Lee Haydn was not troubled by the problems of the two Rivadavia-class armored cruisers for a long time. He was about to sell the two warships to the Turks, and another war broke out in the Far East - this time the Japanese and Russians fought.

Now the Rivadavia and Moreno have become popular, and both the Russians and the Japanese want to get it. Two empires that are biting dogs need warships to increase their bargaining chips.

Li Haidn seemed very hesitant: he was afraid that it would affect the outcome of the war, so he tended to sell these two warships to the Russians in order to consume more of the Japanese's strength. But he was afraid that the Russians would win, so that this insatiable polar bear would really annex the three northeastern provinces of the Qing Dynasty.

Lushun, this is the temperate sea outlet that the Russians dream of for a hundred years.

Lee Haydn carefully calculated the result of the Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese's industrial capacity was about one-fifth of that of the Russians, but they had geographical advantages, and Britain and the United States were secretly helping them. The British were afraid that the Russian bear would actually run to the sea. If that were the case, it might not take many years to challenge the British Empire's maritime hegemony.

The Japanese were the agents selected by the British in the Far East. This was just a war between the Russians and the British agents, so the Japanese could not lose, but it could not defeat the Russians. Moscow was too far away, 10,000 kilometers away from the place where the war broke out. The Japanese could not walk even if they were exhausted. Moreover, the British obviously did not want to break up with the Russians now.

The final result was the same. The two countries divided the Manchuria of the Qing people, and the Russians lost the unfreezing port they had just obtained.

After repeated consideration, Li Haidn decided to sell these two armored cruisers with a speed of 22 knots to the Russians. The Russians bid for a total of 1.87 million pounds, which is a big **. But if used properly, these two fast cruisers can also cause considerable waves on the Japanese maritime transportation lines, which Li Haidn would rather see.

The officers and sailors sent by Russia quickly took over the two warships and had no time to change the name of the ship - it seemed ridiculous. His Majesty the Tsar finally owned two warships named in Latin. The Russians stepped up training in the Adriatic Sea, waiting to meet with the expeditionary fleet pieced together with Nicholas II.

Lee Haydn and the naval officers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire also observed the Russian training several times. What was a little strange was that the Tsar's practices were: he had the money to build and buy so many warships, but he was reluctant to give his naval officers and soldiers better training and treatment. The sailors of the Imperial Russian Navy obviously lacked training and their morale was low.

Maybe His Majesty the Tsar thought his soldiers were mules—he was willing to work hard and ate very little.

At the end of October 1904, Nicholas II's Far East Fleet was delayed from the Baltic Sea. At this time, the war had been going on for more than eight months. The inefficiency of His Majesty the Tsar's Navy Department was amazed by the world.

The Rivadavia and Moreno went to the Atlantic Ocean. The British did not allow Russia to use the Suez Canal, so they had to detour the Cape of Good Hope and travel around most of the earth. Of course, these had nothing to do with Lee Hayden, and he just completed a relatively satisfactory business.

As for the Qing Dynasty, Li Haidn felt helpless. He opened some factories and mines in China, mainly in the textile industry, cotton textiles and raw silk processing. The Chinese have a strong hatred for foreign capital, believing that this is robbing their money, not for their development.

Li Haidn's idea and plan to invest in heavy industries in the Qing Dynasty had never been realized. The Qing government did not allow foreigners to open steel plants on its land. Li Haidn's several mines in China were often harassed and blocked by villagers, who believed that this was robbing the wealth left to them by their ancestors, and that the mines also destroyed their Feng Shui.

Feng Shui?

Since the fall of the Tang Empire, this country and nation have long since disappeared.

Today, the Japanese steel production has exceeded that of the Qing Dynasty. 150,000 tons is more than 50,000 tons. Japan, which has nothing, actually has three times the steel production of its huge neighbors, which sounds like a joke.

In fact, this ignorant and backward country did not completely become a colony like India because the powers of the great powers were always entangled and fought for, and it was too large - an ancient empire with a population of nearly 400 million, and most of them spoke the same language. Even if they became his ruler, they had to be assimilated by them like Manchus.

From the standpoint of a Westerner, Lee Haydn felt that the Japanese were more suitable to be leaders of East Asia and were more likely to merge with the East. And they were using the same block text as the Chinese and Koreans.

The Japanese are more offensive than the Chinese, which will be annoying to the Russians.

Unfortunately, they missed the best era. If the Japanese ambitions were successful in fifty years in advance, of course, they would gradually be assimilated by the Chinese. But now it is different. Western interference will become its main obstacle, and with the awakening of nationalism, the Chinese will not easily accept being ruled by a foreign race.

This is an era of national awakening, just like the huge troubles faced by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

But the Japanese couldn't see this.

However, what made the Japanese proud was that they defeated the Russians. In the Tsushima Strait, the destruction of the Russians' huge Pacific Fleet was doomed to do nothing in the Far East. The domestic unrest in Russia in 1905 also helped them, and Nicholas II had to sit down reluctantly to negotiate with the Japanese.

However, Nicholas II, who inherited the greedy nature of the Romanov family and the style of a wealth-keeping slave, had a tenet, that is, he would never cede land and pay compensation.

This kind of petty family is in sharp contrast to the generous and generous manner of the rulers of the Qing Empire who regarded the country as dirt and spent hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Japanese won, but did not get the war reparations they wanted. The huge loans they received from Britain and the United States during the war greatly damaged their vitality and did not recover until the European war.

Land and wealth always make imperialists tempted. The British can fight for Kimberley's 6 million diamonds and Rand Gold Mine's 20 million gold each year. The bites between Japan and Russia are nothing.

The poor Qing Dynasty could only be a bystander in this war on its own territory.

There are even people who have been encouraging the "United Daily Russia" to promote the "Union of Japan", which is ridiculous. Don't they know the story of driving tigers at the front door and entering the back door?
Chapter completed!