefully consider their demands. Since then, Ito Hirobumi decided to hold on a little longer. To be honest, it's too humiliating to seek peace at this time, and if things go wrong, they might be killed by angry samurai. As for the domestic security issue, if all else fails, they can only organize more battotai teams, and distribute those old muzzle-loading guns and cannons to local reserve forces again, making every citizen a soldier, defending the family and the country.

  Then, Sanada Yukimura immediately divided his troops into two routes. He led the 2nd and 3rd brigades to pursue the retreating army of Ikko-ikki, while Prince Kitashirakawa-no-miya led the 4th brigade to besiege Pyongyang. As for the Yasan side, before finding an effective way to attack, he let Oyama Iwao mainly play a containment role.