In the late Qing Dynasty, China was very humiliated, to what extent was it humiliated? In 1904, the two major empires of Japan and Tsarist Russia waged wars on the territory of our country, which seriously threatened the lives and property of our people and directly led to the production of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Many Qing people's houses were destroyed, grain was robbed, and both Japan and Russia forcibly pulled the Chinese people to transport ammunition, dig fortifications, and do coolies for them, resulting in many innocent people dying unjustly in this war with their innocence.
The saddest thing is that after this war, the Qing government actually compensated Japan and sold many interests of the northeast to Japan.
The only thing that can be regarded as a benefit is that it has indirectly stimulated the awakening of Nationalism in China, so that people of insight in China can thoroughly see the ugly face of imperialism and think about how to strengthen themselves. And from another point of view, the Russo-Japanese War also changed the course of world history.
In this battle, Tsarist Russia had new weapons and equipment, including Maxim machine guns and motorcycles, especially Maxim machine guns, which slaughtered a large number of Japanese troops in Lushun, which made the machine gunners of Tsarist Russia unbearable. In the end, however, it was the armed Japanese army that won the war, and the two sides signed the Treaty of Portsmouth.
This gave the Japanese two illusions: First, the Russians were very weak, their operational philosophy was old, and the soldiers' greed for life and death left a deep impression on the Japanese, so in the following decades, Japan was unscrupulous in the face of the Russians, and finally paid a painful price.
Second, the soldiers' will to fight can make up for the lack of weapons and equipment, Japan's territory is small, strategic resources are insufficient, if you want to invest a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources to develop advanced heavy weapons like European and American countries, then the country's economy will absolutely be overwhelmed.
But they did not study and were afraid that they would not be able to adapt to modern warfare, so the Japanese top brass was very entangled in this, and in the end, the results of the Russo-Japanese War helped them make a choice.
They began to place too much emphasis on morale and less on the development of weapons, and some senior officers even arrogantly shouted that the soldier's will to fight was the key factor in determining victory or defeat, and weapons were only auxiliary.
This also led to the Japanese army's equipment gradually failing to keep up with the forefront of the times.
After the cannon of the October Revolution, the people were still those people, but Tsarist Russia had metamorphosed into the Soviet Union, and the soldiers already knew what to fight for.
After the failure of the anti-Soviet intervention, in order to obtain privileges in eastern Siberia, Japan signed a "basic treaty" with the Soviet Union and formally established diplomatic relations, and the Soviet Union temporarily compromised with Japan for the newly established country, which further encouraged Japan's arrogance.
The Soviet Union only endured for a while, while the country was carrying out reforms, and after two "five-year plans", the industrial strength was greatly enhanced. With this foundation, the Soviet army also completed modernization, the weapons and equipment are very advanced, with a large and regular structure.
And almost all the Soviet generals are experienced in battle, have a lot of combat experience and theoretical knowledge, it can be said that the Soviet army at this moment is ten times better than the Russian army!
But the Japanese ignored all this, and their minds remained stuck in the Russo-Japanese War, so they launched the Battle of Zhanggufeng at the end of July 1938.
The Japanese army was eventually defeated in this battle, Zhang Gufeng was occupied by the Soviet Union, but the strength and losses of the two sides in this battle were very different, the Japanese army only had more than 7,000 people participating in the battle, the Soviet army had only 23,000 people, the result was that the Japanese army was 526 people killed, 914 wounded, and the Soviet army had 792 dead and 2752 wounded.
The Japanese still looked down on each other when they saw that the Soviet Union had such a big advantage and played such an ending, so in May 1939 they provoked a war in Nomenhan.
To say that the Japanese will to fight is really not blown, it is indeed tough, although the weapons and equipment are far inferior to the Soviet army, but the suicidal charge they launched caused great trouble to the Soviets.
In the Battle of Zhanggufeng, the two sides fought a brutal white-knife battle, with 114 Soviet casualties and 4 Japanese casualties, with an exchange ratio of 28:1. But in Nomenhan, the Soviets had already figured out how to deal with it.
Once, after the Japanese had run out of ammunition, they charged as usual, and the Soviet commander ordered his men to stop shooting. The unknown Japanese army was a little confused when they saw the situation, and thought that the other side was afraid, and they rushed up more vigorously.
The Soviets, of course, were not dazed, but waiting with Bobosa in their hands. Poposa's short range and rapid bullet consumption generally felt uncomfortable with it, so the Soviet army did not use it as a main weapon even if it was equipped. But after suffering the losses of the Japanese suicidal charge, the Soviets began to think of it.
After the Japanese army approached the position, the Bobosha in the hands of the Soviet soldiers began to spray bullets, and the Japanese army fell in pieces, even if there were lucky to rush into the position, they still did not escape the fate of death.
After the most successful way was ineffective, the Japanese army tried various methods to surprise the night, and as a result, the Soviet flares illuminated the night as if it were day; when the Soviet army was not prepared, it first bombarded with artillery, but the Soviets did not panic at all, and with strong firepower to counteract, they blew the Japanese army away...
In fact, all this shows that in the face of absolute strength, any means are useless, whether Japan admits it or not, they have gradually fallen behind the world powers, and their proud will to fight is far less powerful than a bullet.
After Nomonhan, Japan's attitude toward the Soviet Union underwent a 180-degree change, from contempt to fear, which also affected their national policy.
Japan thus changed from "going north" to "going south", and later even if its ally Germany wanted them to send troops to attack the Soviet Union, Japan did not dare, but later went to bomb Pearl Harbor, provoking the United States, and eventually leading to the complete defeat of fascism.
So in a sense, the impact of the Russo-Japanese War was really far-reaching enough!
From these wars in Japan, we can also see that we should not despise any opponent, and no matter which era we must keep pace with the times, so self-imposed will only make ourselves backward!