Backlinks and 301 Redirects

Hey everyone.

Been looking into this topic recently but found no conclusive information one way or another, so reaching out to people's experience as part of my research.

I'm basically looking to find out how effective would a backlink be, if instead of directly linking site X - site Y, it went site X - site Z (301 redirect) - site Y.

I did find some information saying PageRank is preserved on 301 redirects, but in your experience, how effective is it, how long does it last, and how quickly does it work, or any other thoughts on this topic.

If you maybe have any good articles on this topic, that would be great also!