Within the empire, the army has always been the backbone of the war against Russia, especially in the face of expansion in Central Asia and Siberia, the army has shown special zeal, in order to support expansion in Siberia and Central Asia, the army is not only in foreign policy.

At the same time, it also actively supported the construction of two major railways, namely the Northern Railway and the northwest section of the East-West Railway.

Although it is impossible for the army to directly use military funds to build railways, in order to support the railway companies to speed up the construction of railways into Wutai Province and Xinjiang Province, the army has given the railway companies a very large subsidy in terms of the freight costs of military trains.

At the same time, engineering troops are often dispatched to carry out railway construction in the name of training and other means, mainly to solve some difficult construction.

After all, compared with the specialized engineering units of the troops, there is still a big technical shortage in the construction teams of the civilian units, and the engineering units of the troops are strong soldiers who open up mountains and build bridges in the face of water, and in fact they are much stronger than the civilian construction teams in terms of the ability of engineering equipment and technical personnel.

As for some minor assistance at other times, such as some local problems encountered during the construction of the railway, although it is difficult for the military to intervene, it will also exert a certain amount of pressure on the local government to avoid delaying the progress of the project.

Because only after the construction of these two railways can the westward expansion advocated by the Imperial Army be carried out smoothly, otherwise the Imperial Army will not be able to survive even if it has a million troops.

However, if there is opposition, there is support, and in a huge country like the Empire, in addition to the army, there are many other forces, such as the navy, which is also a military.

Although the navy, like the army, is a staunch supporter of foreign expansion, it is different from the army's advocacy of westward and northward expansion, and regards Russia as its biggest adversary.

Although the navy also supported the army's northward policy in the sixties, they mainly supported the operation of New Eastern Province and Alaska, and the navy also played a major role in the conquest of New Eastern Province.

But now that the province of New Eastern had become the territory of the empire, the navy quickly changed its position, and in some public appearances, many admirals were no longer clamoring for northward expansion, but for 'advancing to the Pacific Ocean'.

In the 70s, many experts and scholars supported by the Navy began to write about the importance of Southeast Asia and the Pacific to the Empire.

National defense and security is only one of the aspects, in addition, they are constantly boasting that Southeast Asia is rich in products, saying that the land in Southeast Asia is fertile, and if you grow a few crops, you can harvest a lot of food, and some interesting stories in Southeast Asia have appeared in the newspapers, such as the local people are naturally lazy and do nothing all year round, but why haven't they been starved to death?

Because they grow something and don't even have to take care of it, but they can still harvest a lot of food.

This statement makes a large number of people in China despise the laziness of these Southeast Asian natives on the one hand, but on the other hand, they envy them for having such fertile land, and many people say that such fertile land is really a waste for these natives, and it would be nice if it could be given to us.

He also said that Southeast Asia has many special products, such as rubber, oil, spices, timber, rice, etc., in order to attract the domestic business class.

With the rise of the industrial revolution, some raw materials have become important, such as rubber, more than ten years ago, who would care about this thing in China, but with the industrialization of these years, the amount of rubber imported in China every year is gradually increasing, and the amount of rubber is increasing, and many people can see the prospect of rubber.

There is also oil, and people in China did not know what oil was before, but with the increasing degree of industrialization in China, new lighting fixtures such as kerosene lamps have also begun to become popular.

And where did kerosene, the fuel for kerosene lamps, come from? It is refined from petroleum.

After the sixties of the nineteenth century, oil extraction, refining, and sales have become a new industrial model, and the United States is the earliest industrial oil exploitation, and now the United States is the world's largest oil producer, and its products are sold all over the world.

China currently imports a lot of refined kerosene to the United States every year!

In the 60s, Lin Zhe began to set up a related oil company in the Royal Asset Management Office, and this oil company, like other royal enterprises, was named relatively high, called 'Imperial Oil Company'.

However, after the company was founded, it was first engaged in the business of selling imported kerosene, and then hired relevant technicians from the United States, imported technology, and then tried to find oil in the empire.

At this time, the earliest discovery of oil, and industrial exploitation is not those large oil fields in later generations, what Yumenguan Oilfield, Daqing Oilfield, Shengli Oilfield and the like, for the time being, have not taken care of, although Lin Zhe knows the name and general location of some large oil fields in later generations, but the domestic large-scale oil fields have a characteristic, that is, they are generally deeper, Daqing Oilfield is more than 3,000 meters deep, not to mention now, it is enough to wait until World War II to exploit it.

Therefore, the Imperial Oil Company's oil exploration in China is mainly to find some easy to start oil fields, for example, Taiwan has discovered several small oil fields, Miaoli has discovered oil in the early sixties, in 1868, the Imperial Oil Company set up a factory here, and then carried out industrial exploitation.

However, the production is quite small, and the current daily oil production of this oil field is only a few tons, which basically does not produce much economic and political benefits.

At present, the total amount of oil produced by the Imperial Oil Company in many small oil fields in China is only about ten tons per day, not to mention that this amount is comparable to that of later generations, even compared with the current foreign oil companies.

At present, the main oil producing countries in the world are the United States and Russia, and the United States began large-scale industrial exploitation and refining in the sixties. And the oil exploitation in Russia is because Baku oil was discovered in 1873 and has now been exploited on a large scale.

The oil produced by these two countries, well, refined kerosene to be exact, accounts for almost all of the global market share.

Although the current oil is limited in use, the biggest role is to illuminate, can also be used as a lubricant, but it has not yet become a fuel for power, so it is not of great military importance, and political importance is not great, otherwise the British would not have paid attention to the exploration and exploitation of oil in the nineteenth century.

At present, oil is an ordinary commodity, but because of the current monopoly, this commodity is very profitable, even in China, there are many people who want to get a piece of the pie from oil, the current price of oil is still relatively high, although these years have fluctuated quite largely, ten dollars a barrel has been, two or three dollars have also been, and in recent years the price of oil has basically remained at six or seven dollars a barrel.

The price of six or seven dollars a barrel is naturally not worth mentioning compared to the hundreds of dollars a barrel in later generations, but you must know that in fact, in the nineties of the twentieth century, the price of oil was only twenty to thirty dollars, and sometimes even lower.

What's more, the seven dollars in the seventies of the nineteenth century and the seven dollars in the twenty-first century are one in the sky and one on the ground, and there is no comparison.

If it weren't for the high price, the empire wouldn't have exploited wells that produced only a few hundred kilograms a day.

In the last two years, Imperial Oil has turned its attention to Sakhalin after not being able to find oil that is easy to extract in the mainland of the country, because it has discovered a large oil field that is extremely rare and easy to extract, but because of the distance and climate, it is more difficult to extract.

In addition, the Imperial Oil Company also uses various names, openly or covertly, to explore various regions of Southeast Asia, of course, in order to detect the oil resources in the South Seas, they even bow to the South Sea Mining Company and seek the company's help.

Although Nanyang Mining Company is a domestic private-funded enterprise and does not have much business in China, it is a veritable multinational giant, whose business is all over the Nanyang region, and even in the past two years, it has gone to Australia to develop coal and iron ore.

Also known as the Mining Company, but in fact operating other businesses, the Nanyang Mining Company is also the largest rubber supplier in the country, with a large number of plantations in the Nanyang area.

To tell the truth, the influence of the Nanyang Mining Company in the Nanyang region is greater than that of all other enterprises in the country combined, and if it were not for the lack of such colonial enterprises in the empire, it is estimated that this Nanyang Mining Company would have been able to evolve into a large-scale colonial company.

The abundant resources in the Nanyang region have attracted private industrial and commercial capital, but contemporary investment is not a simple investment, if you want to develop minerals and do trade, it does not matter whether you have money or not, the important thing is that you have an army behind you to stand behind you.

The profits of contemporary international trade are so lucrative that every businessman commits suicide, but behind these huge profits is the support of the state's armed forces.

And the Royal Navy of the Empire is the bayonet of many businessmen who go to the South Seas to invest!

Therefore, on the point of expanding to the South Seas, some of the industrial and commercial classes in China have maintained a high degree of unity with the navy!

In addition to the navy, which is also a military, there is also a civilian clique, which has been relatively opposed to war since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially for the sake of a small profit.

Today, the civilian clique of the empire believes that the empire is now in the most critical period of development, and the most important thing at present is to develop steadily, catch up with the Western powers in terms of national strength, and then force other countries to submit at the military level with huge national power, and what they want is to overwhelm people with power and win without a fight.

In the eyes of civilian officials, the so-called war has nothing to do with the bravery of the soldiers, it depends on whose family has more cannons and warships, and how did the compulsory cannons and warships come about? It is not by domestic development, only when the country is strong, can it build more and more advanced guns, artillery and warships.

When the time comes, dozens of battleships swing in front of the enemy, and they still need to fight? The enemy must not be frightened into surrendering!

In other words, although everyone has the same intention of external expansion, the military side advocates the current war to obtain the fruits of victory, while the civilian side advocates relying on strong national power to directly force the enemy to submit and obtain benefits.

Although the goal is the same, the means are different.

In other words, despite the huge scale of this Siberian campaign, it actually did not receive much support at home.

The navy doesn't say anything, it's not bad if you don't make a stumbling block, at most it means to send a shallow gunboat over, and other aspects have little to do with the navy anyway, so they just shut up, but if the army wants to take advantage of this battle to account for a large share of this year's military expenditure allocation, the navy will resolutely not agree.

The cabinet is generally the same, and those ministers are all very resolute: the army will fight if you want, and His Majesty has ordered it anyway, and we can't oppose it, but you want to talk about temporary war expenses? What are you kidding, this year's budget has already been spent, and you can take out tens of millions of yuan for your army, and your army wants it, so if you don't give it, you can't say that our cabinet is biased, and finally they come to demolish the Prime Minister's Cabinet Office, and you will build a new one?

Moreover, your army has hundreds of millions of military expenses every year, and there has been no major war for more than ten years, and after so many years of savings, I know that you don't have a dime in cash, but this gun and artillery, as well as the shells and bullets used for consumption, must be a lot.

As a result, in this war, in fact, the army did not get a dime of additional war money, and could only rely on the army's hometown to fight.

The empire, which has been established for more than 20 years, has been fully reflected in the Siberian War. (To be continued.) )