There was not much time left for Lü Liang, and in the original history, two months later would be the time when the Russo-Japanese War broke out. At this time and age, the rise of the Zhenguo Party changed the situation in the Far East dramatically, and Lü Liang could not predict whether the Russo-Japanese War would break out in time, but the necessary preparations never stopped.

Judging from the international situation, the contradictions between Japan and Tsarist Russia in Northeast China and Korea cannot be reconciled, and both sides have no doubts about this war. Japan's position was to shorten the outbreak of war as much as possible, and "every day, or even an hour, of delay would increase Russia's chances of victory"; Russia wanted to postpone the outbreak of war, believing that time was Russia's best ally, because the opening of the Baikal section of the Trans-Siberian Railway had not yet arrived. The diplomatic battlefield between the two sides is already in full swing, with Japan constantly raising its asking price and Russia trying to delay it by all means.

The loss of the Yangtze River basin was also a huge blow to Japan, a country that was already weak in industry and largely relied on cotton cloth exports to China to sustain its economic development, coupled with a lack of resources, and its overseas colonial ambitions swelled dramatically. The basic loss of the Chinese market was devastating to the Japanese economy, which made their desire for territory in Korea and Northeast China even more urgent, and the Russo-Japanese War was even stronger.

Britain hoped that Japan could stop the greedy Russia's ambitions in the Yangtze River valley with China, so it fully supported Japan to prepare for war, when the Northern Expedition of the Zhenguo Army was victorious, Britain's interests in China were greatly damaged, but it was unwise to provoke Russia and the Zhenguo Army at the same time, and Japan did not want to start a war with the Zhenguo Army in the Yangtze River Valley, their targets have always been Northeast and Korea, so Britain can only continue to support Japan. At the same time, vigorously explore the interests of northern China to reduce the losses caused by the loss of the Yangtze River basin.

Since 1899, when the United States proposed the "open door" policy, it has become interested in overseas markets, and has tried to intervene in Northeast China several times, but Russia has turned it away, and in order to break Russia's monopoly position, the US government has sided with Japan. However, the rise of the Revitalization Party has left Americans ecstatic, who see it as the greatest victory for American diplomacy. After the victory of the Northern Expedition, Britain lost its interests in the Yangtze River valley, and the Americans took advantage of the situation. There is no irreconcilable contradiction between the United States and the revolutionary government, and the Americans do not have great ambitions for territory and privileges, they only see the market, and the revolutionary government's demand for American products is almost endless.

Especially after the victory of the Northern Expedition and the beginning of the first five-year plan, the entire south of the Yangtze River has become a large construction site, and the industrial products and raw materials required cannot be met by the small Huizhou industrial base. As a result, both the United States and Germany have received a large number of orders, especially steel rails, which have become the most important commodity exported by the United States to China.

In this way, the attitude of the Americans was on the side of the revolutionary government, and they hoped to delay the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, and they did not even want to see the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, because whichever side of Japan and Russia occupied Korea and Northeast China would pose a threat to the revolutionary government and indirectly to the interests of the United States.

France, on the other hand, was loyal to the Russian-French alliance and expressed support for Russian expansion in the Far East, but this support was also limited, and the French government did not want Russia to invest its main military forces in the Far East, which would lead to the weakening of the Russian-French alliance against Germany in Europe.

Germany wanted Russia to advance eastward in order to relieve its military pressure in the east, and when the revolutionary government offered huge orders, Germany turned a blind eye to Russia's support in order to take care of the interests of this unjust leader.

In this way, Britain fully supported Japan in the war, Russia had only a limited France behind it, and the United States tried its best to prevent this war from happening, and the situation was very favorable to Japan, so that the Russo-Japanese War was likely to break out early. Lu Liang's preparation time was insufficient, and if a war broke out in advance, all the deployments in the early stage would be disrupted, and it was very likely that the desired results would not be achieved if he intervened in this war in a hurry.

Lü Liang's purpose was to take advantage of the Russo-Japanese War and the favorable opportunity for Japan to concentrate its main forces in the northeast and take advantage of the fire. Therefore, the planned intervention took place after the Battle of Tsushima (May 1905), when Japan and Russia had been fighting in Tohoku for more than a year. In the past, Lu Liang would secretly laugh in his heart when he thought of this, it was really good to be a yellow bird. But at present, it seems that if the war happens earlier, the naval battle will definitely be brought forward accordingly, so that there will be a situation of insufficient preparation for it.

The so-called preparations, there are two main aspects, one is the preparation of the navy, a naval battle of this scale, if you want to achieve a complete victory, it is unrealistic to rely on just a few cruisers, you must have your own battleship, the first battleship was launched at the end of 1902, and after the completion of sea trials, it joined the combat sequence of the navy and carried out high-intensity training. However, only one was clearly not enough, and the second and third ships were launched around November 1904, and the construction took two years and three months. It took so long mainly because Lü Liang insisted that the two behemoths be built in a shipyard and not produced by a steel base like the first one. As for the reason, it is very simple, it is to train the shipbuilding capacity and improve the industrial system.

The Huizhou Shipyard and the Zhanjiang Shipyard, which were responsible for the construction of the battleship, spent more than nine months on the preparation work alone, and the hardware facilities were not a problem, including the slipway, machinery, and steel plates used to build the battleship, and the battleship's main guns and power systems could be temporarily provided by the steel base. Time-consuming is mainly the ability of software, skilled workers need to be trained, shipyards need to complete the accumulation of building ships from small tonnage to large tonnage, fishing boats, transport ships, destroyers, cruisers, step by step, leapfrog development is sometimes not applicable, especially when the foundation is very weak.

Another aspect is the preparation of the army, in Lu Liang's plan, the number of troops that need to be used is at least 300,000, which is still a conservative number. At present, the seven armies are less than 300,000, so the army still needs to be expanded, the military factories still need to be expanded, the materials needed to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of soldiers also need the support of a large number of factories, and the transportation of the army needs a large number of transport ships. This is called preparation, indispensable preparation.

Therefore, from January 1904, Lv Liang spent most of his energy on the construction of heavy industry, steel, steel, Lv Liang has never been so thirsty for steel as now. Up to now, the annual steel output under the jurisdiction is 1.3 million tons, which is still a cut short of Luliang's expectations.

This amount of steel can be temporarily satisfied if it is completely used in the military industry, but it is not the military industry that consumes the most steel, but railways and infrastructure. Imports of steel rails from the United States account for one-half of the rails used in railways, which is already the largest amount of steel that can be purchased from the outside world. The key is to rely on yourself!

The renovation of the Hanyang Iron Works did not last long, and Lü Liang ordered the removal of all the old equipment and replaced it with new equipment produced in Huizhou. The difficulty and cost of the renovation are huge, and it is better to use the new equipment completely, and all that is left of the Hanyang Iron Works is those workers and sites. After three months of reconstruction, the Hanyang Iron Works was given a new lease of life, using the steel base submarine mining vehicles to transport seabed minerals directly from the Yangtze River, so that the cost of the iron plant was reduced to a minimum and the output was rapidly increased. Due to the most important factor, the abundance of steelworkers, Hanyang Iron Works became the second largest steel plant after Huizhou Iron and Steel Plant in a short period of time.

Maximizing the use of seabed mining vehicles is a major criterion for the development of heavy industry, which is the main reason why heavy industry bases are located in coastal or riverside areas. Considering that the coastal areas are vulnerable to foreign interference, most of the new heavy industry factories are located along the Yangtze River, especially in the Wuhan area, which also makes Wuhan quickly become a manufacturing center in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, while Shanghai, taking full advantage of the transportation conditions, has become a commercial center.

The Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant is also under rapid construction, and it will not use local minerals, but only take advantage of the convenient transportation conditions of the Yangtze River. In addition, Hangzhou Iron and Steel Plant, Nanjing Iron and Steel Plant, Changsha Iron and Steel Plant, Chongqing Iron and Steel Plant, and Nanning Iron and Steel Plant were all completed and put into operation in 1904. Lü Liang's fanaticism made the revolutionary government frantically invest in the construction of heavy industry, and the steel base has 5,000 submarine mining vehicles shuttling day and night on the seabed, which is already the largest number that the steel base can control, but it is just enough to meet the current needs of heavy industry.

Steel is only the foundation, and it also needs to be produced into various industrial manufactured products, rails, wires, construction steel, etc. are only primary products, and steel plates for warships are the things that can best reflect the industrial strength. In this regard, Lvliang has an innate advantage, and the gene people adopt advanced formula technology, and the steel plate for ships manufactured is more than 20 years ahead of this era. In addition, the rapidly expanding scale of automobile production also occupies a considerable share of steel, especially trucks, the market demand for trucks and small trucks is almost endless, and the Chinese landlord class, which has not suffered much loss, has been smoothly transformed into the national bourgeoisie, and the almost rotten silver taels in their cellars are an astronomical amount, affected by the tide of factory construction, countless properties have been taken out of the cellars, turned into new factories, and with it generated more wealth, they are the main force in the purchase of automobiles. In addition, the demand for transport ships and trucks by transport companies and shipping companies is also a huge number, and from 1904 to the end of the year, the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River seems to have changed.