Why did Japan launch the Russo-Japanese War? What's the impact on China?

The Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire fought a war between imperialist powers in the land of northeast China for the control of China's Korean Peninsula and Liaodong Peninsula.

Since the Meiji Restoration in the second half of the19th century, Japan broke the feudal isolation, developed capitalism rapidly, quickly got rid of the crisis of semi-colonization, and built the only independent bourgeois country in Asia at that time.

However, Japan's national system and social life still retain a lot of feudal factors, especially militarism. This situation determines that the regime after Meiji Restoration is particularly aggressive.

This regime cruelly exploited and suppressed the working people at home, actively expanded and plundered abroad, and embarked on the imperialist road of military feudalism like the Russian Empire.

After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Lu Haijun adopted an armament plan and a railway construction plan with a total amount of 5160,000 yen, which was basically completed by1900-1. This shows that the preparations for the war against Russia are ready.

The alliance between the Japanese samurai group and the big capitalists is convinced that it is in Japan's best interest to launch a war to seize North Korea and Northeast China as soon as possible before the completion of the Russian Siberian Railway. Japanese progressives also fought against the aggression and war policy of the Japanese ruling clique, but their strength was not enough to prevent the outbreak of war. Therefore, the Russo-Japanese war is inevitable.

The Russo-Japanese War ended in the defeat of the Russian Empire. The war exposed the drawbacks of the empire, which led to the outbreak of the 1905 revolution and shook the rule of the tsar. After the war, Japan entered the ranks of great powers.

2. Impact on China

During the Russo-Japanese War, the northeast of China was the battlefield of land confrontation between the two sides. The local people suffered great disasters, and their lives and property suffered unprecedented havoc. The factories and houses in Lushun were bombed, and even the temples were not spared. Cattle were robbed, food was robbed, and hundreds of thousands of refugees were displaced.

China and Russia forced the Japanese people to transport ammunition and labor for them. Many people died unjustly under the artillery fire of the invaders of the two countries, and a large number of Japanese civilians were killed by China and Russia as spies. This war not only seriously violated China's territory and sovereignty, but also caused great losses and personal injuries to the people in Northeast China.

Extended data:

This war in the northeast of China is very rare in the history of world wars.

Japan and Russia, two imperialist powers, fought fiercely in China for China for more than a year. Instead of protesting, the corrupt and incompetent Qing government claimed to be "neutral", leaving room for others to toss. China warships captured by the Japanese navy in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 were also incorporated into the Japanese fleet to help the Japanese fight against the Russian army.

The result of the Russo-Japanese War formally showed several characteristics of politics and war in the 20th century. Many technological innovations brought about by the industrial revolution were first used in the Russo-Japanese War, such as rapid-fire guns, machine guns and carbines with higher shooting accuracy.

The Russo-Japanese War was also the first large-scale conflict between the armed forces of two modern countries in East Asia in more than 30 years. Therefore, it is called "World War Zero" by some people.

We should not forget this shameful episode, either from the historical point of view or from the news point of view. The Russo-Japanese War not only brought great disasters to the Japanese people, but also was the prelude to Japan's all-round war of aggression against China.

In this war, two imperialist powers wantonly ravaged the people of China, destroyed towns and villages, and slaughtered innocent people. After the war, Korea became a "protectorate" of Japan, and the Liaodong Peninsula in China was controlled by Japan. Japanese militarism became more arrogant and began a large-scale migration to the northeast of China.

The Japanese army took the opportunity to send more troops and made preparations for launching a full-scale war of aggression against China in the future. Because this period of history has an inevitable historical connection with World War II, many western and Russian scholars attach great importance to the study of relevant historical materials, and there are many works.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Russo-Japanese War