On March 19, 1878, the Russian front court, which had set up camp in the Danube Valley, issued an order that the Russian army besieging the fortress of Pleven and the Bulgarian army should launch another offensive and take the city of Pleven. Sieged for ten months without falling, the city of Pleven also wrote a mark in the history of warfare in Europe. Ten months have basically reached the limit of the besieged, and these ten months have also brought Russia's rubles, stocks, and war bonds in the European financial markets to the limit. The Ottoman army fighting on the inner line was smaller than that of Russia, and the city of Pleven survived on the storage in the city, and the pressure of war was much less than that of Russia. Russia must rely on the bravery of the Russian army to stop Russia's precarious financial credit.

Coincidentally, on March 20, Chinese envoys arrived at the Tsar's line and presented to Tsar Alexander II of Russia a proposal from the Chinese side to determine the borders of Central Asia as soon as possible.

"Our country believes that now is the best time for a peaceful settlement of the Central Asian problem." The Chinese envoy said bluntly.

All the Russians who heard this were scolding in their hearts, and this was indeed the best time for China. The last thing Russia wants now is for the Chinese army to come in and intervene. Russia has already opened up the Danube front and the Caucasus front, and if it opens another Central Asian front, Russia's days will not be over.

Russia did not formally annex Central Asia, and many areas were merely Russian protectorates. China and Russia have common interests on the issue of carving up Central Asia. The two sides also held a number of negotiations. Lake Balkesh, the Russians don't want it. The mountainous area northeast of Balkshihu with dense rivers was not wanted by the Russians. China demanded a border with Iran, and the Russians pinched their noses and conceded. The point where the two sides could not reach agreement was that both China and Russia demanded exclusive possession of the Aral Sea. The Russian court thought that the Chinese were going to come hard this time.

"We abandon our claims to the Aral Sea." The Chinese envoy said.

"Oh?" All the ministers in the Russian line were stunned. With the current balance of power between China and Russia, China is in an excellent position. At this time, China actually began to back down, which undoubtedly helped China and Russia to reach a territorial division.

If we look at the time and space of Weeser in the 21st century, China's plan is probably to divide the entire Central Asian region where the five Central Asian countries are located into three parts with a diagonal line from the top right to the bottom left, and China will take the east part. The western two, including the Aral Sea, were given to Russia. China was given land on the border with Iran, and Russia kept China out of the Caspian and Aral Seas.

The Russians are still very unhappy, and the rich part of Central Asia has basically been cut off by China. And even the Novosibirsk region was cut off by China in a large chunk. This can't be helped, the Russians took advantage of the Manchu Qing to start a war with Britain and forced the Manchus to sign a land cession treaty, so the Russians know best what to do with this kind of robbery. The disadvantaged side doesn't have the strength to fight back.

"Is the treaty sure that the border between China and Russia is demarcated?" The Russian Foreign Minister specifically emphasized the question of the title of the treaty.

"Sure." The Chinese envoy replied.

The Russian foreign minister was still a little worried, and he asked: "If other countries ask China, ...... land west of this border belongs."

"We, China, will make it clear that we China consider it to be Russian territory." The Chinese envoy replied unequivocally.

Without waiting for the Russian Foreign Minister to breathe a sigh of relief, the Chinese envoy continued: "But ......"

This "but" made the Russian foreign minister nervous again.

"But that's just what we in China have confirmed in the treaty. In the event of a military conflict between Russia and other countries in this area, we will not send troops to ensure that the lands beyond the borders are owned by Russia. I would like to ask your country to clarify this. The Chinese envoy carefully explained China's position.

Nonsense! You want to send troops, but we don't want to! The Russian foreign minister scolded in his heart. On the surface, the Russian foreign minister is quite polite. The partition of Central Asia was also a victory in a sense, and the British were very unhappy with Russia's attempt to monopolize Central Asia. By formally dividing up Central Asia between China and Russia in the form of a legal document, Russia will be able to justifiably incorporate a large area of Central Asia into Russia's territory. With the current situation, the few pieces of land occupied by China are next to India and Afghanistan, so let the British vent their frustration on China.

In preparation for military action by China, Russia suspended its offensive against Plevin. On April 1, the war began again. The city of Pleven once again ushered in the onslaught of the Russian army.

Fierce artillery bombardment and horizontal attack, the tactics of the Russian army have not improved in the slightest for half a year. Another single rifle fire that began at a distance of two thousand meters, and another dense single rifle fire that began at a distance of 500 meters. The Russians rushed to 200 points from the Pleven line, and the Ottoman machine guns and repeating rifles began to fire heavily.

The Russian army was knocked to the ground like cutting rice, but this time the Russian army also had a new idea. The first wave was followed by more than 100 Gatling guns, which formed a circular position and began to fire heavily at the Ottoman fortress at a distance of about two hundred meters.

Looking at the dense enemy, Li Weiren's pupils couldn't help but shrink slightly. The storm of bullets was not only striking the Russians hard, but the Ottoman army was also being brutally tested. When machine guns and rifles are firing at the firing hole, the pillbox may not be safe. The Ottomans, who were desperately firing at their positions above the fortress, had less cover and suffered more casualties.

Because of his position, Li Weiren could not see that the Russian bullets had smashed the outer wall of the defensive position into a mess, like a splash of water from a torrential rain on the rock wall. The points of fire on the defensive positions were suppressed under such onslaught, and tens of thousands of gray cattle of the tsar, regardless of life and death, rushed closer and closer to the outer walls of the defensive positions under the cover of machine guns. The situation was precarious in the blink of an eye.

"Order the jets to fire!" Li Weiren didn't expect that there was an Ottoman 61 Nuri Pasha standing next to him at this time, and as the commander of the defense, he shouted loudly.

After half a year of training, the Ottoman troops made considerable progress in the defense of the fortress. Before Li Weiren gave the order, the commanders of the various defense units had already sensed that something was wrong, and almost at the same time as the order was issued from the fortress, clouds of smoke rose from the preset positions of the jet troops.

Chinese cans are nominally cans, but in fact they are completely different from the kind of cans in glass bottles in China. The air-dried beef and mutton, carefully marinated with spices and salt, were packed in wooden barrels made of two iron hoops, and each barrel weighed fifty or sixty catties. The wood is good, and the hoop is very solid. A sturdy barrel filled with earth, sand and gravel can be used as an excellent material for fortifications. Now these barrels have a lot of hemp rope wrapped around them. Fill it with gunpowder and angle it. When a barrel is stuffed with an explosive pack, it becomes a mortar.

With a muffled thud, lit explosive packets flew out of the defensive positions and landed in the midst of the flood of Russian and Bulgarian soldiers. The range of the guns was limited, and it was completely unreliable to strike at the edge of the defensive position. Just as the Russians did not dare to bombard the city of Pleven with artillery while they were charging. And this kind of improvised mortar has a short firing range and a large projectile curve. Each explosion can knock over a circle of people around it. The explosives package was also stuffed with a large number of fragments of Russian artillery shells that had entered the Pleven Fortress, and in winter, the soldiers were not idle, and it was a lot of work to make metal fragments.

The Russian army and the Bulgarian militia that were directly killed by the bombing were still less flesh and skin, and in this era, the mortality rate was very high when they were pierced into the body by those sharp pieces of iron. It's just that the thighs, chest, and abdomen injuries are okay, and some people have a lot of iron pieces on their faces, and the sharp screams are earth-shattering, and even the gunshots and shouts can't be completely drowned out.

Ottoman 61 Nuri Pasha was also a veteran, but it was the first time he had seen such a fierce battle. It was the first time he had seen a killing on this scale. The Russian army and the Bulgarian militia invested nearly 50,000 men in this wave of offensive alone, and in the half-hour battle, the Ottoman 61 Nuri Pasha estimated the losses of the Russian army and the Bulgarian militia to be 20,000.

The Russian army is also a king who eats the scales, and is determined to besiege the city of Pleven. It has been a year since the outbreak of the war, and hundreds of thousands of allied troops on the Danube River of the Russian army have returned to the city of Pleven. This is not only a problem with the strategy of a quick solution, but also a comprehensive setback to the overall strategy of the Russian army. If the war drags on like this, Russia may be crushed by its own logistics.

Seeing that the distance from the Pleven Fortress was less than 200 meters, the Russian army's gun fire also suppressed the Pleven Fortress to a certain extent, and the Russian commanders thought that as long as they rushed again, they could touch the outer wall of the fortress. In response to the attack tactics of the Pleven Fortress, the Russian army has a special drill, climbing the wall and blocking the firing port with something. There are quite a few ways to do it. As long as you can touch the walls of the fortress, these methods of combat can be used.

Before the war, officers of all levels of the Russian army accepted the strict order of the Chief of the General Staff Dmitry 61 Alexievich 61 Ilyutin to "capture the Pleven fortress at any cost!" ”

Bulgaria was occupied by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years and was oppressed. At this time, the opportunity for complete restoration is in front of them, and their will to fight is only higher than that of the Russian army.

The dense gunfire, the thick smoke of gunpowder and the smell of blood stimulated the officers' blood to almost go crazy. Having seen the first three offensive and defensive battles, the officers of the coalition forces are well aware of the terrible fate of giving up halfway. That is, all the sacrifices are meaningless. From the perspective of the officers at the back of the position, the troops have not only approached the outer wall of the Pleven Fortress, but have already touched the outer wall of the Pleven Fortress. The only thing needed now is to urge the troops to move on! Forward!

The projectiles in the Pleven fortress threw explosives into the queue of the Russian army and the Bulgarian militia outside the city without stopping, and an explosive bag was filled with five kilograms of black huo, and the 20,000 explosives package was only a hundred tons of black huo. When making this weapon, the difficulty was that there were not many pieces of iron, not that there were not enough explosives. The 20,000 explosives packs contained only one-third of the pieces of iron and two-thirds of the stones.

In less than two hours, more than 12,000 explosive packs were fired directly from the fortress, and one or two thousand were thrown directly from the top position.

The Fourth Battle of the Pleven Fortress, which involved 100,000 troops, ended in only half a day, and the Russian army suffered more than 45,000 casualties. In the first few days, the unit of "hundred" lost its statistical significance.

The Ottoman army suffered more than 4,000 casualties, and the Ottoman army, which had a maximum strength of 30,000 men, lost nearly 20% of its combat effectiveness, in addition to the losses caused by the first three offensive and defensive battles and various exploratory battles in the winter. And Pleven City remained unmoved. The flag of the Ottoman Empire was still waving in the wind on the highest point of the city of Plevin.