Rise of Australia

Chapter 179 The Russo-Japanese War Breaks Out
Time entered February 1904, and the situation in the Far East became more complicated and confusing, and the entire Far East was also shrouded in the crisis of war.

The protagonists of the crisis are naturally the overlord of the Far East, the Tsarist Empire, and the emerging country and island nation.

As a newly rising country, the island country has gained a lot of land in a series of wars and incidents, and has also expanded its army.

However, the mineral resources in the island country are very scarce, and the small Korean peninsula obtained cannot make up for the shortage of resources in the island country.

Although the island country and Australia have signed a mineral resource import treaty, the price of doing so is that it needs to spend at least twice the market price in exchange for precious mineral resources.

This is not a small burden for the island country, which is not rich in funds. In addition, it has undertaken a large amount of loans from the British Empire and the United States. The high interest rates and fiscal deficits have made the island country's finances gradually unsupportable.

They naturally set their sights on the northern part of the Korean peninsula, the land of Guangmao with a large amount of mineral resources, and the three eastern provinces.

This land has a sufficient population, a large amount of plantable land and rich mineral resources.

More importantly, because it is connected to the Korean Peninsula, the mineral resources here can be quickly transported to the mainland of the island country through the ports on the Korean Peninsula, which is far more convenient and cheaper than importing mineral resources from Australia.

But there is a problem. The land that the island country values ​​has been occupied by the Tsarist Russian Empire a few years ago.

As the overlord of the Far East, it is naturally impossible for the Tsarist Russian Empire to give up this land. After all, the Tsarist Russian Empire's Yellow Russia plan is well known.

A hunter who is about to starve to death, facing a hunting area with rich prey at his door, will he give up hunting because of strong guards?

Obviously not, because he would starve to death if he didn't do anything. When facing the threat of death, no matter how powerful the enemy is, he must fight hard.

This is the situation that the island country is facing now. If nothing is done, the current finances will be enough to drag down the entire country. By then, the dream of revival will also be shattered. The decades-long efforts of the entire country from the emperor to the common people will soon be invalidated. .

Will the islanders accept such an ending?Impossible to accept.What's more, before acquiring the Korean peninsula, the island nation waged a war that gambled on its national destiny.

It is precisely because of this war that the island country obtained the Korean Peninsula, a land with good resources, and made the first step in the rise of the island country.

Since August of last year, the island countries have formally made representations to the Tsarist Empire in an attempt to divide their respective interests in the Far East.

What the island country proposed was to ask the Russian Empire to recognize that the island country had superior interests in Korea, while the island country only recognized that the Russian Empire had special interests in the Manchuria Railway.

This is equivalent to letting the Tsarist Russian Empire give up North Korea on the premise of getting nothing, and the Tsarist Russian Empire will naturally not agree.

The negotiations lasted for six months. The island nation attempted to divide its interests in the Far East with the Tsarist Russian Empire in a peaceful manner, but finally found that this plan was not feasible, so it resolutely and decisively abandoned the plan.

On February 1904, 2, the island country unilaterally sent a note to the Tsarist Russian Empire, announcing the suspension of negotiations between the two countries and the severance of diplomatic relations with the Tsarist Russian Empire.

At this time, it already means that the war between the two countries is inevitable, and the termination of the negotiation actually means that another more arbitrary way will be used to start the negotiation.

Sure enough, two days later, the navy of the island country attacked the fleet of the Tsarist Russian Empire stationed in the port of Lushun without declaring war, and the war that determined the hegemony of the Far East broke out.

At this time, the referendum in New Zealand was still in progress, and Arthur naturally would not express any opinion on the situation in the Far East, but let the Australian government and the New Zealand government issue a statement of neutrality, declaring that Australia and New Zealand were both involved in this war. in a neutral position.

However, Arthur still asked the military factory to contact the Tsarist Russian Empire and the island countries immediately, asking if they needed to buy more weapons and equipment. Australia could work overtime to produce them and deliver them to them as quickly as possible.

After all, after declaring neutrality, it does not mean that arms trade cannot be carried out. Isn’t that the case in the United States. In the early stage, neutrality sells arms to make a fortune, and in the later stage, the situation is clear and directly joins, at the lowest cost to obtain the high status of the victorious country.

Compared with the very determined island countries, the Tsarist Russian Empire is not united in this hegemony crisis.

The attitude of the Tsarist Empire can be divided into two factions. One is the main peace faction, which is dominated by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. They see the crisis in the domestic and international situation of the Tsarist Russian Empire and suggest that Tsar Nicholas II should not easily launch a war. .

The suggestion of the peace faction is that some concessions should be made in exchange for peace in a short period of time.At the same time, strengthen economic plunder and war preparations for the Far East, wait until the Trans-Siberian Railway is fully opened to traffic, on the premise of solving the transportation problem in the Far East, and after the completion of the outlying fort near Lushun Port, wait for an opportunity to fight the decisive battle with the island country.

In fact, the peace faction is not a pure peace faction. Their purpose of advocating short-term peace is only for better wars. This is also the tradition of the Russians. They are not afraid of war.

The other faction is the main combat faction represented by the Imperial Minister, the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Governor of the Far East.

These people are extremely fanatical chauvinists, imperialist adventurers.They are very confident in the military power of the Tsarist Russian Empire, and at the same time look down on the island country, a newly rising country.

They believe that the army of the Tsarist Russian Empire can easily destroy the enemies from the island country with only a small mobilization.

And such a hearty victory can also allow the Tsarist Russian Empire to calm down the domestic revolutionary crisis.

This kind of thinking is actually because the current wave of revolution in the Russian Empire is becoming more and more intense, and the top officials of the Russian Empire are already trying to find ways to calm the crisis from other aspects.

But the Tsarist Russian Empire was an autocratic country, and the Tsar had full rights.All decisions still need to be made by Tsar Nicholas II.

It's just that when Tsar Nicholas II was still the crown prince, he traveled abroad on the order of the then Tsar Alexander III and visited some countries along the way.

Nicholas II passed through Greece, Egypt, India, island countries and the Qing Dynasty, and then returned from Far East Siberia.

This also made Nicholas II the first of all the emperors of the Tsarist Russian Empire to have been to Asia.

It's just that this trip to Asia was not too wonderful, and it also made Nicholas II very hated and hostile to the island country.

In 1891, Nicholas, the Crown Prince of Tsarist Russia, led more than 30 people including his friend Georgi, the Greek prince, to the island country.

At that time, the island country was still a small and weak country, and the visit of Crown Prince Nicholas was fully welcomed by the island country government.

In order to protect the personal safety of Crown Prince Nicholas, the island government vowed to take care of everything. On the one hand, it strengthened the police force and took strict precautions, striving to be foolproof.

On the other hand, at that time the foreign minister of the island country, Shuzo Aoki, also agreed with the Tsarist Russian ambassador to the island country that in the event of an assassination incident, they would be sentenced to death in accordance with the crimes against the royal family in the criminal law, and there would be no forgiveness.

But the accident came so suddenly. On May 1891, 5, Crown Prince Nicholas was assassinated by Tsuda Sanzang, a policeman in charge of guarding the safety of Crown Prince Nicholas, while he was visiting Dajing.

The assassination was ultimately unsuccessful. Although Crown Prince Nicholas was stabbed twice, his life was not in danger.

It's just that in this way, the relationship between the Tsarist Russian Empire and the island country dropped to a freezing point. Because of this incident, Nicholas II did not have any favorability for the island country, and even had extreme hatred and hatred.

Such a person who hates and hates the island country, how should he react when he hears that the island country is going to compete with the Tsarist Russian Empire for hegemony in the Far East?

Should I shout angrily that these yellow-skinned monkeys deserve to die, or should I calmly think about my opinion of the peace faction?
In fact, Nicholas II has both. He has two views. He knows that the current preparations of the Russian Empire are not sufficient, and he hopes to postpone the war.

But Nicholas II was also convinced that tough measures were the best way to maintain hegemony. He felt that the best way to postpone war was to adopt tough measures, and concessions always lead to new concessions.

Such seemingly contradictory ideas, in fact, are supporting the claims of hardliners.

The Tsarist Russian Empire was indeed not fully prepared. The Tsarist Russian army in the Far East had less than 10 people, and even fewer were equipped with new weapons.

Although a batch of weapons and equipment was purchased from Australia, more than half of these weapons and equipment were allocated to the European army, and only about one-third of the troops in the Far East could be allocated.

The entire Far East Army of the Tsarist Russian Empire has less than 9 artillery pieces, [-] heavy machine guns, and a combat army of more than [-] people.

In terms of the navy, although the navy of the Tsarist Russian Empire has more than 200 warships, the Pacific Squadron that can really be used for operations in the Far East only has more than 60 warships.

On the island country side, the navy already has more than 80 warships with a total tonnage of more than 27 tons.

Most of the main battleships are new warships built in the UK, with uniform specifications and good performance.

A battleship ordered from Australia was not completed and therefore not included in the statistics.

In terms of the army, the island nation has more than 21 soldiers capable of fighting outside the mainland, thousands of artillery pieces, and more than fifty heavy machine guns.

Judging from pure data, only in the Far East, the Tsarist Russian Empire is already at a complete disadvantage, and the navy can still achieve a barely balanced balance. The number of troops and the amount of equipment in the army are not as advanced as the island countries.

It's just that the arrogant Tsarist Russian Empire government simply believes that the island country dare not offend the powerful Tsarist Russian Empire at all. They believe that as long as the Tsarist Russian Empire shows its tough side, the island people will obediently compromise.

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(End of this chapter)