Half a year before Togo Heihachiro landed at Incheon, when Japan's bond issuance began to rapidly increase, the imperial governnt had already entered warti footing.
"...So it's war after all."
"At earliest before this year ends, at latest by early next year, they will declare war."
"Who knows. They might launch a preemptive strike without even declaring war."
At a eting with all ten departnt ministers, the Pri Minister, Lower House Speaker, several relevant Senate mbers, and key army and navy commanders, we carefully examined the upcoming war.
"Who do we have in the Far Eastern Navy?"
"In the navy, we have Admiral Ron as Far Eastern Fleet Commander and Admiral Evgeny Alexeyev, who's been Naval Commander-in-Chief since the Black Sea Fleet's transfer."
"No more needed. Those two are enough."
Naval battles would be at most one ti, or perhaps none at all.
"The really important ones are the army commanders..."
"Your Majesty, what about General Alexei Kuropatkin? Among those who can control both army and navy, none match Kuropatkin's rank and experience."
"Hmm, he won't do."
Alexei Kuropatkin, though even naval admirals would easily follow him, absolutely won't do. Though excellent as a military reforr, we can't send a commander who ssed up the Russo-Japanese War again.
'Why do you think I kept stuffing him into military reform work?'
It was to completely block him from crawling out to the field.
"Then General Anatoly Stessel-"
"Hasn't he only been with the Kamchatka Regint and East Siberian Brigade, ignorant about the Far East or Asia?"
"Then surely General Smirnov-"
"Would you leave Warsaw's defense empty? At tis like this, western defenses must be airtight too."
Though forr War Minister Kuropatkin and current War Minister Sakharov are kicking out useless star generals and noble posteriors through military reform, it's far from enough.
In the end, for commander selection, I had to rely maximally on my mories and experience.
If there's no selection among lieutenant generals with the highest general rank, or generals with Chief of Staff or War Minister experience, naturally military district commanders co up next.
'Is it Sergei Dukhovskoy after all? Though not a great general, at least there won't be command division with him.'
Above all, Sergei would sowhat understand.
That I want to give Roman as much command authority as possible in the Far Eastern defense.
"Indeed, Dukhovskoy who knows the Far East well, you must go."
"Your Majesty, as Supre Commander?"
"Obviously."
With General Dukhovskoy as Supre Commander, naturally other commanders would be organized under him.
'Though they'll be major generals under Dukhovskoy, there's no risk of command division.'
Just avoiding that would remove a major obstacle to the war.
Though generals with flashy shoulders showed clear disappointnt in their expressions, I moved on to the next topic.
"First, victory in this war is certain."
"Yes! The Empire will surely win!"
"The Russian Imperial Army is invincible!"
"Enough. I'm not here to hear such flattery. This isn't the ti to discuss victory or defeat. Pri Minister Witte."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Taking over the right to speak, Witte calmly continued the explanation.
"The imperial treasury has been continuously decreasing since 1897. Not only are we in deficit spending more than collected taxes, we've even consud the finances accumulated over about 10 years from 1884 to 1894."
"Ahem. The army knows nothing of this, Pri Minister."
"The navy has rather decreased though?"
"I'm not trying to bla anyone. Gold standard, land reform, policy financing, military reinforcent, railway construction, maturity of French-held bonds, etc. There were overflowing places for finances to be used."
Everyone listened while flipping through prepared docunts placed before them.
"This isn't all. Though production increased dramatically due to land reform, food prices collapsed proportionally. Though price stability despite severe financial drain ant workers suffered less from living difficulties... the imperial governnt had no room to fill the treasury."
The biggest problem for the empire facing war: no money.
More precisely, there is money, but if it's all spent on war expenses, all reforms including policy financing will grind to a halt.
"We are not Japan. We cannot consu tens of tis the annual national budget in war expenses. If we do, the empire will surely stop."
"If we're this bad... Pri Minister, doesn't that an Japan is worse?"
"Yet they chose war."
"Huh."
So sighs burst out. While we're gathering our heads together because it's burdenso for us too, Japan had already started preparing for war by rampantly issuing bonds, so it's certainly not a normal judgnt.
'Japan only paid back their war bonds thanks to the World War. Without that, it would have taken 30 years.'
This is what war between two industrialized nations is like. Though excellent operations and brave armies are important, ultimately it starts and ends with money.
Money is needed to start war, and even after war ends, bonds must be paid back as sold.
"However, this doesn't an we'll reduce field supplies or cut war expenses. We can't do that with war right ahead."
"Then Pri Minister, what should we do?"
"Absolutely, absolutely no prolonged war."
Witte strongly argued while eting each general's eyes.
Just a one-year war wrecks both Russia and Japan's economies. What if the war drags on to 2 or 3 years?
'Rather than give Korea, we can't do that.'
Why aren't we avoiding this war?
Because with current isolationism, we can never catch up to Western Europe's growth even if we die and wake up again.
Because we're becoming obsolete in real-ti, far removed from that Belle Époque.
That's why we suggested Manchuria and Qing as the solution.
While there's also my reason of not wanting to twist original history too much, the thinking of officials including Witte was all similar.
'We must break into the Asian market. If necessary, we must break through by force and gain superiority!'
'If just 15 years, no, 10 years pass like this, the gap between our empire and Western European countries will beco unbridgeable!'
Though we'll struggle financially briefly, falling behind Britain, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary is predetermined if we continue like this.
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