Rizhao was a new city. In early 1914, the Qingdao-Lianyungang railway built by the People's Party had just begun trial operations, and Rizhao was an important station on the line. Railway traffic brought about an acceleration of urbanization; this small place, originally having a population of only a few thousand, had expanded to over ten thousand people in just over half a year. The Shandong Military District's forces were all concentrated in Qingdao. When the Japanese army actually turned south to seize Rizhao, the local Rizhao troops and the masses all evacuated by train. Just as the Shandong Military District and the Huai-Hai Military District were considering surrounding and annihilating the Japanese troops, the Beiyang government jumped out and demanded to "defend" Rizhao. The Central Military Commission then ordered a suspension of the offensive. Since Beiyang was willing to make a final effort on the brink of death, the Central Committee of the People's Party was also willing to see what Beiyang was capable of.

If Beiyang could win, the overall situation in the Far East would turn unfavorable for Japan. This would be of great benefit to the People's Party's overall interests. If Beiyang lost the Battle of Rizhao, everyone would see that Beiyang couldn't beat Japan, and Japan couldn't beat the People's Party. This would be very beneficial for the upcoming War of Liberation that the People's Party would implement.

Chen Ke also hoped to weaken Britain in a disguised way. If Beiyang won, Britain would have to increase its support for Beiyang in an attempt to drive Beiyang to deal with the People's Party. The Americans were very smart; they wouldn't join the Central Powers. The United States joining the Entente Powers meant that the Entente Powers would inevitably win. Weakening Britain a little at this stage would be very good for China's development. Therefore, the main forces of the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army in Hubei and Jiangxi began to attack Hunan, while the troops in the north entered a brief period of operational rest. The People's Party waited to see the outcome of this battle between Japan and Beiyang.

While the People's Party had such leisure, the opposing Japanese were facing an extremely difficult situation. Before the Battle of Qingdao, the Japanese army had made "all mental preparations," except for the preparation for defeat. The Japanese side had originally planned to take advantage of the momentum to expand Japan's interests in Shandong. According to the Japanese official view, once the People's Party was defeated and Qingdao seized, Yuan Shikai would not dare to directly start a war with Japan. Japan could then coerce Yuan Shikai into allowing the expansion of Japan's rights and interests in the Northeast. For Japan's original rights in Northeast China to turn into actual benefits, massive investment was needed in the Northeast. The returns were uncertain, but the results were destined to be extremely slow.

Japan's main purpose in maintaining the Northeast was to screen Korea. Northern Korea had iron ore, and the Japanese mainland lacked iron ore. Now that the People's Party had interrupted the coke-for-ore agreement with Japan, Japan had to thoroughly digest Korea first.

If it were just this reason, Japan wouldn't have intervened in the Chinese civil war so anxiously. Japan knew the significance of the coal-iron complex to industry. Watching the People's Party go all out to develop steel, if the People's Party unified China, Japan's interests would be destined to face a huge threat. Japan's domestic hardliners all advocated taking advantage of World War I to get Britain to declare war on China, or at least on the People's Party. At that time, Japan could act as Britain's hitman and intervene in Shandong.

After the People's Party colluded with the United States, the United States found its collaborator in China and immediately cast Japan aside. Restricting Japan's raw silk exports once caused the Japanese economy to suffer a huge blow. Raw silk exports accounted for half of Japan's export share, and the result of this money being cut off was that the Japanese silk industry suffered a comprehensive and disastrous blow. Regardless of whether they were the prudent faction or the hardline faction in Japan, they all unanimously agreed that Japan's greatest enemy at present was the People's Party.

Even for such a straightforward reason, Japan should have acted sooner. The reason they didn't act so early was that the territory occupied by the People's Party gave Japan no way to start. Britain was the maritime hegemon of East Asia; without Britain's consent, Japan simply dared not make a move on the two ports of Qingdao and Lianyungang. Without these two ports, unless Japan went through the Yangtze River, they could not fight the People's Party. Britain controlled the shipping on the Yangtze River, and it was even more impossible for Japan to intervene in the Yangtze. Facing the People's Party becoming increasingly powerful in East Asian trade, Japan was actually helpless against the People's Party.

It was not until after the outbreak of World War I, when the British needed a large amount of silk as propellant bags for heavy artillery, that the Japanese silk industry picked up. The People's Party began to expel British influence from the Yangtze River after the outbreak of WWI, and Japan finally found a breakthrough. They immediately volunteered to Britain to act as a pawn, and used the method of "supporting Yuan Shikai to claim the throne" to temporarily gain Yuan Shikai's support. Japan was very clear that they only had one chance: take Qingdao and prove that Japan had the strength to strike the People's Party. Then everything would be easy to talk about. Both Britain and Beiyang would accept Japan expanding its sphere of influence in Shandong.

At least before the defeat in Qingdao, Japan still had plans to intervene in Shandong. Japan coveted the construction the People's Party had done in southern Shandong, that is, in Huai-Hai Province. Grain, silk, the coal-iron complex in Zaozhuang, and even the Xuzhou industrial center built based on the electrical technology development of the Second Industrial Revolution. If they could annihilate the People's Party in one fell swoop in Qingdao, then seize Rizhao and Lianyungang, and follow the railway to attack Xuzhou, the earnings from this vast and fertile region would all fall into Japan's hands.

Before the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan hadn't expected to be able to seize such large benefits from China either. So this time in the Qingdao campaign, facing the People's Party surrounded on all sides, if Japan could open up the situation, it might not be impossible to have another huge harvest like the First Sino-Japanese War.

It wasn't until Japan was defeated in Qingdao and the Kyushu Division was almost completely annihilated that Japan understood why the People's Party could traverse China freely and even dare to challenge Britain. The People's Party did not rely on conspiracies and schemes, nor on "secret agreements" with Yuan Shikai of Beiyang, but on true strength. It was just that Japan was riding a tiger and couldn't get off at this point, so they turned to attack Rizhao and cut the Qingdao-Lianyungang railway. Qingdao had the Qingdao Fortress as support, but Rizhao did not have a Rizhao Fortress. Rizhao didn't have that much mountainous terrain; the port area was flat land. If the People's Party wanted to retake Rizhao, they would inevitably have to expose their army completely to the naval guns of the Japanese Navy, and the People's Party's combat effectiveness would inevitably be greatly discounted.

Before the People's Party could launch an attack, Beiyang fell out first, stating that they wanted to "recover" Rizhao. The betrayal of this "quasi-ally" made the Japanese side very annoyed. Handing over Rizhao to Beiyang meant Japan bowing its head to Beiyang. Whether Yuan Shikai would perish later was hard to say, but yielding Rizhao to Beiyang meant that Japan would likely never be able to enter China again in the short term. This absolutely did not conform to Japan's interests. Therefore, the Japanese side was full of anger at Yuan Shikai's "act of betraying teammates." It was just that Japan hadn't thought at this time that the existence of a teammate was meant to be screwed over. When Japan appeared to have the advantage on the surface, Japan still had utilization value to Yuan Shikai. Now that facts had proved Japan was not the opponent of the People's Party, Yuan Shikai's best choice was none other than hitting a person when they're down.

While the Japanese army made up its mind that "even if the losses are heavy, we cannot lose to Beiyang," and did its best to prepare defenses, Wu Peifu, commander of the Beiyang 4th Army, commanded his troops to launch an attack on Rizhao.

There was no essential difference in the way war was fought; even the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army, which learned from the PLA, had not created anything essentially different.

Reconnaissance was required before the battle. The Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army relied on aircraft, but also on cavalry and ground scouts. Wu Peifu didn't have airplanes, so he relied on telescopes and cavalry, and the Beiyang 4th Army also raised observation balloons, which at least made up for the lack of high-altitude reconnaissance.

The Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army required artillery preparation before battle. Apart from rocket artillery, the large-caliber artillery of the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army was not even as good as that of the Beiyang 4th Army, a unit with fully reorganized British equipment. The Japanese army not only had the divisional artillery but also naval guns to help out. After both sides rumbled and blasted at each other for a while, the infantry battle finally began.

The PLA's infantry was the strongest infantry in the world, not because they created anything, but because this great army possessed an indomitable offensive spirit. The PLA's civil engineering was the best in the world, but the trenches were not for static defense, but to better protect themselves before launching an attack on the enemy. The digging of zigzag trenches was not the PLA's original creation either; at least there were similar tactics in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom era. At that time, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom attacked cities, they dug trenches to the enemy's city gates or under the city walls, stuffed in coffins full of explosives, and with a loud boom, the city walls or city gates were destroyed, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom soldiers swarmed in.

Combining offense and defense perfectly, using current technology to the maximum limit, and using the latest mastered technology to the maximum limit. And mainly focusing on annihilating the enemy's effective strength to the maximum limit. These war concepts were taught in any military academy that could be considered competent. However, in Chen Ke's history, only the PLA was the one that thoroughly integrated this education, this kind of cognition, into the marrow of an army through practice, into the soul of an army, and refined and summarized these with a military philosophy.

Other armies could only do these things speciously. The 4th Army under Wu Peifu's command was a British-equipped unit. Wu Peifu was a person eager to learn; before the war, he also learned from the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army to dig some trenches. These trenches indeed played a not insignificant role under the frantic Japanese shelling. If they had followed the previous Beiyang Army's practice, with infantry staying together in clusters, the casualties in the dense artillery fire would definitely not have been small.

Both the Japanese army and the Beiyang Army lacked ammunition, and even the Japanese Navy was the same. As the artillery shells gradually began to thin out, Wu Peifu, as the commander of the offensive side, took the lead in issuing the order to charge. The vanguard troops of the Beiyang Army ran out of the trenches and groped towards the Japanese direction.

The initial losses in battle were all generated during these firepower probes. Even in the cold weapon era, the vanguard troops were elite troops. They had to continuously probe the enemy's "lethality delivery capability." If they found that their lethality delivery could overwhelm the enemy, they would disregard everything and smash into the enemy's formation. The Beiyang troops were knocked down by the Japanese army. The Beiyang troops started shooting towards the Japanese line of fire, and Japanese soldiers were also hit and fell to the ground. So more Japanese troops joined the shooting ranks, and people on both the Beiyang and Japanese sides were hit one after another, either dying or getting wounded.

The standard weapon equipped by the Beiyang 4th Army was the famous imported British Lee-Enfield rifle. This rifle had a large magazine capacity and a high rate of fire. It was quite suitable for the Beiyang Army's characteristic of emphasizing fierceness and courage while taking science lightly. The dense rifle volleys that started from the Xiang Army era had repeatedly almost overwhelmed the Japanese army in Korea during the First Sino-Japanese War. This time was no exception. The Japanese army didn't expect the Beiyang Army to have such fierce firepower right from the start. For a moment, they were actually suppressed. It wasn't until the Japanese heavy machine guns began to fire violently that the Beiyang Army's almost fanatical offensive was slightly checked. However, at this time, a part of the Beiyang Army had already approached the Japanese trenches. Relying on firepower alone could no longer stop these Beiyang troops from killing their way into the Japanese positions.

"Totsugeki!" The Japanese army also took out the bayonet charge method that they had tried and tested repeatedly. In the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese army had tried this repeatedly with success. Japanese officers and soldiers climbed out of the trenches with their bayonets and charged towards the Beiyang Army. They hoped to continue the glory of their predecessors and wipe out the Beiyang Army in one fell swoop with hand-to-hand combat.

The characteristics of the Lee-Enfield rifle lay in the use of a rotating bolt and a box-type detachable magazine. The rear-locking rotating bolt allowed for relatively fast reloading; installing a fixed box-type double-column 10-round magazine for loading increased sustained firepower. It was one of the fastest-firing bolt-action rifles in actual combat, and had the advantages of reliability, short bolt travel, and convenient operation. There had been cases where the German army mistakenly thought that the British positions, which were all equipped with Lee-Enfield rifles, were equipped with heavy machine guns.

The Japanese rifles held five rounds at most. The Beiyang Army's rate of fire while running was actually not fast. The Japanese army had a huge advantage when shooting from positions, but when it really came to a bayonet fight, the Beiyang Army's rifles still had remaining bullets, while the Japanese bullets were already exhausted. Now the advantages of both sides were immediately reversed. Amidst the dense firepower of the Beiyang Army, the Japanese troops rushing out of the trenches were beaten into flying flesh and blood as if they were prisoners being executed at close range. The Beiyang Army has always "won by courage," and what they had was this burst of fierceness. Seeing that a breach had been opened, with a shout, the Beiyang Army charged into the Japanese position with their rifles.

Someone once discussed a question: when is a chess layout most powerful? The general answer is "The initial layout is the most perfect and most powerful."

Defensive positions are also like this. In the initial layout, the coordination of light and heavy firepower can be considered, the echelon of troops can be considered, and all kinds of conceivable war situations can be taken into account. Once the position is breached, the advantage of the original position can instantly turn into a disadvantage. The echelon arrangement of light and heavy firepower will easily lose its effect in a chaotic situation. For example, straight trenches, which are extremely easy for movement and transmitting orders, and extremely easy for adjusting shooting density and direction, become the root of chaos. Rifle range is at least five or six hundred meters; a straight trench becomes a trench that can be shot through with a single shot.

One of the reasons for the PLA's strength lies in their ability to launch almost perfect attacks, and in the development of the attack, they can make the entire offensive posture more and more powerful. While for the defending enemy, once breached, it can only get worse and worse. This is one of the reasons why this army is invincible in a hundred battles.

From a philosophical point of view, the command concept of this army "firmly believes that the world is constantly changing," and the PLA's mobile warfare is to let the changing battlefield develop in a direction that is increasingly favorable to the PLA. Grandpa Mao once said, "This army has an indomitable spirit. It is determined to overwhelm all enemies and never to yield to the enemy. No matter under any difficult and arduous circumstances, as long as there is still one person left, this person must continue to fight."

Wu Peifu had not listened to the teachings of this great man, nor had he received corresponding education in a full set of philosophy including "On Practice" and "On Contradiction" as well as military science in the People's Party's military academy. What Wu Peifu upheld was just the very traditional concept of "the brave win when meeting on a narrow path." But this simple Chinese concept, limited to a certain specific environment, expounded the concept of quantitative change leading to qualitative change in a moving world.

Seeing the first wave of attacks succeed, Wu Peifu immediately ordered follow-up troops to follow up and charge towards the breach. Meanwhile, the troops on both flanks increased pressure, trying to create more breaches.

The Japanese military research was not idle either. Even though they suddenly encountered a setback, the Japanese artillery immediately increased the density and speed of fire. The direction of fire was the inevitable path of Wu Peifu's reinforcements. Even if the Beiyang Army gained an advantage in a certain part and broke through a part of the Japanese first-line defense system, the Japanese army's overall troop strength and firepower still held a comprehensive advantage relative to this part of the Beiyang Army. As long as they could block the Beiyang Army from continuing to pour military strength into this gap, as long as they could stop the Beiyang Army's continued attack, the Japanese army would sooner or later be able to restore the initial defense system.

If the Japanese army were facing the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army, which learned from the PLA, the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army would have already moved their departure point as close to the Japanese direction as possible. One of the most subtle points in mobile warfare is "forward movement." This is not just moving troops to "under the nose" of the enemy, but also includes determining attack routes, and not just a single attack route.

But Wu Peifu's ability reached its limit here. He also determined more than two attack routes, but the Japanese were guarded against these attack routes that could be determined without too much effort. Artillery shells fell like rain on these routes, blasting the second wave of attacking Beiyang troops into the air, blasting them to pieces. The attacking forces of two battalion-level units sent out by the Beiyang Army in succession were beaten into disarray by Japanese artillery fire halfway. As time passed, the Beiyang officers and soldiers who had attacked into the Japanese position either died heroically or were captured.

The shouting and killing on the Japanese position gradually ceased, and the Japanese artillery fire gradually stopped. When both sides temporarily stopped fighting, the sea breeze gradually blew away the smoke and dust pervading the battlefield. Wu Peifu raised his telescope and looked at the opposite Japanese position. He saw quite a few people being pushed out onto the Japanese position; from the gray-blue military uniforms, it could be determined that these people were officers and soldiers of the Beiyang Army. Before Wu Peifu could figure out what mystery the Japanese were playing, he saw Japanese soldiers with rifles standing up behind these Beiyang officers and soldiers. Wu Peifu saw smoke from bullet discharge spurting from the muzzles of the Japanese guns, and the Beiyang officers and soldiers in front of the Japanese fell to the ground one after another. Only then did Wu Peifu understand that the Japanese had just pushed the captured Beiyang officers and soldiers out of the Japanese trenches and shot them on the spot.

"Fuck your ancestors!" Seeing this scene, many officers and soldiers of the Beiyang Army, including Wu Peifu, couldn't help but shout curses. But no matter how they cursed, the first offensive battle launched by the Beiyang Army elites had still failed.