Chapter 179 The Russo-Japanese War Breaks Out

As time entered February 1904, the situation in the Far East became more confusing, and the entire Far East region was shrouded in the war crisis.

The protagonists of the crisis were naturally the Russian Empire, the overlord of the Far East, and the emerging island country.

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

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

Although the island country and Australia signed a treaty on the import of mineral resources, the cost of doing so is that it takes at least twice the market price to exchange for precious mineral resources.

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

They naturally set their sights on the north of the Korean Peninsula, the vast land of trade with a large amount of mineral resources, and the three provinces in the east.

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

More importantly, because of its connection with the Korean Peninsula, the mineral resources here can be quickly transported to the island country through the ports of the Korean Peninsula, which is much 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 Russian Empire several years ago.

As the overlord of the Far East, the Russian Empire naturally could not give up this land. After all, the Russian Empire's Yellow Russia Plan is also well known.

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

Obviously not, because if he doesn't do it, he will starve to death. When facing the threat of death, even the most powerful enemy must fight hard.

This is the situation facing the island country now. If nothing is done, the current finances are enough to drag down the entire country. At that time, the dream of revival will be shattered, and the efforts of the entire country from the emperor to the civilians for decades will be scrapped.

Will the islanders accept such an outcome? It is impossible to accept. What's more, before obtaining the Korean Peninsula, the island country had fought a war that gambled on its national destiny.

It was precisely because of this war that the island country obtained the Korean Peninsula, a land with good resources, and the island country's rise took the first step.

Since August of the previous year, the island country has formally negotiated with the Russian Empire, attempting to divide their respective interests in the Far East.

The island country proposed that the Russian Empire recognize that the island country has superior interests in Korea, while the island country only recognizes that the Russian Empire has special interests in the Manchurian Railway.

This is equivalent to asking the Russian Empire to give up Korea without gaining anything, and the Russian Empire will naturally not agree.

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

On February 6, 1904, the island country unilaterally notified the Russian Empire, announcing the suspension of negotiations between the two countries and severing diplomatic relations with the Russian Empire.

At this time, the war between the two countries was inevitable, and the termination of the negotiations actually meant that the negotiations would be opened in another more arbitrary way.

As expected, two days later, the island nation's navy attacked the Russian Empire's fleet stationed in Lushun without declaring war, and the war that determined the hegemony of the Far East broke out.

At this time, the New Zealand referendum was still in progress, and Arthur naturally would not comment on the situation in the Far East. He just asked the Australian and New Zealand governments to issue a neutrality statement, declaring that Australia and New Zealand were both neutral in this war.

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

After all, declaring neutrality does not mean that arms trade cannot be carried out. Isn't this the case with the United States? In the early stage, it was neutral and sold arms to make money, and in the later stage, the situation was clear and it joined directly to obtain the high status of the victorious country at the lowest cost.

Compared with the island countries with strong will, the Tsarist Russian Empire had different opinions in this hegemony crisis.

The attitude of the Tsarist Russian Empire can be divided into two factions. One faction is the peace faction, which is mainly composed of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. They saw the crisis of the Tsarist Russian Empire in the domestic and international situation and advised Tsar Nicholas II not to start a war easily.

The peace faction suggested 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 in the Far East, and wait until the Siberian Railway is fully opened to traffic, on the premise of solving the Far East transportation problem, and after the completion of the outer fortress near the Port of Lushun, wait for the opportunity to fight a decisive battle with the island countries.

The peace faction is not a simple peace faction. The purpose of their advocacy of short-term peace is only for a better war. This is also the tradition of the Russians. They are not afraid of war.

The other faction is the war faction represented by the Minister of the Court, the Minister of the Interior and the Governor-General of the Far East.

This group of people are extremely fanatical chauvinists and imperialist adventurers. They were very confident in the military strength of the Russian Empire, and at the same time they looked down on the island nation, which had just risen.

They believed that the Russian Empire's army only needed a small mobilization to easily destroy the enemy from the island country.

Such a hearty victory could also allow the Russian Empire to calm the domestic revolutionary crisis, and on the basis of foreign affairs, it could also achieve domestic stability, which could be said to kill two birds with one stone.

This idea was actually because the domestic revolutionary wave in the Russian Empire was becoming more and more intense, and the top leaders of the Russian Empire were already trying to calm the crisis from other aspects.

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

However, when Tsar Nicholas II was still the crown prince, he once traveled abroad and visited some countries at the order of the then Tsar Alexander III.

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

This also made Nicholas II the first emperor of the Russian Empire to have been to Asia.

However, this trip to Asia was not very wonderful, and it also made Nicholas II very hateful and hostile to the island country.

In 1891, the Russian Crown Prince Nicholas led his good friend, the Greek Prince Georgy, and more than 30 others to the island country.

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

In order to ensure the personal safety of the Crown Prince Nicholas, the island government vowed to take on a lot of responsibilities. On the one hand, it strengthened the police force, took strict precautions, and strived to be foolproof.

On the other hand, the then Foreign Minister of the island country, Aoki Shuzo, also agreed with the Russian Empire's ambassador to the island country that once an assassination occurred, they would all be sentenced to death in accordance with the crime of harming the royal family in the criminal law, and would never be forgiven.

But the accident came so suddenly. On May 11, 1891, while the Crown Prince Nicholas was playing in the capital, he was assassinated by Tsuda Sanzo, the policeman who was responsible for guarding the safety of the Crown Prince Nicholas.

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

However, in this way, the relationship between the Russian Empire and the island country dropped to the freezing point. Nicholas II also had no good feelings towards the island country because of this incident, and even had abnormal hatred and disgust.

How should such a person who hated and hated the island country react when he heard that the island country was going to compete with the Russian Empire for hegemony in the Far East?

Should he shout angrily that these yellow monkeys should die, or calmly think about the opinions of the peace advocates?

In fact, Nicholas II had both. He had the views of both parties. He knew that the Russian Empire was not well prepared at present and hoped 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 the war was to take tough measures, and concessions would always lead to new concessions.

Such seemingly contradictory ideas actually supported the hard-line claims.

The Russian Empire was indeed not fully prepared. The Russian army in the Far East had less than 100,000 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 them could be allocated to the garrison in the Far East.

The entire Russian Far East Army of the Tsarist Empire had less than 200 artillery pieces, 20 heavy machine guns and more than 90,000 combat troops.

In terms of the navy, although the Russian Navy had more than 200 warships, the Pacific Fleet that could really be used for operations in the Far East had only more than 60 warships.

On the island side, the navy already had more than 80 warships with a total tonnage of more than 270,000 tons.

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

A battleship ordered from Australia was not completed, so it was not included in the statistics.

In terms of the army, the island country had more than 210,000 soldiers who could be used for operations outside the mainland, with more than a thousand artillery pieces and more than 50 heavy machine guns.

Judging from the data alone, the Russian Empire was already at a complete disadvantage in the Far East. The navy was barely balanced, but the number of army personnel and the number of equipment were not as advanced as those of the island countries.

It was just that the arrogant Russian government simply believed that the island countries did not dare to offend the powerful Russian Empire. They believed that as long as the Russian Empire showed its tough side, the island people would compromise obediently.

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