Yingkou raid

In the winter of 1905, the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war was still unclear, and the opposing sides did everything to tip the scales in their favor. The surrender of Port Arthur radically changed the military situation in Manchuria . Now the Japanese did not need to fight on two fronts. The most numerous of the Japanese armies — the 3rd Colonel-General of the Foot , whose soldiers and officers were inspired by the victory they had just won, was hastily transferred from Kwantung by rail to the disposal of Marshal Iwao Oyama . The entire flow of reserves, ammunition, provisions and military equipment from the Japanese islands went only to Manchuria.

In order to prevent the strengthening of the Japanese army on the northern front, the Russian command developed a plan of the military operation. A combined cavalry detachment under the command of General P. I. Mishchenko was sent to the Japanese rear in order to cut the rail link in the Liaohe - Port Arthur section and prevent the transfer of enemy troops. This operation went down in history as the Yingkou Raid.

The detachment of the Adjutant General P. I. Mishchenko was formed from the cavalry of all three armies and numbered about 75 hundreds and squadrons with 22 equestrian guns and 4 machine guns . The detachment included the Ural-Transbaikalian Cossack Division, the Caucasian Equestrian Brigade (before this, one hundred of its Terek-Kuban Cossack regiment was disbanded due to the unrest), the 4th Don Cossack Division , the Primorsky Dragoon Regiment , several equestrian hunting teams of Siberian riflemen , a team of one hundred divisions of the commander-in-chief scouts, four fifty equestrian border guards , an equestrian team. The artillery of the detachment consisted of two Trans-Baikal Cossack batteries, one mounted battery and a piston walking half-battery. Total detachment consisted of a little over a thousand people. The main purpose of the raid was to destroy the railway, including railway bridges, on the Liaoyang - Tashichao - Dalniy section, and thus make it difficult to transfer the siege of the 3rd Japanese Army from near Port Arthur.

On December 27, 1904 ( January 9, 1905 ), the Mishchenko detachment, divided into three columns, advanced from the village of Syfontai ^[1] south along the left bank of the Lyaokhe . Japanese spies from the local Chinese population sent signals to their commanders by lighting fires. Despite some clashes with the Japanese travels and the Hunghusians , on December 29 ( January 11 ) the Mishchenko detachment reached Yingkou . According to spies, there "stocks were concentrated by 2, or even by 20 million rubles." The garrison of the Japanese station was 1,000 soldiers, but on the eve of the attack it was strengthened to 1,600 people.

For the attack scheduled for the evening of December 30, 1904 ( January 12, 1905 ), 15 squadrons and hundreds commanded by Colonel Horanov (about 1,500 men) were assigned , the rest were in reserve. "The assault column was sent an order to blow up all that is possible and leave." Before the attack, Russian horse artillery shelled Yingkou and set fire to numerous army depots that had been burning for several days. However, the flames of the fire lit up the area, and the Japanese led an aimed fire on the attacking Russian cavalry and repulsed the attack. Squadrons of the Nezhinski Dragoons were put forward to the rescue. However, a weak, cavalry detachment detachment, parts of which did not study and did not practice the offensive in a hurried fighting order, rushed headlong at the infantry that had become stronger and prepared for the meeting and was repulsed with great damage. Under the machine-gun fire of the Japanese, up to 200 Cossacks were killed. Mishchenko wanted to repeat the attack in the equestrian ranks with large forces, but he was told from the watch line that the rescue of the Yingkou garrison was hurrying from close Tashichao to a large Japanese detachment (5 battalions ).

On December 31 ( January 13 ), the Russian cavalry had to retreat from the city of Yingkou, which was burning in many places, and begin to retreat to the location of the Manchurian army through the ice of Liaoh. Marshal Oyama, worried about such a deep sabotage of the enemy, began to maneuver the rear forces, trying to intercept the cavalry detachment of General P. I. Mishchenko. During the retreat in the village of Sinyupuchenza, the Teleshov column was surrounded by Japanese troops. In the last battle, the 24th and 26th Don regiments distinguished themselves, forcing the enemy to retreat. In this case, the rearguard battle Cossacks lost 34 fighters. On January 2 (15) the cavalry, along with the rest of the detachment, returned to the location of the Russian troops ^{[2] [3]} .

The results of the Russian cavalry raid were modest. For 8 days, the detachment traveled 270 kilometers. During the raid, several Japanese military teams were destroyed, up to 600 wagons of military vehicles with military supplies were destroyed, warehouses in the port city of Yingkou were set on fire, the telephone and telegraph lines of the enemy were broken in several places, 69 prisoners were taken down. During the raid operation, the detachment in the battles lost 408 people and 158 horses killed and wounded. The cavalry unit did not fulfill the main goal of the raid: the Japanese repair crews that had been destroyed in many places had been repaired in just 6 hours. The army of Colonel-General Legs, which, after taking possession of Port Arthur, was in an elevated fighting mood, was freely transported by rail from Kvantun to the fields of Manchuria ^[2] .

In 2000, the song “ Beyond the Liaohe River ” was published in the “Parliamentary Gazette”, which, according to the author of the article, was written in 1905 about the raid on Yingkou.

The first officer to be killed during the raid was a French lieutenant of Bürten , who volunteered in the 1st Verkhneudinsk regiment and died on December 28 during an attack on the Sandashak factory.

According to some information, the future Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny (26th Cossack regiment) and the future President of Finland Karl Mannerheim participated in the raid on Yingkou ^[4] .

• Sturm Yingkou
• Russian cavalry raid on Yingkou
• Cossacks of the Don, Kuban and Terek in the wars of Russia
• The raid on Yingkou. Fight Sandep
• Don temporary
• N. Levitsky. N-Japanese war of 1904-1905 Ch. Xv. The situation at the Manchurian theater before the Mukden operation