Each day on the eastward train was like traveling backward in time. The crisp efficiency of the St. Petersburg rail lines gave way to endless delays and unexplained stops. At every station, the platforms were piled high with disorganized freight and crowded with listless soldiers. By the time Mikhail's train finally pulled into Irkutsk, it was clear he had reached the epicenter of the paralysis. The Siberian capital was a city drowning in its own logistics, its streets gridlocked with wagons and its railway yards a hopeless tangle of stationary trains.
His reception by the local authorities was as icy as the wind off Lake Baikal. He was met by the trifecta of local power: the city governor, a military quartermaster general, and the chief of the Irkutsk railway division, a man named Fyodor Bazanov. Bazanov, a corpulent man with a grey beard stained yellow by tobacco, had run this section of the line for twenty years. He viewed Mikhail's arrival not as a solution, but as a personal insult, another idiotic whim from a distant capital that understood nothing of the realities of Siberia.
"Baron Volkov," Bazanov said during their first meeting, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "Welcome. As you can see, we are managing a complex situation. We will, of course, extend you every courtesy as you… observe."
It was a declaration of passive resistance. Bazanov and his cronies intended to let Mikhail watch them fail, so they could later blame the fancy boy from St. Petersburg for the inevitable collapse.
Mikhail, however, found an unexpected and vital ally in the form of Colonel Andrei Denisov, the army's official liaison to the railway. Denisov was a soldier's soldier, a man from a common background who had risen through the ranks on merit and grit. His face was a roadmap of harsh campaigns, and his eyes held a desperate anger. His men were freezing and starving in Manchuria because the supplies he desperately needed were sitting here, rotting in these railcars.
"They say you have plenary authority, Baron," Denisov said to him in private, after the disastrous first meeting. "Is that true?" "Absolute authority over every man and every machine on this line," Mikhail confirmed. "Then for God's sake, use it," the Colonel bit out. "This yard is a monument to corruption and incompetence. Bazanov and his people are getting rich off phantom supply contracts while my men are eating their boots."
The next morning, Mikhail acted. He didn't call a meeting or issue a memo. Flanked by Colonel Denisov and two armed soldiers from the colonel's staff, he walked directly into the main dispatch office of the railway yard. It was a scene of chaos—clerks shouting, paperwork piled a foot high, and in the center of it all, Railway Chief Bazanov, calmly smoking a cigarette.
"Mr. Bazanov," Mikhail said, his voice cutting through the noise. "I have reviewed the dispatch logs. Six trains carrying luxury goods for private merchants have been given priority over a train carrying winter coats for the Third Rifle Division. Explain this decision."
Bazanov blew a smoke ring. "A simple clerical error, Baron. It will be rectified." "It will be rectified now," Mikhail said. He pointed to a younger, terrified-looking engineer in the corner. "You. What is your name?" "Pavel… Pavlovich, Your Excellency," the man stammered. "Mr. Pavlovich, you are the new acting chief of this railway division," Mikhail announced to the stunned room. "Your first order is to assemble a priority train of all munitions and winter uniforms, to depart for the front within three hours. Colonel Denisov's men will assist you." He then turned back to the apoplectic Bazanov. "Mr. Bazanov, you are relieved of your duties for gross incompetence in a time of war. You will confine yourself to your residence pending a full audit of your accounts. If you interfere with Mr. Pavlovich in any way, the Colonel has my authority to have you shot."
The silence in the office was absolute. In less than five minutes, Mikhail had decapitated the old guard and shattered the culture of passive resistance. The message was clear: the new authority was real, it was absolute, and it was not to be trifled with.
With Denisov's soldiers enforcing his will and the terrified but competent Pavlovich at his side, Mikhail began to untangle the knot. He brought his 21st-century mind to bear on the 19th-century chaos. He created a massive, color-coded board in the dispatch office, a physical flowchart where every single railcar was represented by a wooden token, allowing them to visualize the entire yard at a glance. Red for ammunition, blue for food, green for fodder, black for coal. The simple system cut through the mountains of paperwork and allowed for immediate, intuitive decision-making.
He walked the yards himself, speaking not to the officials, but to the railway workers and the soldiers. The workers and soldiers in the yard saw something they had never seen before: a nobleman with dirt on his boots who actually listened. He didn't just give orders; he explained them. This simple act earned him a currency far more valuable than the ruble: their trust. The sullen resistance he first encountered gave way to a grudging cooperation, which then hardened into a real desire to make the new system work. The aimless chaos of the yard began to resolve itself into the disciplined movements of a functioning machine.
Three weeks into his ninety-day deadline, Mikhail stood with Colonel Denisov on a watchtower overlooking the railway yard as the sun set over the frozen landscape. Below them, a massive, perfectly organized supply train—ammunition, food, winter coats, and medical supplies—pulling out of the yard, heading east. It was the tenth such train to depart that day, a feat that would have been unthinkable a month before. The artery was beginning to thaw.
"I don't know how you've done it, Baron," Denisov said, his voice filled with a gruff admiration. "You have achieved more in three weeks than they have in the past year."
Mikhail watched the train disappear into the vast, dark expanse of Siberia. The victory here in the railyard felt more real, more tangible, than any political maneuvering in the capital. He wasn't just moving supplies. He was at war with the true enemy of the Russian Empire. It wasn't the Japanese army. It was the crushing, deeply rooted inertia, the cynical corruption, the institutionalized incompetence that was strangling the nation from within.
The Siberian gambit was underway. He had won the opening battle for control. Now began the long, brutal campaign to meet an impossible deadline and, just maybe, save an empire from its own worst instincts.