On February 3, 1904, according to the report "The Russian Fleet at Lushun Port Left the Port" (in fact, the Russian fleet was only a sea exercise), the Japanese Naval Command issued the No. 1 Sea Order "Total Annihilation of the Russian Fleet" after receiving the approval of Emperor Meiji.
On 6 February, Admiral Heihachiro Higashigo, commander of the Combined Fleet, led the fleet out of Sasebo Port. At that time, the Japanese Navy had 6 battleships with a total tonnage of 230,000 tons, and the Russian Pacific Fleet had 7 battleships with a total tonnage of 190,000 tons. If the Russian Pacific Fleet were to merge with the Baltic Fleet, which had been reinforced from Europe, the combat effectiveness would be multiplied, and Japan would have no hope of victory. Therefore, the Japanese Navy was determined to defeat the Russian Pacific Fleet at the beginning of the war, or to trap it in the port and annihilate it, and then turn back to meet the Baltic Fleet. The success of this strategy was premised on the annihilation of the Russian Pacific Fleet, which led to the later army under the command of Nogi Nogi Tonyo storming the fortress of Lushun regardless of casualties. The operational strategy of confronting the Baltic Fleet off the coast of Japan can be said, in a sense, to be the germ of the later Japanese Navy's gradually reduced offensive operations against the United States.
Late on the night of February 8, 1904, Japan provoked the war again in an undeclared manner after the Sino-Japanese War. Affected by the Battle of Weihaiwei in the last war, the Japanese Navy used the lightning strike force to launch a sneak attack on the Russian fleet stationed outside the port of Lushun before the capital ships of the two sides engaged, injuring 2 battleships and forcing the Russian fleet to retreat to the port and hold on to help. In order to prevent the Russian ships from escaping, the Japanese Navy tried three times to block the channel with shipwrecks, but all of them failed due to the fierce naval guns and shore artillery fire of the Russian army, and replaced them with mines blockade, the two sides fought many times, and there were mutual damage, and the Japanese had 2 battleships that were sunk by mines. On August 10, the remaining Russian ships tried to break through, and the second Yellow Sea Battle (different from the Yellow Sea Naval Battle in the Sino-Japanese War) was fought with the main force of the combined fleet, and the Russian ships were mainly hostile to the Japanese fleet and were driven back to the harbor, but some of the ships still fled to neutral ports. In this battle, Dongxiang tried the T-shaped battle method.
In October 1904, the Second Pacific Fleet, reorganized by the main force of the Russian Baltic Fleet, finally set sail from Europe to help the east, and the reason why it did not send fleet reinforcements at the beginning of the war was that in addition to insufficient preparation for the war against Japan and difficulties in supplying long-distance navigation, the biggest reason was that the fuel supply problem along the way could not be solved. After protracted diplomatic consultations, coal aid from germany was finally obtained. However, before the Second Fleet reached the Far East, the Lushun Fortress had already fallen on New Year's Day of Meiji 38 (1905). However, the Russian fleet continued to advance eastward, culminating in a naval battle with the Japanese Navy on May 27 and 28. As we all know, the combined fleet achieved a world-renowned victory, and the Russian fleet was almost completely destroyed. Japan thus laid the foundation for the victory of the war.
After the victory in the Sea of Japan, both exhausted, Japan and Russia began diplomatic negotiations in search of peace. For Japan, the war, which mobilized 1 million people and cost 2 billion yen in military expenditure, had exceeded the limits of national strength, and the Russian side had intensified its internal contradictions due to the defeat of the war, especially the "Bloody Sunday" on January 22, 1905, which led to the upsurge of the revolutionary movement, forcing Russia to make peace with Japan. Under the mediation of the United States, Japan and Russia signed the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5, and Russia recognized Japan's control over Korea, from Manchuria to the army, ceded the island of Southern Sakhalin, etc., but Japan's expectations of huge reparations were disappointed, so it resented the United States.
Japan used the blood of the decaying Russian Empire as a tribute to its own ascension to the ranks of the great powers. The role of the Japanese Navy in this war is no exaggeration in any case. In the Naval Battle of the Sea of Japan, the power of large-caliber naval guns and new developments in naval warfare tactics (T-shaped tactics) were demonstrated, and it is considered to be the first modern naval battle in the history of naval warfare. The success of the Japanese Navy was the reward of Japan's tireless development of naval power since the Meiji Restoration, which established Japan's status as a naval power. It is worth mentioning that during the war, Japan also initially demonstrated its industrial strength, repairing a large number of war-damaged ships in a short period of time. Japanese industry, which developed rapidly as a result of the policy of strengthening the armed forces of the rich countries, strongly supported the war. The victory in the Russo-Japanese War deeply affected the later development of the Japanese Navy, and many of its strategic and tactical ideas became the golden rule of the Japanese Navy, reaching a degree of rigidity, so that in the era of aviation naval warfare, they still clung to the idea of fleet decisive battle, and finally led to defeat.
Before the Japanese Navy could savor the taste of victory, the British Navy built the cross-era battleship "Intrepid" in Meiji 39 (1906), setting off a new wave of naval change, and Japan soon joined other naval powers in the arms expansion race, pouring all its strength into building bigger and stronger warships to push the Japanese Navy in the direction of the ocean-going navy.
Body author: Yuriko Reina