The Rise Of Australasia

Chapter 135: Chapter 135: Far East Situation

The meaning of the Australian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs is simple – Australia indeed has enough mineral resources, but if they want to sell them to the island nation, the price must be at least doubled.

Do not underestimate the gap of one-fold difference. The mining resources needed for national industrial imports are calculated in tens of thousands of tons. A one-fold price difference could potentially result in increased costs of tens of thousands of pounds or more.

Yukichiro Tamura had also anticipated that Australia would raise the prices of mineral resources. After all, the most fundamental aspect between countries is interest, and if one does not fight for interests for their country, it is, in fact, equivalent to treason.

Before heading to Australia, Yukichiro Tamura had already anticipated this situation.

Although the prices of the British Empire’s ally’s mining industry are not too high, they are somewhat lower than Australia’s price, which is double.

However, the areas where the British Empire can provide mineral resources are too far away from the Island Nation. If transportation costs are taken into account, the raw material prices of the British Empire would be much higher than Australia’s.

Especially when the island nation is an island country, the only means of transporting supplies to it is by sea at the moment.

But the large transport ships currently in use are generally slow and require significant time, labor, and capital costs.

Although the island nation has become somewhat wealthy after receiving financial aid from the British Empire and the United States, its ambitions do not end there. The islanders ingratiated themselves with the British Empire and tried to win the favor of the United States for the reason of gaining the support of the two countries, and then launched a challenge to the reigning power in northern East Asia, the Russian Empire, to establish their own dominance in

East Asia.

But is the Russian Empire so easy to challenge? If it were not for the fact that the country is too vast, and the Russian Empire’s ally, France, is unwilling to let most of the Russian Empire’s power shift to East Asia and thus does not fully support Russia’s efforts in Asia, the island nation would not have dared to challenge the ambitions of the Russian Empire.

This is the best time to challenge the Russian Empire, as the island nation has received dual support from the British Empire and the United States. As for Russia? The treaty ally, France, does not want Russia to shift its focus to East Asia, resulting in few countries supporting Russia’s strategy in East Asia, except for Germany.

Thus, the current East Asian conflict can be divided into two camps: the island nation and its backers, the British Empire and the United States, are the challengers, while the Russian Empire and Germany, which is trying to win over Russia, are the defenders.

The Russian Empire wants to maintain its dominance in East Asia, but the current East Asian nation, the island nation, is rising and wants to gain the rights and status it deserves.

This is similar to the current situation in Europe, where the conflict of interests between the old powers and the emerging powers means that there will eventually be a war between the two countries.

However, unlike the relatively balanced situation in Europe, the current situation in East Asia is more favorable for the island nation, which is why the islanders dared to confidently start a war two years later.

Keep in mind that even two years later, the Russian Empire remains one of the top five powerful countries in the world in terms of national size and international relations, while the island nation is merely a rising, emerging country learning from the West.

Perhaps the strength of the island nation has surpassed that of weakened countries like Italy and Spain, but trying to compete with the European superpowers like the Russian Empire head-on does not look promising on the surface.

But in reality, due to the vastness of the Russian Empire and the inconvenience of transportation, as well as the attitudes of its ally France, its power in East Asia is limited.

There are fewer than 100,000 regular Russian soldiers in the Far East Military District, and they are scattered throughout the Far East.

They are called regular troops, but the quality of the soldiers is poor, the equipment level is low, and there are serious conflicts between senior officers and lower-ranking soldiers within the army.

Of course, such problems are not unique to the Far Eastern Army. The Russian Empire, like its vast age, has entered a state of decay.

Though it has gone through a less than successful reform, it is not enough to effectively increase the country’s lifespan. If it were not for its core territory in the West, which attracted some fruits of the Industrial Revolution, the Russian Empire might not have fared much better than a certain East Asian country.

The Russian Empire’s standing army has reached a terrifying number of 1,050,000, with 3,750,000 reserve soldiers.

However, the force deployed in the Far East is less than one-tenth of that, and their equipment and logistics are far behind the western region.

Poor soldier quality, poor logistics support, and backward equipment levels, coupled with disharmony between soldiers and officers, how much fighting power can such an army unleash?

It would be difficult to say whether they could win a war with the decaying, let alone the recently reformed and revived island nation.

How difficult is it for Russia to transport supplies to the Far East? It is impossible to navigate the Arctic Ocean, and if they want to go by sea, they must cross Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and finally reach Northeast Asia.

Such transportation costs are a huge burden for a country like Russia and an expense the nation cannot afford.

The only solution is land transportation, specifically, railway transportation.

The Russian Empire spent a huge amount of money to build the Siberian Railway, which runs through Russia’s most important western European region and its strategically significant Far Eastern region, with its warm ice- free port.

However, there is a crucial issue – up to now, this railway has not been fully operational.

Keep in mind, this is an enormous railway connecting Moscow and Vladivostok, and its length can be considered one of the longest in the world.

It should be noted that the Australian Industrial Railway, which is planned to be built in ten years, has a total length of just over 2,000 kilometers.

What about the Siberian Railway? Since it connects the West and the Far East, encompassing all of the Russian Empire’s territory, it results in the terrifying length of 9,288 kilometers – more than four times the length of the Australian Industrial Railway.

The first preliminary opening was in July 1904, and by the time it was fully operational, the Russo-Japanese War had ended.

This meant that the huge railway, which had cost the Russian Empire a vast amount of materials and effort, made little contribution to the war before it came to a hasty end.

The impact of this war on the Russian Empire was enormous, with significant losses in the Far East and growing discontent with the domestic class situation.

Even the revolutionary events that took place during World War I might not have happened without the factors for failure in this war. In any case, after this war, the island nation officially rose, and the Russian Empire officially entered its decline.

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