Reincarnated as Nikolai II

Half a year before Togo Heihachiro landed at Incheon, when Japan’s bond issuance began to rapidly increase, the imperial government had already entered wartime 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 meeting with all ten department ministers, the Prime Minister, Lower House Speaker, several relevant Senate members, 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 Romen 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." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Naval battles would be at most one time, 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 reformer, we can’t send a commander who messed 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 Regiment and East Siberian Brigade, ignorant about the Far East or Asia?"

"Then surely General Smirnov-"

"Would you leave Warsaw’s defense empty? At times like this, western defenses must be airtight too."

Though former 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 memories 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 come 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 somewhat 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 Supreme Commander?"

"Obviously."

With General Dukhovskoy as Supreme 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 disappointment 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 time to discuss victory or defeat. Prime 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 consumed the finances accumulated over about 10 years from 1884 to 1894."

"Ahem. The army knows nothing of this, Prime Minister."

"The navy has rather decreased though?"

"I’m not trying to blame anyone. Gold standard, land reform, policy financing, military reinforcement, railway construction, maturity of French-held bonds, etc. There were overflowing places for finances to be used."

Everyone listened while flipping through prepared documents 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 meant workers suffered less from living difficulties... the imperial government 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 consume tens of times the annual national budget in war expenses. If we do, the empire will surely stop."

"If we’re this bad... Prime Minister, doesn’t that mean Japan is worse?"

"Yet they chose war."

"Huh."

Some sighs burst out. While we’re gathering our heads together because it’s burdensome for us too, Japan had already started preparing for war by rampantly issuing bonds, so it’s certainly not a normal judgment.

’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 mean we’ll reduce field supplies or cut war expenses. We can’t do that with war right ahead."

"Then Prime Minister, what should we do?"

"Absolutely, absolutely no prolonged war."

Witte strongly argued while meeting 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-time, 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 become unbridgeable!’

Though we’ll struggle financially briefly, falling behind Britain, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary is predetermined if we continue like this.