The Rise of the Empire

Chapter 457: Russian needs

As the saying goes, Fu Bushuang does not only reduce the misfortune, but this time the situation in Bavaria seems to have broken the saying, because just as the financial situation in Bavaria was unprecedented, the prince was thinking about how to spend money and was planning to come first to try 100 various armored vehicles. At that time, the Russians came to give money again! Because just a month ago, the Japanese military intelligence that the Russians had just received surprised them!

Facts have proved that Japan's adventurous action against the Philippines in 1898 was very correct. If the diplomatic debuff of permanent hostility with the United States is not considered, Japan can be described as earning a profit! Because after the occupation of the Philippines, not long after, the Japanese made all their original expenditures and still had a large surplus! Japan's economic situation in 1901 was even better than in history!

Are you surprised? In fact, it is easy to understand that this profit is like the water in the sea. There will always be a squeeze, especially since this is a mature colony run by the Spanish for hundreds of years, not a spotless place like Africa! Tropical cash crops such as palm, rubber, and sugarcane in the Philippines were originally sought-after goods in the market, but after the Japanese arrived, they immediately developed another product that was very popular with the British Empire-Fenu!

The British are now very short of manpower, and this is caused by the prince. The Boer War on this plane is larger than in history and consumes more. Not to mention, after the Boers successfully occupied the Eastern Cape , The mobilizable population directly more than doubled! With the support of Germany and the United States, the firepower of the Boers has increased more than three times! The number of troops has also greatly increased. In history, there were no more than 80,000 Boer troops. At the time when the British were the most, there were more than 200,000 troops stationed in South Africa. But now? According to the prince’s conservative estimate, you won’t be able to deal with Boers if you don’t concentrate 300,000 troops!

You asked the British to deploy 300,000 troops in South Africa. This seems a bit difficult... You know, after the outbreak of World War I in history, after the British completed the strategic mobilization, the entire army gathered was only 658,000! And these people are not all thrown into the battlefield at once. The current situation is that the British have to deploy at least 300,000 to 400,000 troops in the less prosperous South Africa.

This is only the number of troops, if you count the number of people supporting these troops, it will be even more terrifying! The total number of blacks in South Africa is only 4 million. A considerable part of them also launched an uprising when the British and the Boers were at war. These African laborers are definitely not enough, so good. Now where do the British draw assistance Support staff? There are many Indians, but it is a pity that India has a lot of land to cultivate cash crops such as cotton, and because the British over-promoted the cultivation of cash crops, India’s grain output was too low and even led to widespread famine. In order to ensure the cultivation of cash crops and make up for the shortage of personnel caused by the famine, the British naturally cannot draw much labor from India.

As for Canada, Australia and New Zealand, I’m sorry, these places can provide industry, provide financial support, and provide some military forces, but they can’t provide a large amount of labor. After all, when you look at the next 21st century, these countries have only a few people. ......

Now the British, who need a lot of labor, are looking for people all over the world. The British need labor that can be imported in large quantities, can be consumed, and cost is not very expensive, but who can provide this kind of labor? Japan! The Philippines also has a population of tens of millions. The Japanese did not treat the Filipinos as citizens. It would be money to ship those insurgents directly to South Africa! And it reduces the pressure of the Japanese to rule the local area. It kills two birds with one stone. Anyway, there is no shortage of people in Japan, and there are fewer Filipinos. Just immigrate directly from Japan...

While these Fenu alleviated the British manpower shortage, they also brought a lot of income to the Japanese, reduced colonial resistance, and gained a rapid increase in the rate of development of the raw material production area and market in Japan. Otherwise, it would not be the same. Tone ordered 4 new battleships from the British, and there is a trend of increasing orders! The navy is only part of the military expenditure. In fact, the military expenditure of the Japanese army is the bulk of the Japanese military expenditure, standing at about 70% of the total military expenditure! The current development of the Japanese Army is indeed terrifying!

At the beginning of this year, Admiral Kuropatkin, who was in charge of military affairs for the Far East Army, received the Japanese Army’s 1901 military information. As of February 1901, the Japanese Army had 156 infantry squadrons, 54 cavalry squadrons, and 106 field troops. The Artillery and Mountain Artillery Squadron has 8,791 officers, the total number of officers and men has reached 17,581, and the number of various wild artillery and mountain artillery is 636! This is only the army we have now, and after mobilization, the number will increase. Historically, in July 1903, the number of the Japanese army before the war was only so (in fact, this is the situation of the Japanese army in the same period in history~www.mtlnovel. com~ At the same time, the Russian preparations in the Far East are worrying. So far, the total strength is only 90 infantry battalions and 45 other battalions (including cavalry and artillery battalions). And there are still a large number of these troops. The garrison troops of China cannot be deployed, such as the 25 battalions and other troops deployed at Lushunkou, the fortress garrison of about 30,000, and the garrison troops stationed in Vladivostok and South Ussuri.

Such an imbalance of military power makes Kuropatkin very worried. He even said frankly that if it were not for the navy's 4 newly completed Lurik 2 super warships to have sufficient deterrence, Japan is now launching an offensive, and the Russian army has no ability to resist!

If the Germans need to complete the expansion of the Far East, they need two points. The first is to establish a logistic support system that can support the operations of the army. The second is to increase a lot of equipment. The former is for the Russians to bend as long as they have money. If you have money, you can't do it! The reason is simple. The Russian military industry even lags behind Austria-Hungary in the First World War, and in the rapid expansion stage, the Russians cannot spend enough money to develop military industry, so now it’s fine, the only way is to buy it. Order a lot of arms!

The Russians now have difficulties in completing their planned military expansion plan. At this time, on the South African battlefield, after the Boers used cavalry to severely inflict the British army on the intelligence, the Russian General Staff suddenly discovered that in the same vast northeast region, The Russians can also use the mobility of the Cossack cavalry to attack the Japanese! This cavalry has a lot to do, and can even quickly determine the outcome of the battle!