The Russians, who were slapped in the face in the two Sino-Russian wars, were very depressed, quite depressed, extremely depressed. From the Russian Tsar to his ministers to the ordinary Russian people, they finally bowed their heads to the facts, and they admitted the reality that Russia was no longer the steamroller that shook the whole of Europe a few decades ago, let alone the Russia that brought Napoleon to the sand in the past. Now the quality of the Russian army is not even as good as the middle class, and a country that has just been established for less than 10 years can beat the Russians all over the ground.

Since the old path is no longer working, and Russia is a country that is extremely dependent on military power, military reform has become inevitable. From the tsar to the officers to the common people, it was believed that the Russian Army must be reformed. What do you say about the Navy? Well, what the Navy needs is not reform, but to start over. But the Russians do not have a unified idea of how to reform and what direction of reform.

First, the two major wars between Russia and China were fought thousands of kilometers away from Eastern Europe, the center of Russia, and in the absence of a complete railway line, the Russians believed that the Russians could only throw a small part of their more than 2 million troops into the battlefield to compete with the national strength of the Chinese Republic. The defeat in this war doesn't really mean anything. So they thought that what they needed to do now was to continue to expand the force, rely on absolute numerical superiority to crush the opponent, and at the same time adjust the officer corps in order to better command this huge army. As for the issue of transportation. These people think that in the European part of Russia, where transportation is "convenient", these problems do not exist! The Russians could have relied on an army with absolute numerical superiority to exhaust the Germans to death, not to mention the Anglo-French allies on the Western Front.

But Russian officers who participated in and commanded the war with Kuropatkin and others did not think so. Because they know the way in this war. The number of troops does not indicate the strength of the Russian Far Eastern Corps. The Russians numbered more than two million armed men of all kinds, and the Far Eastern Army Corps numbered only about one-ninth. But they have far more equipment than they have.

"We can have one machine gun for almost every 100 people on the Eastern Front. We have more than 1,500 artillery pieces of all kinds, and in our army, on average, only one machine gun per 700 people, and the number of all our artillery guns combined is only more than 5,000, that is, we have transferred almost 7 percent of the machine guns and one-third of the artillery of the entire army to the east. If every soldier of our Far Eastern Army had a Mosinagan rifle in their hands, at least thirty percent of our soldiers in Europe still used single-shot rifles. The proportion of the Far Eastern Army in the entire Russian army is definitely not a small number! Kuropatkin recalled.

Therefore, this part of the Russian military leadership believes that if Russia wants to rearmament, then the premise is not to continue to expand the number of troops. Rather, first of all, it is necessary to increase the production capacity of the military industry and improve the quality of the troops. These ideas are plausibly correct and have the support of a large number of high-level government officials, but in reality. If you want to implement it, I am afraid that it will be difficult. The obstacle is not only the government. It also comes from various external influences.

All kinds of corruption and procrastination in the Russian government have limited the production capacity and efficiency of the factories in the first place, so much so that the Russian military is actually cheaper to buy artillery shells from foreign countries than to produce them in their own official factories! There were many concerns about allowing the private sector to produce heavy weapons, so although Nicholas II adopted some of the suggestions, the whole process was relatively slow. Russia's military-industrial system is slowly renewing itself.

The influence from the outside world is more complicated, and the British have played a less difficult role this time. If you want to expand your production capacity, you must first unify the specifications of the various weapons in the army. This is something that is well known in any country. The Russians did not have the same weapons as the imperial system, and they also differed from the French metric system. The first thing the Russians want to do if they want to update their old arsenal is to unify the standards. It stands to reason that this time it should be none of the British's business, but in fact the British are really involved.

"The Russian government is very unstable now. Even with our loans and our skills, they were still not favored in the battle against Germany. And more importantly, Germany had planted a stake in the Russian government, and a defeat on the battlefield would lead to violent political upheaval. And if Russia were to succumb or even join the German-Austrian side, it would obviously be disastrous for us, and in order to avoid such a thing, I think it would be necessary for Britain and France to bury their own stakes in Russia. In a top-secret British report, the British commented on the preparations that Russia and Britain and France needed to make at this time.

And in times of political turmoil, what kind of dark pile is the safest? Naturally, an army that will fight to the death with Germany and never compromise is the safest! This force had to keep a certain distance from the old Russian bureaucracy in order to prevent it from being infiltrated and exploited by the Germans. To a certain extent, these reasons also contributed to the implementation of the plan of Britain and France to require China to train an army for Russia.

The most obvious difference between this new army and the old army is that the weapons they use are all standard Chinese weapons, and most of the heavy weapons are also common to the British, because the reason is very simple, the 6-inch guns, 4.7-inch guns and 12-pounder guns of the Chinese Army are common to the sea and land, and the common words of the sea and land represent the common use of the British Navy. It means that to a large extent, the Chinese system is very close to the British system! Well, this is very acceptable to the British, and there is another advantage to letting Huaxia supply these weapons, that is, even if you count the freight, the weapons and ammunition produced in the Huaxia Republic are still cheaper than those produced by Russian officialdom! The same British loan could arm more troops.

In order to get Nicholas II to support this plan, the British even said that the cost and consumption of this force could be provided by Britain and France, and that under the description of the British envoy, this fully Anglo-French force would be formed into an elite rapid mobile force, so that it could be put into the most important battlefields at the most critical moments. These armies will be organized into an independent army group for deployment and operation. They were to be commanded by the Tsar's most trusted marshal. Of course, there will also be senior staff officers of the British and French armies to provide "assistance".

This opinion was acceptable to Nicholas II, because he believed that when the time came, Britain and France would no longer do anything unfavorable to them. And this army can also save a lot of money. More importantly, Britain and France could not tolerate compromise with Germany more than they did, and Nikolai realized that the Germans might be looking for a "spokesman" in their own court. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate such a force that can fight a tough battle and will definitely not "surrender" to Germany.

Therefore, Russia's military reform has taken on the characteristics of a "two-track system" from the very beginning. On the one hand, the scale of the old army continued to expand, and at the same time, the production capacity of the military industry was increased, and some military products were still ordered in civilian factories. The commanders of these units are still the old aristocracy, and the whole system and guiding ideology are still the old Russian way of thinking. This force numerically constituted the entire Russian Army. The other part is a new type of Russian army rebuilt in Britain, France, and China. In a rare way, three countries with different intentions have reached an agreement on this issue. "Cultivating" an eternal enemy for Germany became the common goal of the three countries.

"In addition to the complete isolation of this army from the influence of pro-German forces, it is also necessary to cut off from the penetration of all other forces in Russia. For example, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks or some other political power, and by the way, the great aristocrats of the tsar. It would be a purely combat force, a purely combat force to preserve the Entente and the rule of the Normanov dynasty. This is how the force is described in British government documents.

There is a saying, how to say, man is a creature that will not be satisfied. When the Russian Army began to recover slowly with the help of Britain, France, China and other countries. Tsar Nicholas II still had some nostalgia for his fleet, wondering if the monarchs had a common love for these floating fortresses on the sea, whether it was Kaiser Wilhelm II or Nicholas II or Fritz of Austria-Hungary. They all seemed to be very keen on building large battleships.

On the one hand, the Russians contacted the British shipyards to see if they could build a new batch of warships for Russia. The Russian government, on the other hand, telegraphed Essen, still in Southeast Asia, to meet with Jericho and then listen to the future commander of the British Grand Fleet on the future of the Russian navy. And this time, to Essen's rather surprise, Jericho was secretly trying to prevent the Russians from buying the newly designed British dreadnoughts.

"Listen to me, my friend. For a better future for the Russian Navy, for the security of the Baltic Sea. I hope that the future Russian fleet will not buy warships from the British, at least not British-designed ones. Fisher, the old-eyed and giddy guy, made a mess of naval construction. I really can't imagine what a battleship will look like when its tonnage remains the same, its guns are expanded by about 1.5 inches, and its speed is increased by 2 knots. Jericho said angrily.

Jericho really has no choice, as a soldier with a conscience, as a soldier with a sense of the overall situation, he really can't watch the British Navy fall into the pit and then see the Russian Navy fall into the pit! It's okay for the British to lose a few ships, but the Russians can't. And the Baltic Sea is so small, so small that there is almost no room for maneuver.

"So what do we do? It is impossible for Germany, Austria and Italy to provide Russia with warships, and I really have no confidence in Russian warships and American ships. Our warships are always inferior to our opponents, and this is not a good situation. Essen's face changed slightly.

"Actually, buying warships from China is a good choice, at least for now, it should be fine. In order to save military spending, the Chinese Navy will not buy a large number of warships for a long time, and in order to feed those shipyards and workers, they will definitely take on foreign orders, the Turks and Germans are already ready to order, you should also hurry up. Jericho whispered as he looked around him.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the reward and the book friend Hu Yanshi's monthly ticket support and the book friend hqw0813 evaluation vote ~~~. (To be continued......)