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Li Jingfang had a good reason to dare to openly oppose President Song Xiaofei's dispatch of troops to Tsarist Russia, not to mention that there was a gap between China's 300,000 army and Tsarist Russia's more than 1 million army. The war is about logistics transportation and comprehensive national strength, and it is not realistic to rely on horses, camels and other livestock for long-distance transportation in modern wars, and now the railway in the northeast region has been repaired from Shanhaiguan to Qiqihar, and the railway to Manchuria is also rushing to work day and night, and it is expected that it will be completed in the autumn of 1903; The railway line from Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway to Baotou was constructed at multiple points at the same time, and it was expected that it would not be opened to traffic until the end of 1903.

Moreover, the season for attacking Tsarist Russia was also a problem, and it was difficult to break through the Russian fortresses made of rocks without the assistance of large-caliber artillery in the summer without the assistance of large-caliber artillery. In winter, the cold weather is an invisible killer, and even Napoleon's army that crisscrossed Europe fell in the cold weather of Tsarist Russia.

But Song Xiaofei also decided not to wait any longer! Tsarist Russia's army, with a focus on Europe, could send up to 200,000 troops to the Far East. Moreover, the last time the coalition forces attacked Japan, Song Xiaofei had already seen that the tsar's army was actually lax in discipline, there were very few people who really worked for the tsar, the combat effectiveness was low, and the commander was even more incompetent. Now China has the navy of the most powerful fleet in Asia, and it is easy to defeat the Pacific Fleet arranged by the tsar in the Far East and recapture the port of Vladivostok and Sakhalin Island, so that it can block Tsarist Russia's access to the sea in the Far East and make it impossible for Tsarist Russia to exert its strength in East Asia. Historically, Japan was able to defeat Tsarist Russia, and China's current national strength and military strength are far superior to Japan's. There is no reason why Russia cannot be defeated.

Historically, China was a coastal state in the Sea of Japan, but in 1860, Tsarist Russia forced the Qing government to sign the Sino-Russian Treaty of Beijing. It ceded about 400,000 square kilometers of territory between the mouth of the Heilongjiang River and the mouth of the Tumen River to Russia. Russia completely blocked Hunchun, Jilin, the exit of the river and sea close to the Sea of Japan, and the three eastern provinces were only 15 kilometers away from the nearest part of the coast, but without China's single inch of access to the sea, Chinese warships could not freely cross the Sea of Japan, and this was something that Song Xiaofei could not bear.

Moreover, when China was preparing for the war against Tsarist Russia, the greedy Tsar Nicholas II was sending a large number of troops and serfs to repair the Trans-Siberian Railway day and night. In the late 19th century, Tsar Nicholas II, at the suggestion of the Tsar's teacher, the head of the General Administration of Orthodox Affairs, Pobedonoschev, implemented the "Far Eastern Policy" to encroach on Asia. In 1892, the "Special Management Committee of the Trans-Siberian Railway" was established, which was chaired by Nicholas II himself. The railway started from the easternmost point of Vladivostok, and in addition to the dense rivers, lakes and mountains, and the vast area of permafrost, the harsh climate and the huge temperature difference between day and night often caused steel to crack and equipment to be damaged, and the temperature in Siberia can reach an astonishing minus 50C in winter. In the middle of summer, there were often high temperatures of nearly minus 40C, and even under such harsh conditions, thousands of poor Russian serfs and laborers participated in the construction, they braved the bitter cold and heat, opened mountains and bridges, laid sleepers, and many died of exhaustion. From 1891 to 1901, Russia spent almost 1.5 billion rubles on the Trans-Siberian Railway, almost exhausting its national strength. Song Xiaofei knew that on July 13, 1904, the world's longest railway line would begin to open to traffic.

Song Xiaofei was well aware that Tsarist Russia was trying to strengthen its control over China's Northeast Far East through railways. Competing for hegemony in the Far East with China, once this railway is completed, China's Lushun, Harbin, and even the real northeast may become the target of Tsarist Russia, and sooner or later China and Russia will have a war. Song Xiaofei wanted to destroy Russia in 1901, which cost 1.5 billion rubles. The Trans-Siberian Railway, which killed and wounded countless Russian nationals.

According to the information sent back by Zhang Zuolin, Tsarist Russia also supported the Manchu government-in-exile in the northeast, formed an alliance with the declining Manchu fugitive aristocracy, and continuously increased the number of road guards and relocated serfs to Siberia to increase the population density and soldier reserves in various places to safeguard its vested interests in the Far East.

Moreover, Song Xiaofei also felt that Li Jingfang's motive for such an open opposition to war against Russia this time would not be so simple, so he bypassed the Central Supervision Yuan in charge of Zhang Peilun and sent Tan Sitong to secretly investigate Li Jingfang.

After all, the war between China and Russia is not a trivial matter, and Song Xiaofei also sent Foreign Minister Wu Tingfang to negotiate with European powers. In order to safeguard British interests in East Asia, the British ambassador to China, Zhu Erdian, was very supportive of China's handling of Russia, and he said to Wu Tingfang, the chief foreign minister of foreign affairs of China: "My friend, it is better to stay away from the Tsar at the mouth of the Far East, as you know, in order to keep the Vladivostok outlet to the sea, the Tsar paid a huge amount of money. As long as China defends British interests in the Far East, if China has any financial difficulties, we in the British Empire can provide meticulous financial services. ”

And the arms dealers of European and American countries are also full of expectations for the war between China and Tsarist Russia, and many capitalists and speculators have begun to hoard arms materials and stocks of arms enterprises! They put pressure on their own parliaments, and other countries did not want to get involved in the war and remained neutral.

Before the first snow fell in 1900, Song Xiao flew to inspect the national defense fortress in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang Province. Crossing the river from this can cut off the main railway line between Nikolaevsk, the capital of the Far East of Tsarist Russia, and Vladivostok. Here, China has 16 river defense and shore artillery fortresses, and Feng Guozhang has led 60,000 new troops from the north to station, across the Ussuri River, to confront the army of Tsarist Russia. In the sparsely populated Far East, the tsarist army deployed 100,000 troops in Nikolaevsk and Vladivostok.

At this time, Shuangyashan as a frontier military town in the northeast, is one of the most heavily defended areas between the two countries at the junction of China and Russia, China has built a 100,000-ton pig iron and steel-making plant, and a large cement plant, as well as other munitions auxiliary processing plants, military production and ordnance maintenance industry, various specifications of artillery shells and machine rifle cartridges, can be self-sufficient. In accordance with Song Xiaofei's instructions, Xu Shichang, chairman of the three eastern provinces, has already prepared military and grain reserves for local wars in the northeast, forming a strong support for the Far East by rail, road, and sea.

In winter, the Beiyang warships blockading Heilongjiang are to be overhauled here, and the maintenance of rust removal, digging and repairing, oil brushing, shaft pumping, replacement of sets, and overhaul of propellers is carried out. Although the season is only early winter, the north wind here is already as cold as a knife, and the temperature is as low as minus 20 degrees. The ice-covered Heilongjiang River is like a silver dragon flying in the mountains and plains, which is the "Mountain Dance Silver Snake Wax Elephant". When you go out, you have to wear a fur hat and cover it tightly, otherwise your ears and nose will be frozen, and when you touch it, it will be broken. The arrival of the president has greatly boosted the morale of the front-line officers and soldiers fighting against Russia!

At this time, the bandits led by Zhang Zuolin had grown to 2,000 people, and often together with the remnants of the Russian Volya, they went to attack and kill the Russian road guards and Russian road builders and coolie serfs on the railway lines and construction sites.

The Russian Narodnaya Volya, a secret terrorist revolutionary organization of the Russian Narodniks, split from the Land and Freedom Society in August 1879, the main activists were Zheryabov, Mikhailov, Petrovskaya and others, the goal was to overthrow the Tsarist ** system, often carried out conspiracy assassination activities, and also took the assassination of the Tsar as one of the main activities, on March 13, 1881, after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in St. Petersburg, Tsar Alexander III and Nicholas II both brutally suppressed these revolutionaries, With the great support of Xu Shichang and Zhang Zuolin, this group quickly revived, reaching more than 200 people, and they always took the initiative and had the upper hand in attacking the Trans-Siberian Railway with the sophisticated guns provided by Zhang Zuolin.

Russian Ambassador to China Ivan. Sakfuevich often protested to Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Tingfang against Chinese terrorist attacks in the Far East, but every time Wu Tingfang only replied with one sentence, leaving him speechless, "Please show evidence." In the icy and snowy Far East, the raids of Zhang Zuolin and the Narodniks were often at night, and they could not see their fingers, and they came and went without a trace, and the Russians themselves could not tell what was going on, so they had to swallow their anger.