The direction of the counterattack was not the Crimean peninsula, although there were 300,000 troops here and the favorable terrain was occupied, but the Russian army was also numerous.

The northern isthmus could not be entered by Russia, and the Ottoman army could not get out, and after losing the right to control the sea, the Crimean peninsula became an island, and the biggest and most important role here was to drag down a large number of Russian troops.

The Russians fought on two fronts, and it was impossible for them to maintain a large number of troops on both the northern and southern fronts.

Since it took two years for Prussia and Austria to form an anti-Russian alliance, the Ottoman Empire had already signed a secret military agreement with the two countries, and had plenty of time to formulate a strategy, and the direction of counterattack was always in the direction of the Black Sea. There was no sea supremacy, but the Balkans were connected to Austrian territory, and the counterattack would be launched by the combined Ottoman and Austrian forces from land.

As soon as the war began, the Sultan issued a call for jihad.

The holy war in Sudan always attracts a group of people, and the fanatical Muslims are willing to gather under the banner of religious wars.

Of the 30 million people, 20 million are Muslims, and not only in the native peninsula of Asia Minor, where Muslims make up the majority, but also in the territory of Europe, where a large number of Muslims have been converted due to centuries of domination. Bulgaria, for example, has 500,000 Muslims, most of whom live in the western and central mountains of the Rhodope Mountains.

In the past, the civilians called for jihad were often in the lead, they were poorly equipped, and they were completely used as cannon fodder and consume the enemy's troops, but in recent years, reserve armies have been formed during the reign of Mahmud II, and these jihadist cannon fodder are more or less trained reserve troops.

After mobilization, the Ottomans armed a 500,000-strong army from Bulgaria into the Danube Valley, where they joined the Austrian army, ready to encircle and annihilate the lone Russian army at any time.

After the start of the war, the Austro-Hungarian army retreated, not all because they could not defeat the Russians, but also because of tactical considerations, they hoped to lengthen the Russian front, so that the Russian army was pinned down in the Crimean Peninsula on the one hand, and on the other hand, the lone army penetrated deep into the middle reaches of the Danube, and the two Russian armies could not meet in a short time, and the coalition forces took the opportunity to encircle and annihilate the Russian army with absolute superiority.

After occupying Turcha in the Danube Delta region, the Russian army did not dare to move westward, but went up the river to Galatz in the lower reaches of the Danube, where the Prut and Siret rivers converge, which is a port city and a prosperous commercial port, where the three rivers converge and commodities gather, and it is a traffic artery.

After the Russian army occupies here, it can attack the upper reaches of the Prut River to the north and control the entire principality of Moldova, and to the west it can advance along the Danube River and capture the entire principality of Wallachia.

The Austro-Austrian army decided to encircle and annihilate the Russian army here, so the Russians found that the Austrian army's defense had become more tenacious, and they repeatedly fought with the Russian army in Galati, both sides suffered heavy casualties, but they refused to retreat, and the Russian army could not attack for a long time, so they could only continue to draw troops from Tulcha, until it was too late to find that the Ottoman army was moving north from the Danube and had approached Breira.

The Russian army invested the same 300,000 troops in the direction of the Danube, and the vast majority of them were sent to the battlefield of Galati, except for 50,000 who remained in Tulcha.

On the one hand, the Austrian army from the Prut River to the south, and on the other hand, the Ottoman army from the Danube to the north, the Russian army was already surrounded here.

The Russian army chose to break through, but was firmly blocked by the Ottoman army in the area south of Galatz, and the army that went north to rescue Tulcha was also hit by the superior Ottoman army, but due to the weak combat effectiveness of the Ottoman army, it did not annihilate the reinforcements, so that the reinforcements successfully broke away from the battle after suffering heavy losses.

After repelling the reinforcements from Tulcha, the 500,000 Ottoman army and the 300,000 Austrian allied troops completed the encirclement of the Russian army in Galati, and the encirclement established by the 800,000 allied troops would have been defeated if there were no reinforcements to rescue.

The Russians could not let more than 200,000 troops be encircled and annihilated, so they could only continue to draw troops to rescue, fortunately they held the sea control, a large number of troops were transferred from the Crimean front line to the direction of the Danube, and the strength of the Crimean defense line was repeatedly weakened, so that Moltke also seized the opportunity to counterattack.

While Moltke ordered the army to storm the isthmus defense line, he skillfully used small boats to bypass the isthmus and launch an attack from the rear of the Russian army, breaking through the isthmus defense line in one fell swoop, not only annihilating the 100,000 Russian troops guarding here. And began to advance rapidly towards the Dnieper, to seize the mouth of the Dnieper before the Russian reinforcements, Moltke wanted to cut off the Russian army's passage through the Dnieper to transport supplies and soldiers. After that, he would block Russian reinforcements here until the main force of the coalition forces surrounded the Danube and joined him by land.

The lack of sea supremacy was a troublesome matter, and Moltke had to use his forces passively in this way, otherwise he might attack Odessa, rather than fighting around the Crimean peninsula.

The Ottoman army led by Moltke was already an elite unit that had been carefully trained over the years, but Moltke found that it was still unable to compete with the Russian army in the field. If it weren't for the large consumption of the Russian army's vital forces on the isthmus defense line, and the fact that the Russian army had drawn a large number of troops from the Sevastopol defense line, took the initiative to give up the encirclement of the fortress, and let Moltke transfer another 50,000 troops from Sevastopol, otherwise it would have been difficult for him to encircle and annihilate the 100,000 Russian troops on the isthmus.

The elite combat effectiveness is already so uneasy, Moltke is very worried that the 500,000 Ottoman reserve army will not be able to successfully block the Russian reinforcements, once the Russian army is allowed to complete the rescue from the north of Tulcha, more than 300,000 Russian troops will retreat in the direction of Dnieper, and Moltke's troops can only face the danger of annihilation.

Moltke's fears did not come true, and the 500,000 holy warriors may not be able to fight well, but they will not be easily broken through by the Russian army for a while and a half. The Russian troops in the encirclement were faced with the powerful firepower of the Austrian elite regiments. Austria concentrated the Austrian and Bohemian armies, and the less distracted Hungarian and Slavic forces took a back seat, and although the two armies had only 300,000 men, they were still more numerous than the Russians.

The situation of the Russian army is that, on the one hand, it failed to capture Galatz, all the Russian troops are stationed in the field, where the three rivers converge, which belongs to the floodplain terrain, the terrain is flat, which is not conducive to cavalry attacks, but it is more advantageous for infantry attacks, and the Russian army is cut by a tributary, so that the prepared Austrian army can be broken one by one.

After a large-scale field battle that lasted for seven days, most of the Russian army surrendered and was annihilated by the Austrian-Austrian forces.

Although the Austrian army also suffered heavy losses, losing as many as 70,000 troops before and after, it was temporarily unable to launch a new offensive. The Ottoman army, on the other hand, used 500,000 troops to block the breakthrough of more than 100,000 Russian reinforcements and more than 200,000 Russian troops in the encirclement, and was temporarily unable to attack. But the Russian army still chose to retreat, and 100,000 reinforcements retreated to Tulcha, where they joined the more than 30,000 defenders and continued to retreat to Odessa.

After losing nearly 400,000 troops, Russia's main forces in the Black Sea direction had been lost, and the strategic situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse, and it could only be forced to take a defensive position.

At the same time, Russia continued to mobilize more troops, and the prisoners repatriated by China continued to return to Russia, most of them were still suitable soldiers, among which a large number of released noble officers were a large number of qualified officers with rich combat experience, although they were prisoners over the years, the Chinese treated the nobles very politely, did not let them do hard labor, but gave a certain freedom, although there are restrictions on migration, but basically can ensure their activities in a small area, Many have even been given the opportunity to study and study in China, and their minds have always been able to keep up with the times.

The reserve army has always been formed, constantly sent to the Black Sea front. Although only a 500,000-strong army was maintained in the Polish direction, it exhausted the Prussian army.

The officer in charge of the command, who was also a freed prisoner, Mikhail Dmitrievich Gorchakov, after Menshikov's suicide, was the officer who signed the instrument of surrender as the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, so he was treated with the best treatment, and during his time in Nanjing, he initially came into close contact with the Russian officials living here and received a lot of reform ideas. Later, these exiled officers returned home with Speransky, and Gorchakov studied and visited Nanking with some captured aristocratic officers, and lived in this way for eight years.

Eight years were not wasted, aspiring officers were studying and studying China's military, politics and culture, and of course there were some who gave up on themselves and indulged in drinking and gambling. But Gorchakov did not waste it, he even entered the Chinese military academy, and while studying, he served as a teacher, working with a large number of Chinese military scholars. Study together the latest military ideas, military technologies in the current world.

It is no exaggeration to say that during his eight-year captivity, he not only did not fall behind, but improved.

After serving as the commander of the Russian army, I don't know if he had suffered the loss of the Chinese army, when he was ordered to rescue Warsaw, he did not directly attack the Prussian army in Warsaw, but turned around and pounced on East Prussia, making a move to attack Königsberg.

The Prussian army hurriedly reinforced Königsberg from the Warsaw area, otherwise the place where the Hohenzollern family had started with an empty defense would have been occupied.

As a result, after mobilizing the Prussian army, Gorchakov made another detour, abandoning Königsberg and detouring to Warsaw, successfully relieving the siege of Warsaw.

Gorchakov's excellent command led the Tsar to quickly appoint him commander-in-chief in the Polish direction, but his forces were never comparable to the Prussian army.