Australia's Under Foreign Minister is simply that Australia has enough mineral resources, but if you want to sell it to an island nation, the price must at least triple.

Don't underestimate the doubling gap, the country's industrial import of mineral resources is tens of thousands of tons, and a doubling price gap may lead to a cost increase of tens of thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds.

Koichiro Yuzawa also expected that Australia would increase the price of mineral resources, after all, the most fundamental thing between countries is interests, and if they do not fight for the interests of their own country, then it is actually equivalent to treason.

Koichiro Yuzawa had anticipated this situation before he left for Australia.

Although the price of the mineral industry in the ally British Empire is not very high, it is lower than in Australia, which is twice as expensive.

But the British Empire's mineral resources were far away from the islands, and if transportation costs were added, the British Empire's raw material prices would be much higher than Australia's.

Especially when the island nation is only an island State, the only means of transporting goods to it at present is by sea.

However, the speed of today's large transport ships is generally not high, and the time cost, labor cost and capital consumption required are not small figures.

Although the island nation has received financial assistance from the British Empire and the United States, it is currently considered a small asset.

But the ambitions of the islanders do not stop there, the reason why they kneel and lick the British Empire and curry favor with the United States is that they want to gain the support of the two countries, and then challenge the status of the Tsarist Empire, the hegemon in northern East Asia, and establish their hegemony in East Asia.

But was the Tsarist Empire so easy to challenge? If it weren't for the fact that the country was too large, and that France, an ally of Tsarist Russia, was unwilling to allow most of Tsarist Russia's power to be transferred to East Asia, so it was not very supportive of Tsarist Russia's actions in Asia, the island nation really did not dare to challenge the ambitions of the Tsarist Empire.

Now is also the best opportunity to challenge the Russian Empire, the island nation has the support of both the British Empire and the United States, but what about Tsarist Russia? France, an ally of the Entente, was reluctant to shift Russia's attention to East Asia, which led to the fact that Russia's strategy was not supported by many countries in East Asia, except for Germany.

Therefore, the current East Asian controversy can be divided into two camps, with the island countries and the British Empire and the United States, which support the island countries behind them, being the challengers, while the Tsarist Russian Empire and Germany, which are trying to win over Russia, are the standouts.

The Russian Empire wanted to maintain its hegemony in East Asia, but the current island state of East Asia has risen, and it also wants to gain its rightful rights and status.

This is similar to the current situation in Europe, where the conflict of interests between the old and emerging powers dooms a war between the two countries sooner or later.

However, unlike the more balanced situation in Europe, the current situation in East Asia is more skewed in favor of island countries, which is why the people of island countries dare to confidently provoke a war two years later.

You must know that even two years later, in terms of national size and international relations, the Tsarist Russian Empire is one of the top five great powers in the world, and the island country is just an emerging country that learns from the West to rise.

Perhaps the strength of the island country is surpassed by countries like Italy and Spain, which have weakened, but if they want to fight against the Tsarist Russian Empire at the level of the four great European powers, the chances of victory are not great on the surface.

But in fact, due to the vast territory of the Russian Empire, coupled with the inconvenient transportation, and the attitude of its ally France, the power in East Asia was not much.

The regular Russian troops of the Far Eastern Military District numbered less than 100,000 men and were scattered throughout the Far East.

These people say that they are regular soldiers, but in fact the quality of the soldiers is poor, the level of equipment is low, and there is a serious contradiction between senior officers and junior soldiers within the army.

Of course, such problems did not arise only in the armies of the Far East. The Russian Empire, like its vast age, had fallen into decay.

Although it has undergone a less successful reform, it has not been effective in increasing the number of lives of the country, and if it were not for the fact that the core territory is located in the west, which attracted some of the fruits of the industrial revolution, I am afraid that the fate of the Tsarist Empire would not be very good compared to that of a large East Asian country.

Although the standing army of the Tsarist Empire reached a terrifying 1.05 million men, the number of reservists reached 3.75 million.

However, less than a tenth of the forces deployed in the Far East are located, and the equipment and logistics are far from keeping up with the Western Region.

Poor soldier quality, poor logistical supply, and backward equipment levels, coupled with discord between soldiers and officers, what kind of combat effectiveness can such an army burst out?

If it is a war with decay, it is difficult to say whether it can be won, let alone an island country that has just experienced the revival and rise of the Restoration.

How difficult was it for Tsarist Russia to send supplies to the Far East? It was impossible for the fleet to travel through the Arctic Ocean, and if it wanted to take the sea route, it would have to cross Europe, South Asia, and East Asia to reach Northeast Asia.

Such transportation costs are a huge burden for a country like Tsarist Russia, and a huge expense that the state can absolutely not afford.

Then the solution is land transportation, that is, rail transportation.

The Russian Empire spent a lot of money to build the Trans-Siberian Railway, which ran through the most important part of Western Europe, and the strategically important Far East, with its warm, ice-free ports.

But there is an important problem, so far, the railway is not fully open.

You know, this is a huge railway connecting Moscow and Vladivostok, and its length can be claimed to be the longest in the world today.

You know, the total length of the industrial railway, which Australia is expected to spend ten years to build, is more than 2,000 kilometers.

And what about the Trans-Siberian Railway? Because it connects the West and the Far East, it is equivalent to running through the entire territory of the Tsarist Empire.

As a result, the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway has reached a terrifying 9,288 kilometers, which is more than four times the length of the Australian Industrial Railway.

The first initial opening was in July 1904, after which the Russo-Japanese War ended.

As a result, the huge railway of the Russian Empire, which had consumed a huge amount of materials and thoughts, ended abruptly without much contribution in this Russo-Japanese War.

The impact of the war on the Russian Empire was still enormous, and the profits in the Far East were greatly lost, which also led to the growing dissatisfaction of the class at home with the status quo.

Even the revolution that will take place in the First World War in the future may not be without the factors of defeat in this war, in short, after this war, the island country officially went to rise, and the Russian Empire officially came to an end.

The first is to ask for support!

(End of chapter)