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.

Some of the Russians believe that Russia's defeat was due to a huge material and supply gap, first of all, the two major wars between Russia and China were fought thousands of kilometers away from Eastern Europe, the center of Russia...... Moreover, the campaign was fought without a complete railway line, and in their opinion, the Russians could only throw a small part of their more than 2 million troops into the battlefield to compete with the national power 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 their troops, relying on absolute numerical superiority to crush their opponents, and at the same time adjusting the officer corps in order to better command this huge army. As for the problems of transport, these people believe that in the European part of Russia, where transport is "convenient", these problems do not exist! The Russians could have exhausted the Germans to death with an army with absolute numerical superiority, not to mention the Anglo-French allies .........on the Western Front.

However, the Russian officials who participated in and commanded the war such as Kuropatkin did not think so. Because they knew that in this war, numbers did not show the strength of the Russian Far Eastern Army. The Russians are more than two million armed men of all kinds. The Far Eastern Army was no more than 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 1500 guns of all kinds. And in our army, on average, there is only one machine gun for every 700 people, and the total number of all our artillery guns is just over 5,000. That is, we transferred almost 7 percent of the machine guns and a 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 top officials believes that if Russia wants to rearmament, then what it needs to do is not to continue to expand the number of troops, but to first increase the production capacity of the military industry and improve the quality of the troops. These ideas are right. And it has the support of a whole bunch of high-level government officials, but actually. If you want to implement it, I am afraid that it will be difficult. The obstacles come not only from the government, but also from various external influences ..........

The various problems and procrastination in the Russian government have first limited the production capacity and efficiency of the factory, so that in the direction of the Russian side, it is cheaper to buy artillery shells from foreign countries than to produce artillery shells from its own official factory! There are also concerns about allowing the private sector to produce heavy weapons. So although Nicholas II adopted some of the opinions, the whole process was relatively slow. Russia's military-industrial system is slowly renewing itself.

The influence from the outside is more complicated, in which the British have played a not-so-good 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 any country knows. 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 now very unstable, and even with our loans and our technology, they are still not favored in the battle against Germany. And, more importantly, Germany had already planted a stake in the Russian government. Defeat on the battlefield can 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 ......... of 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 British and French plans to require China to train an army for Russia.

And the most obvious difference between this new army and the old army is...... 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 heavy guns, 4.7-inch heavy 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 stated that the cost and consumption of this force could be provided by both Britain and France, as described by the British envoy. This fully Anglo-French force will be formed into an elite rapid mobile force that can be put into the most important battlefields at the most critical moments. These armies were to be deployed and fought in an independent army group, which would 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 the army could save a lot of money. More importantly, Britain and France could not tolerate compromise with Germany than they did. Nikolai was also aware that the Germans might be looking for a "spokesman" in their 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 size of the old army continues to grow. At the same time, the production capacity of the military industry has been increased, and the orders for some military products have been expanded in civilian factories. The commanders of these units remained the old aristocracy. 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 the influence of the pro-German forces, this army must also be isolated from the infiltration of all other forces in Russia. For example, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks or any other political power, by the way, and the great nobles of the Tsar, it will be a pure combat force, a pure fighting force to preserve the rule of the Entente and 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 slowly recover with the help of Britain, France, China and other countries, Tsar Nicholas II still had some thoughts about its fleet, I wonder if the monarchs had a common love for these floating fortresses on the sea, anyway, whether it was Kaiser Wilhelm II or Nicholas II or Fritz of Austria-Hungary in history. 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, which is still in Southeast Asia. Let him meet with Jericho...... Then listen to the opinion of 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 and dizzy guy, made a mess of naval construction, and I really can't imagine a battleship changing in tonnage. The gun was expanded by about 1.5 inches, and the speed was increased by 2 knots. What will become of its protection to the ground? 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 don't have confidence in Russian warships and American ships. Our warships are always weaker than 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.

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