Chapter 136 Far East Situation

The meaning of the Australian Deputy Foreign Minister is very simple. It is true that Australia has enough mineral resources, but if it wants to sell them to the island country, the price must be at least doubled.

Don't underestimate the gap of one time. The mineral resources needed for national industrial imports are tens of thousands of tons. The price gap of one time may cause the cost to rise by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Yukioka Yuzawa also expected that Australia would raise the price of mineral resources. After all, the most fundamental thing between countries is interests. If you don't fight for your own country, it is actually equivalent to treason.

Yukioka Yuzawa had anticipated this situation before going to Australia.

Although the price of the mineral industry of the ally British Empire is not very high, it is lower than that of Australia, which is twice the price.

But the area where the British Empire can provide mineral resources is too far away from the island country. If the transportation cost is added, the price of raw materials in the British Empire will be much higher than that of Australia.

Especially when the island country is just an island country, the only means to transport materials to it is sea transportation.

But the speed of large transport ships is generally not high, and the time cost, manpower cost and capital consumption are all considerable.

Although the island country has received financial assistance from the British Empire and the United States, it is currently considered to have some assets.

But the ambitions of the island people are more than that. The reason why they kneel down to the British Empire and curry favor with the United States is to gain the support of the two countries, and then challenge the status of the Tsarist Russian Empire, the hegemon in the north of East Asia, and establish their own hegemony in East Asia.

But is the Tsarist Russian Empire so easy to challenge? If it were not for the fact that this country was too large, and that France, an ally of Tsarist Russia, was unwilling to transfer most of Tsarist Russia's power to East Asia, and therefore did not support Tsarist Russia's actions in Asia, the island country really did not dare to challenge the ambition of the Tsarist Russian Empire.

Now is also the best opportunity to challenge the Tsarist Russian Empire. The island country has obtained the dual support of the British Empire and the United States, but what about Tsarist Russia? France, an ally that signed the accord, was unwilling to let Tsarist Russia shift its attention to East Asia, which also led to the fact that Russia's strategy was not supported by many countries in East Asia, except Germany.

Therefore, the current East Asian dispute can be divided into two camps. The island countries and the British Empire and the United States that support the island countries are the challengers, while the Russian Empire and Germany that tries to win over Russia are the defenders.

The Russian Empire wants to maintain its hegemony in East Asia, but the current East Asian island countries have risen, and they also want to obtain their due rights and status.

This is similar to the current situation in Europe. The conflict of interests between the old powers and the emerging powers is destined to a war between the two countries sooner or later.

However, unlike the relatively balanced situation in Europe, the current situation in East Asia is more inclined to the island countries, which is why the islanders dare to confidently provoke a war in two years.

You know, even two years later, from the perspective of national size and international relations, the Russian Empire is one of the top five powers in the world, and the island countries are just emerging countries that learn from the West to rise.

Perhaps the strength of the island countries is superior to that of already weakened countries like Italy and Spain, but if they want to fight against the Russian Empire, which is at the level of the top four in Europe, the chances of winning are not great on the surface.

But in fact, the Russian Empire did not have much power in East Asia because of its vast territory, inconvenient transportation, and the attitude of its ally France.

The regular Russian troops in the Far East Military District only had less than 100,000 people, and they were scattered in various places in the Far East.

These people are called regular troops, but in fact the soldiers are of poor quality, low equipment level, and serious contradictions between senior officers and junior soldiers in the army.

Of course, such problems are not only found in the Far East Army. The Russian Empire, just like its huge age, has fallen into a decadent stage.

Although it has undergone a less than successful reform, it cannot effectively increase the fate of the country. If it were not for the fact that the core territory was located in the West and attracted some of the fruits of the Industrial Revolution, I am afraid that the Russian Empire would not have a better fate than a certain East Asian power.

Although the Russian Empire's regular army reached a terrifying 1.05 million people, and the reserve soldiers reached 3.75 million people.

But the troops deployed in the Far East were less than one-tenth, and the equipment and logistics were far behind the western region.

Poor soldier quality, poor logistics, backward equipment level, and discord between soldiers and officers, what kind of combat effectiveness can such an army burst out?

If it is a war with a corrupt country, it is hard to say whether it can win, let alone an island country that has just experienced the rise of the Restoration.

How difficult is it for Tsarist Russia to transport supplies to the Far East? It is impossible for the fleet to go through the Arctic Ocean. If you want to go by sea, you must cross Europe, South Asia, and East Asia to reach Northeast Asia.

Such transportation costs are a huge burden for a country like Tsarist Russia, and it is also a huge expenditure that the country can never afford.

Then the solution is land transportation, that is, railway transportation.

The Tsarist Russian Empire spent a huge amount of money to build a Siberian Railway, which runs through the most important western European region of Tsarist Russia and the Far East region with important strategic significance and warm non-ice ports.

But there is an important problem. So far, this railway has not been fully opened to traffic.

You know, this is a huge railway connecting Moscow and Vladivostok, and its length can be called the longest in the world today.

You know, the total length of the industrial railway that Australia is expected to build in ten years is just over 2,000 kilometers.

And what about the Siberian Railway? Because it connects the West and the Far East, it is equivalent to running through the entire territory of the Russian Empire.

This also led to the length of the Siberian Railway reaching a terrifying 9,288 kilometers, which is more than four times that of the Australian Industrial Railway.

The first preliminary opening time was in July 1904, and the Russo-Japanese War was over after the opening.

This led to the huge railway that the Russian Empire spent a huge amount of materials and thoughts on, but it did not make much contribution in this Russo-Japanese War and ended hastily.

The impact of this war on the Russian Empire was still huge. The profits in the Far East were greatly lost, and the domestic classes were increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo.

Even the revolutions that occurred in the future during World War I may not be without the factors of the failure of this war. In short, after this war, the island country officially began to rise, and the Russian Empire officially came to an end.

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