Recently, France's military production has also begun to enter the peak, but there is no synthetic ammonia, and Napoleon refused to adjust the distribution ratio of saltpeter in agriculture and military, so although France has invested a lot of money to increase the production of Chilean saltpeter, but the production of gunpowder and explosives is still limited, compared with the consumption of today's war, the gap is getting bigger and bigger.

The widening of the gap will of course stimulate the price of saltpeter. In the international market, saltpeter is basically priceless. Even if you have the money, you can't buy saltpeter.

Since saltpeter is so rare, the price of saltpeter's deeply processed products, such as various shells and grenades of the French, will naturally increase in price. This made it difficult for the Russians to face the situation. Because the Turks had their own saltpeter from them, and they could also buy saltpeter from neighboring Indians. (Although the British ordered a ban on the sale of saltpeter.) But the rise in the price of saltpeter has made the ban almost a joke. In the beginning, the British East India Company guys went around catching smugglers who were smuggling saltpeter, then registering a small part of the seized smuggled saltpeter, selling a large part to the Turks, and then stuffing the money into their own pockets. Then their saltpeter ore warehouses were constantly burning because of various reasons such as fire dragon burning warehouses, spies sabotage, and Indian indiscriminate operation, and then saltpeter, which was a flammable product, was naturally burned out. Of course, after every such warehouse fire, the Turks always managed to buy a batch of saltpeter. ）

The Turks shipped the saltpeter to France, paid a high processing fee, and then could go back with the ammunition produced by the saltpeter. Although in this kind of "contract processing", the Turkish ships transporting saltpeter will always drift part of it as usual, and then, when the French process it, they will naturally lose part of it, and then when they get the product and load it back to the ship, they will drift part of it again, and finally, more than half of the saltpeter is lost in it. But at least the Turks were able to replenish their ammunition.

However, the situation is much worse for the Russians, who have a lot of land and everything. This saltpeter, well, really not much. Saltpeter is mostly produced in arid desert and semi-desert areas, and although Russia is large, there are really not many of these deserts. Saltpeter, if the Russians want to buy it, they can only purchase it from the Far East, but at that time there was no Trans-Siberian Railway, and the transportation was inconvenient, so if they had to transport the saltpeter purchased from there back, it was really cold daylily.

So after successive rounds of attacks on the Turkish defensive positions, consuming a lot of ammunition and lives, the Russian offensive came to a standstill. In this series of offensive operations, the Russian army suffered about 40,000 casualties. This number is definitely a scary number in this era. And Turkey, although with a defensive bonus, coupled with the army trained by the French, should logically have suffered very little losses. But because of their various internal problems, at a critical time, suddenly for some reason, the record should have 10,000 people guarding the position, but there were only a little more than 1,000 people on it; Somewhere suddenly there was a fire in a warehouse, (the warehouse manager received an order to send up to a certain ton of so-and-so supplies to a certain place tomorrow, and then the warehouse suddenly caught fire because of a lightning strike, a meteorite, sabotage by Armenian Christians, or some other reason.) ）

As a result, although the Turks were defending by relying on Joseph's defense, it stands to reason that there should be a lot fewer deaths, but as a result, the casualties were even higher than those of the Russians, with 60,000 casualties, and excluding some cannon fodder troops, Turkey's most elite, all-French-equipped, French-trained army also lost more than 30,000.

But it doesn't matter, anyway, in Turkey, people are the least valuable, and what Turkey has is people. In this way against the dead, the Russians can't fight. Besides, it is not a bad thing for some people to let the elite who are loyal to the Sultan die a little more.

In short, you see how good it is that now, both blocking the Russians and consuming the direct forces of the Turkish Sultan, such the best of both worlds!

In short, after paying such great attrition and casualties, the Russians made quite limited progress, so they had to prepare to retreat. Even the tenacious Kutuzov and the brave Bagration have to admit that the Russian army has little to do with the defensive positions of the Turks now.

"If we can give another third more shells and 'little melons', I will definitely be able to tear apart the defense of the Turks." General Bagration is said to have said something like this.

However, none of these things are more than a third, or even a lot less. So the Russian army can only consider retreating now.

It is a troublesome thing to retreat in front of and behind the enemy, and if you don't do it well, if you are taken advantage of by others to make a counterattack, you may suffer a big loss. Especially now, when huge casualties have been paid but nothing has been gained, the veteran soldiers of the division are tired and demoralized, and this is even more so.

On the other hand, His Majesty Sultan Selim III is also looking forward to the situation on the battlefield. His reforms yielded good results, and his army inflicted heavy losses on the battlefield against the Russian army. Of course, he also paid a huge price, and the army that was truly loyal to him suffered equally heavy casualties. So if the war ends in a draw, because of the loss of both army and wealth, he may not be able to suppress the conservatives who oppose his reforms as he did before.

So, he needs a real, unquestionable, brilliant victory.

Thus, Grand Vizier Arandar Mustafa Pasha, who was commanding operations on the front line, was soon instructed by His Majesty Sultan Selim III to pursue the Russian forces that might retreat, crush them, and regain the ground lost in the previous war.

Grand Vizier Arandar Mustafa Pasha knew that his army was in difficulty, but he also knew the significance of victory for the Turks today, and especially for the Sultan, so he also made the decision to pursue the Russians.

After Kutuzov's Russian army began to slowly retreat, Grand Vizier Arandar Mustafa Pasha led his most elite French army of 40,000, plus more than 30,000 other troops, and began to pursue the Russian army.

Kutuzov's retreat was quite well organized, he fought and retreated, maintaining the organization of the army. Although in the retreat, because of morale and supply problems, suffered a little loss, but it was not a big deal. However, Arandar Mustafa Pasha is not in a hurry, Kutuzov has to retreat to a truly safe position, and he has to retreat a long way, and in the process, as long as Kutuzov shows a flaw, then all his previous efforts will be in vain.

Kutuzov retreated to the south bank of the Danube, making a posture of crossing the river and returning north, and the Turks chased after him, but did not want another Russian army, which had been hiding next to him, under the command of General Bagration, to kill from the flank, cutting off the supply lines and retreats of the Turkish army.

The Russian army, which cut off the supply lines of the Turkish army, numbered less than 20,000 people, and did not have time to build a truly impregnable defensive line. The Turkish army numbered more than 70,000 people, of which 40,000 were combat-ready. Looking at this alone, it should not be difficult for the Turkish army to break through the interception of more than 10,000 people. But on the battlefield, you can't just look at one of them, you must know where the 30,000 troops led by Kutuzov are still there? If they turn around and attack Bagration, then Kutuzov will definitely not just play soy sauce on one side, and will definitely give the Turks a flanking blow from the front and back. So before turning around and opening up the supply line, Arandar Mustafa Pasha had to prepare for the defense of Kutuzov's side.

Of course, this defensive preparation will take a lot of time. When the Turks were ready to defend on this side, General Bagration was also ready to defend.

"When I was in France, I had the opportunity to visit His Majesty Bonaparte, First Consul of France. It happened that Bonaparte and Bonaparte were both in power, and the two were still studying military issues in a sand table. As you all know, the two Bonaparte brothers were great military strategists, one good at attacking and the other good at defense. So being able to see their assignments on the map is really a great learning opportunity for me. However, the time of that visit was limited, and I was not able to see the whole assignment and the final result. However, I heard from Bonaparte's consul the idea that the best offensive means is to force the enemy to attack our defensive positions by creating various situations, and that the strategic offensive posture and the tactical defensive posture are not contradictory, and can even complement each other. The battle in our last war against Turkey was a practical application of this idea...... "This was later said by General Bagration when he gave a lecture to students at the Petersburg Military Academy. As he said, this battle is a war under the guidance of this idea.

The rest of the battle went completely into the rhythm of the Russians. Arandar Mustafa Pasha's army first attacked Bagration's position, but the Russians were small in number but fighting well. Relying on the fortifications, they blocked the first few rounds of the Turks' attacks and inflicted no small casualties on them.

Later, Kutuzov's diversionary offensive also held back some of Arendar Mustafa Pasha's most elite troops, preventing them from being able to devote themselves to attacking Bagration's positions.

Arandar Mustafa Pasha naturally knew that if the supply channel could not be opened in a short time, the army would lose supplies and not last long before the entire army would collapse. On the first day of the breakout operation, in addition to a part of the elite, more of the "other troops" who barely had a little combat effectiveness were used to break through. Arandar Mustafa Pasha knew that just as he could not get supplies, so he would not be able to supply Bagration interspersed, so his calculation was to use cannon fodder to consume Bagration's supplies first, and then launch a general attack with the real elite the next day.