Three years passed. To the Russian Empire, it was a period of fragile peace and simmering tension. To the valley of Volkovo, it was an age of creation. The Northern Industrial Syndicate was no longer a dream sketched on parchment; it was a roaring, fire-breathing reality. The great Bessemer converter lit up the night sky, and the rhythmic clang of the rolling mill, pressing out steel rails and plates, was the valley's new heartbeat. A private railway spur, built with Volkovo's own steel, now connected the syndicate to the main line, and a town of a thousand workers, with its own school, infirmary, and cooperative store, sprawled where there was once only marshland.
Baron Mikhail Volkov was a changed man. He now split his time between his ever-expanding industrial base and a well-appointed office in St. Petersburg. He was a key member of Sergei Witte's circle of modernizers, a respected voice on the boards of several new enterprises, and a man whose technical reports were read with great interest at both the Ministry of War and the Admiralty. Supervisor Volgin was still present, a ghost at the feast, his reports to Plehve now a grudging litany of Mikhail's successes, the tone of suspicion replaced by one of baffled awe.
Mikhail had built his industrial fortress. He had forged a loyal social army. He was wealthy, respected, and connected. And he was consumed by a cold, gnawing dread.
It was now the winter of 1903. For Alistair the historian, this date was a klaxon, a blaring siren heralding imminent, world-altering disaster. Every conversation in the capital, every newspaper article, was filled with a blustering arrogance towards Japan, a dismissive attitude towards the "little monkeys" and their ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. Mikhail knew better. He knew of Japan's naval pact with Great Britain, their modern, German-trained army, and their fanatical will to fight. He saw the coming Russo-Japanese War not as a possibility, but as an inevitability, a catastrophic iceberg towards which the ship of state was steaming at full speed.
He could not stand by. He requested an urgent, private meeting with Witte and Admiral Makarov, the one senior commander he knew possessed both brilliance and a willingness to listen. They met in Witte's study, the air thick with tension.
Mikhail unrolled a map of East Asia. He did not speak of prophecy. He spoke as a strategist and an industrialist.
"Gentlemen," he began, his voice low and urgent. "I ask you to set aside the prevailing opinions of the court and look at this as a problem of logistics and steel. We believe a war in the East would be a minor colonial affair. This is a fatal miscalculation."
For the next hour, he laid out a devastating analysis. He presented production figures for Japanese naval yards and munitions factories, data Alistair knew by heart. He detailed the immense logistical strain of supplying an army at the end of the single, incomplete Trans-Siberian Railway. He pointed out the critical weaknesses of the Port Arthur naval base and the outdated guns on the ships of the Pacific Fleet.
"Their fleet is faster, their guns have a higher rate of fire, and their admirals have been trained for a decisive, modern engagement," he stated. "Our fleet is divided. Our shells are unreliable. If war breaks out, they will not wait for a declaration. They will strike Port Arthur without warning, and they will cripple our navy before the war has even begun."
Admiral Makarov, a man who lived and breathed naval tactics, listened with a growing, horrified pallor. The boy-baron was voicing his own deepest, unspoken fears, but with a terrifying degree of certainty and detail. Witte, who understood the language of supply lines and industrial capacity, saw the economic ruin the war would bring.
"This is… an alarming assessment, Baron," Witte said gravely. "You are suggesting we are on the verge of a national humiliation."
"I am suggesting we are on the verge of a catastrophe that could ignite the revolutionary sentiment Plehve so fears," Mikhail countered. "We must prepare. We must immediately begin reinforcing Port Arthur, unify the fleet under a single, competent commander like the Admiral here, and triple the production of armor-piercing shells and modern naval plate at my syndicate."
But when Witte and Makarov brought these urgent concerns to the wider council, they were met with a wall of arrogant dismissal. The Minister of War called the assessment an insult to the honor of the Russian soldier. Others, courtiers loyal to the Tsar's expansionist fantasies, accused Witte of being a timid bookkeeper and Mikhail of being a self-serving merchant trying to drum up war contracts. The dominant belief remained unshakable: if the Japanese dared to fight, they would be crushed with ease.
The warning had failed. The ship of state held its course.
Mikhail returned to his office that night with a grim new understanding. It was not enough to have a seat at the table. It was not enough to have the right facts. Against an empire's worth of pride and incompetence, logic was powerless. If the government would not prepare for the war he knew was coming, then he would have to do it himself.
The decision was a profound departure from his previous path. It was a step into treason for the sake of patriotism. He began to divert a portion of his syndicate's profits into a secret fund. He used his European business contacts, ostensibly for sourcing industrial equipment, to begin gathering independent intelligence on Japanese military shipments and naval movements. He started back-channel communications with a handful of younger, forward-thinking army colonels and naval captains—men who respected his industrial acumen and shared Makarov's fears.
He was no longer just building an enterprise. He was building a shadow ministry of war.
Looking at the map of Manchuria and the Korean peninsula on his wall, Mikhail felt the weight of his knowledge as a physical burden. He had sought power to modernize Russia, to save it from its historical decline. He now realized that the first great test was upon him. He had to save the empire from itself, even if it meant defying it. The drums of war were beating in the East, and he was the only man in Russia who could truly hear them.