Over sixty kilometers north of Kabul stood a small village.
A group of Afghan resistance fighters had gathered here. Before the Second Anglo-Afghan War broke out, the Russians had been Afghanistan's allies. Afghanistan had allied with Tsarist Russia in July of the previous year, only for Britain to invade Afghanistan that November.
Clearly, Russia did not pose the slightest deterrent to Britain. Or rather, Britain attached extreme importance to Afghanistan. To prevent Russia from reaching the Indian Ocean, Britain would snuff out even the faintest possibility while it was still a spark.
This was just like the United States in Ernst's previous life. Everyone knew Russia's avenues of breakthrough: one was the Middle East and the Black Sea, and the other was the Indian Ocean.
If Tsarist Russia truly managed to carve out an outlet to the Indian Ocean, then, without the slightest exaggeration, its geopolitical influence would stand undefeated. Although its vast territory had already put Tsarist Russia in an invincible position, without the seas, it would never attain the world hegemon status it had long yearned for.
Since the Age of Discovery, the ocean had practically been synonymous with trade. Control the oceans, and one naturally became the world hegemon. This was a status that Russia, the former Gendarme of Europe, and France, the former continental hegemon, could only gaze upon longingly. Thus, even European hegemony could not compare with the sheer weight of Britain's maritime supremacy. Maritime supremacy was equivalent to world supremacy. Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands understood this deeply. Of course, France had held it for a few years as well, but it had never enjoyed the overwhelming advantage possessed by those maritime hegemons.
Of course, the struggle between sea power and land power showed that land power still had considerable competitiveness. But Ernst did