The Empire was able to quickly launch the Siberian War when the civilian faction opposed the war and the navy adhered to the southward policy, which was of course the reason why the Tenth Russo-Turkish War broke out, which attracted a large number of Russian troops and made Russia's strength empty on the Eastern Front.

But more importantly, Lin Zhe believed that the first task of the empire was to solve the northern border troubles.

At present, the empire faces many threats, the United States on the other side of the Pacific, France and Britain in the direction of Southeast Asia, and Russia in the north, but the United States is still developing, and they do not even have a few modern warships, and it is impossible to pose any real threat to the empire in the Pacific, especially in the west of the Central Pacific.

As for France, the French are actually very weak in Asia, and their colonies in Nam Chi are very small, and the forces that the French can mobilize in Asia are seriously insufficient.

In the case of the British, the threat is relatively large, but it is worth noting that the threat of the British to the empire is mainly a maritime threat, in this case, what the empire has to do is to develop a navy, and then firmly watch the Strait of Malacca, as long as the British East India fleet is blocked in the port of Singapore, then the British will not be able to pose any actual threat to the empire.

Moreover, after the conflict of the sixties, the relationship between the Empire and the British in the last decade or so has been mostly cooperative, and thanks to the huge profits brought by the international trade between the two sides, both countries will not use force easily.

The Russians, on the other hand, have no common interests with the Empire, trade between them is almost zero, and there is no actual common enemy in the world, and as for the British, that doesn't count, because strictly speaking, the British are the common enemy of the rest of the world.

But Russia and the empire have an irreconcilable territorial conflict, otherwise the two countries would not have maintained a border conflict that lasted for two decades.

This hostile relationship makes it difficult to achieve complete peace unless one side submits.

So when there was an opportunity for the Tenth Russian-Turkish War, Lin Zhe seized the opportunity without hesitation, and then launched the imperial war machine, ready to give the Russians a ruthless blow in the direction of Siberia.

As for the negotiations that the Russians are actively seeking now, any fool can imagine that this is a delaying tactic of the Russians, and even if they give in, the concessions will not be too large.

But the empire wants too much, and what the empire wants is the former Russian territories that Russia recognizes the empire now occupies, such as the province of New Eastern and Sakhalin, as well as the province of Kokand in Central Asia, and Alaska.

And even if Russia has actually lost control of these territories, it will not easily admit it.

In nineteenth-century international relations, there was no use in verbal negotiations, and there was no other choice but war to get the benefits you wanted.

This is also the reason why Lin Zhe is resolute and allows the troops to attack so quickly, even if he wants to negotiate, he has to wait for the empire to win the battle.

Lin Zhe's firm support was also the main reason why the army was able to launch this campaign.

The three major factions of the civilian, army, and navy in the country have their own interests and demands, and if it were not for Lin Zhe forcibly suppressing the opposition of the navy and the cabinet, the army would not have been able to launch this Siberian war.

Although there are many factions in the contemporary empire, and the struggle between them is still relatively fierce, the reason for these struggles is not only their respective interests, but also inseparable from Lin Zhe's tacit approval, as a ruler, Lin Zhe has always balanced the power of many factions in the country, and avoided them from uniting.

The people under his hands are monolithic, which is unacceptable to any person in a higher position.

However, even if Lin Zhe supports the army to launch the Siberian War, at most he will let the cabinet and the navy not drag the army back, but in fact, it is almost impossible to give much help, of course, the navy will not be able to help, and the cabinet will not give much military support.

Because just like what the Ministry of Finance said itself, the annual budget of the empire has been allocated at the end of the previous year, and if you want to temporarily increase a large amount of expenses, then you can only raise it by issuing treasury bonds and advancing the budget of the following year in advance.

If it weren't for the emergency, the cabinet would never have done such a thing, after all, for the military, they spend money when they have it, and they don't care about any fiscal deficits or anything like that, but the cabinet is different, and if there is a large-scale fiscal deficit, it will not be easy to arrange next year.

Fortunately, the army has a great business, and in the past ten years, there have been hundreds of millions of military expenditures almost every year, and after these military expenditures are spent, the army has accumulated a lot of money, and there is no shortage of guns and guns, and shells and bullets have been hoarded in countless warehouses.

As far as the army's current strategic reserves are concerned, it is enough to support an army of the current scale to carry out a year-long all-out war, and if it is only a local war of a few months, then the army does not need to mobilize the whole army at all, and can solve the problem by relying only on local garrisons and reserves.

There are several figures from the Ordnance Department that fully prove how rich the army's reserves are!

At present, the reserve of artillery shells in the reserve of the Imperial Army has reached an average of more than 800 rounds per gun, and the number of shells carried by the front-line troops has reached an average of 500 rounds, which is quite an astonishing figure, you must know that in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the German army only fired about 200 rounds per artillery gun during the entire war, that is to say, the number of shells of the troops participating in the war of the Imperial Army is enough to support the front-line troops to fight two and a half Franco-Prussian wars of this kind of artillery density.

In addition, the number of bullets in reserve is also quite large, on average, each rifle has 500 rounds of ammunition in reserve, during the Siberian War, the average number of bullets carried by the troops to each rifle is about 300 rounds, respectively carried by the soldiers themselves, logistics deployment and transportation, divisions, armies and other strategic reserves of three channels.

By comparison, the average German army consumed only 56 rounds of ammunition per rifle in the Franco-Prussian War, which means that the average ammunition carried by the Reich's troops in Siberia was enough to carry nearly six Franco-Prussian wars.

Of course, it can be seen how rich the Imperial Army has accumulated in the past ten years, and at the same time, it can also be seen that the army has greatly increased the consumption of ammunition on the basis of the Franco-Prussian War.

However, the logistics department of the Imperial Army originally thought that this was an extremely optimistic estimate, but it came to naught after a mere month of the war.

A week after the Fifth Army in the direction of Nebuchu launched an offensive against the Russian army in Nebuchu, a telegram came from the front line, announcing that ammunition was running out and requesting rapid support for ammunition.

This situation caught the people on the High Command side a little unprepared, what is going on?

The ammunition that was pulled out before is expected to be able to fight the entire war, and no matter how bad it is, it can support more than half a year, but why is it that the ammunition is out of emergency in just a week?

The officers in charge of logistics and transportation in Tianjin unceremoniously sent a telegram to the front line, asking if the ammunition was really in a hurry, and they thought that the front line had made a mistake.

Lieutenant General Xiangong, the commander of the Fifth Army, saw the disbelieving tone of the logistics department, and he himself was extremely depressed, like the people in the logistics department, he also thought that the ammunition he originally carried was enough, but he also did not expect that the ammunition would be used up so quickly.

Within three days of the Fifth Army launching the attack, the artillery units fired an average of at least 100 shells, and later realized that the shells were being consumed too quickly, so the speed of the artillery was controlled, but the next day it was found that in the face of the strong fortifications around Nebuchu, it was impossible to launch an attack without the cover of artillery fire, so the intensity of the artillery bombardment could only be restored.

The heavy shelling led to the fact that in just one week, the stockpiles of artillery shells at the front line had fallen to the most dangerous critical point.

Otherwise, the Fifth Army would not have risked its own embarrassment and sent a telegram calling for help directly to the theater headquarters.

Not only the shells, but also the consumption of bullets was equally staggering, the ammunition reserve of the front-line troops was about 300 rounds per rifle, but in just one week, half of it was consumed.

This situation shocked the front-line troops themselves, and at the same time, it also scared the person in charge of the logistics department of the headquarters half to death.

What a joke!

Then, according to the battle reports from the front line, several departments on the side of the high command ended the analysis of some technicians, and finally came to the conclusion that the ammunition was consumed so quickly, not because of how powerful the enemy was, but because the weapons of the Imperial Army were too advanced......

The amount of ammunition reserves of the Reich Army was carried out according to the standards of the Franco-Prussian War, and the standards of the Franco-Prussian War were increased by a part, but they ignored that now the weapons and equipment of the Reichsian Army were much stronger than the German army during the Franco-Prussian War.

In terms of artillery, the artillery of the Imperial Army was already all steel breech-loading rifled guns, and the number of artillery was quite large, when the shelling started, the shelling speed was very fast, and in order to suppress the Russians, the density of the shelling could not be weakened, so the consumption of shells far exceeded that of the Franco-Prussian War.

Bullets, because the Imperial Army has been fully replaced with the 1872 model Northern rifle, what is the folk name of this rifle in the country, it is a burst of guns!

As you can see from this name, the rate of fire of this thing is quite fast, and in the heat of battle, soldiers can unknowingly use up several magazines in a few minutes.

In the past, the bullets that could support half a year of combat are now only capable of supporting a month's combat at most.

Although the density of fire is greatly increased in the use of magazine-fed rifles, it brings a large consumption of bullets. (To be continued.) )