A bloody battle, but in the end there was no winner.

The northern army launched a sustained offensive, but the south successfully defended.

The Battle of Richmond lasted from the spring of 1864 to the summer, with the Northern Army committing 1.3 million troops and the Southern Army mobilizing 800,000 troops to defend it.

The two sides used all the means since the beginning of the war, all kinds of new weapons appeared one after another, and rear-loading rifles and artillery were used on the battlefield on a large scale, killing and wounding unprecedentedly, and finally the north of the attacking side paid the price of 400,000 casualties, and the south paid 150,000 casualties, and the battle line only changed locally, and no one had an advantage.

As can be seen from the proportion of casualties, defense began to become more advantageous than offense, as the war finally evolved into the era of brutal trench warfare.

In fact, the tactical idea of trench warfare had already begun to appear during the Franco-Prussian War. Since the modern military reform in Europe, the tactical idea based on the smoothbore gun has always been the offensive idea, so the most common on the battlefield is the queue shooting tactic, which is field determinism.

However, before the Franco-Prussian War, with the use of rifled guns, the French army had begun some reforms, and the French army required its soldiers to have the ability to dig a trench sufficient for defense in thirty minutes in the field. As a result, in the Franco-Prussian War, the French army was indeed able to establish a defensive line, but it was easily surrounded by Prussian legions, which emphasized mobile warfare.

After the Franco-Prussian War, military forces once again turned to offensive determinism, and everyone studied tactics such as maneuvering, detouring, and encirclement, and the study of defensive tactics declined. Historically, this situation continued into World War I, where trench warfare ended offensive tactics. During World War II, the emphasis was on defense at first, but later the German blitzkrieg brought tactical thinking into the offensive era again.

Offense and defense are the only way to war, in fact, there is no decisive tactic, what is easy to use. On the contrary, China's military thinking has always emphasized the balance between offense and defense, and the combination of positive and strange.

In fact, the reason why France lost to Germany was not that the trench defense was defeated by a mobile detour, but that the French army was defeated by the German army, and that's it. The French built trenches, but they left themselves isolated, which was a failure to balance the offensive and defensive. The Chinese soldiers have long discovered a truth, if you defend for a long time, you will lose, and the Europeans will either emphasize the crazy attack, or they will start to defend to the death, which is not recognized by the Chinese art of war.

If you can't attack, you naturally have to defend, but you can't defend it. The fact that the French, in the war of movement, required their soldiers to dig trenches and switch to positional warfare was itself a paradox. Because since it is a mobile warfare, it emphasizes mobile warfare, but it digs trenches and defends to the death, gives up maneuver, and allows itself to fall into passivity, and it is easy to fall into the encirclement of the enemy.

But the trench warfare that appeared in the Battle of Richmond was different, although it was still dug trenches for defense, and there was no difference in technology, but strategically it was completely different, because behind the trenches was the southern city, and behind the city was the southern hinterland, and the southern army in Richmond was not isolated and not surrounded.

From the Alabachian Mountains to the sea, the Southern Army built a defensive line dominated by trenches and natural rivers, and there was a steady supply of materials in the rear, and it could engage in an indiscriminate artillery battle with the enemy at any time in the defense.

So it became a war of attrition in which the northern army attacked and the southern army defended, killing and injuring each other's soldiers and bearing the opponent's firepower.

A year ago, the Yugoslav army absolutely could not afford to consume it, but now they have the strong support of China, and the materials that the federal navy can blockade are no more than one-third at best, and two-thirds of the arms have successfully entered the south, and China's military industry, not to mention supporting the millions of troops of the Yugoslav army, can support tens of millions of troops.

The only disadvantage of the Southern Army was manpower, but the problem of manpower was solved by trench warfare, because the number of troops needed for defensive operations was obviously not more than that for offensive. Trenches and fortresses effectively make up for the lack of troops, and can better protect the soldiers, so that the casualties of the soldiers are reduced, the casualties are reduced, and the limited manpower can of course support the attrition for a longer time.

After the battle, the North understood that it wanted to defeat the South, which had a superpower like China behind it, and that the North's superiority had not yet reached this level.

Moreover, the terrible consumption of 400,000 casualties in a battle also made the northerners feel cold, if the war continued like this, the northerners would die.

At the same time, although the situation of the Yugoslav army was even worse, they achieved victory, both in terms of casualties and strategic objectives, they had the advantage, so their morale was greatly improved. Moreover, the role of blacks in trench warfare is also more advantageous than that in field warfare, and the less loyal black troops, it is no problem to dig trenches, and it is no problem to shoot safely in trenches and fortresses, as long as the blacks are not allowed to maneuver, it is not easy to collapse, and the black soldiers can also be used to fight, which greatly relieves the manpower tension in the south.

The outcome of the Battle of Richmond shocked the world, and for a time the pressure from the outside world had decreased, but Lincoln understood that the situation had never been worse.

The defeat of Richmond made the end of the war far away, and the storming of Richmond was already the quickest way to end the war.

This result made the already dissatisfied northern states even more dissatisfied, and began to oppose the war, and if they had a choice, they would of course prefer the south to remain within the federation, which would have secured the market for northern industrial goods and the source of raw materials. But states have their own interests, and if those benefits require endless resources and contributions, they weigh them.

It is impossible for a loose European nation to fight a few million northerners for the sake of the southerners, and it is impossible for the loose northern states to fight to the end for domination of the south.

In fact, there is only a small group of expansionists and a small group of nationalists, but this kind of people have never accounted for an absolute number in the United States.

As a result, the states began to delay the submission of federal finances, and the actions of the states worsened the federal finances, which in turn reduced the financing capacity, and the unfavorable situation caused the price of federal bonds to plummet, and if the South could not be recovered, the federal debt repayment ability would also decline, and the cost of financing would continue to rise, and it would be difficult to borrow loans with interest rates below 51 percent.

Lincoln worked very hard, speaking impassionedly in Congress as he did during the election campaign, and going to the states to give speeches, but the effect was not obvious. The manpower of the states is exhausted, the army of three million has allowed the young people of the states to enter the battlefield in large numbers, there are no immigrants left, and the Europeans do not want to shed blood for the United States as soon as they arrive in the United States, they are here to make a fortune, not to fight.

Since the start of the war, millions of northerners have lost their claims to the war, which is several times higher than the price paid in history, and how many Americans still need to die? This is something that no one can guarantee.

Congress even began to contemplate impeachment of Lincoln, the latest budget was rejected, and Lincoln did not even have the expense to launch another large-scale campaign.

Under these circumstances, the Democrats introduced a bill in Congress to allow the southern states to hold referendums, and the states that were willing to join the north would continue to be members of the Union, and as for whether to abolish slavery, it was decided according to the wishes of the other side, and the states that did not want to join the Union would be recognized by the Union.

The bill was passed because many northern state legislators believed that it would be in the interest of many southern states to keep slavery alive rather than to remain in a Southern Union that had declared abolition, and might attract them to return to the North again.

Lincoln, however, opposed the bill because he had already enacted an abolitionist statute and asked Congress to annul the new act on the grounds that it conflicted with the previous one. The disagreement between the president and Congress was finally arbitrated by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the new bill was valid and that the abolition act was unconstitutional, because the U.S. Constitution clearly stated that the South could retain slavery, but could not import black slaves from abroad, and that it was the will and power of the South to retain slavery.

In this case, Lincoln announced that after the end of the war, he would resign, and the reason why he did not resign immediately was because of the mission given to him by God. Then, with the consent of the Reichstag, Lincoln sent a request to German Chancellor Bismarck, asking Bismarck to mediate peace between the North and the South.

Representatives of the North and the South met in Berlin, and the North accepted the demands of the South to hold a referendum in which the southern states would decide their own fate.

Regardless of the outcome of the referendum, the division of the United States has already taken shape, and both China and Germany have achieved their strategic goals.

Compared with before, when China fought the war between China and Britain, the United States and Russia, it needed to go into battle shirtless, and later it only needed to fight a proxy war, whether it was between Greece and the Ottoman Empire, the war for the right to the Black Sea straits, or the war between Russia and Austria for territory, China did not need to come forward directly, only needed to let agents like the Ural Kingdom come forward to achieve the goal, and now even agents do not need to come forward, and the prepared Inca Kingdom did not use it at all, only through military intimidation and economic assistance, and achieved their goal.

Compared with a decade ago, China's influence and national strength have further increased, and the world is only one step away from the Chinese era.

In the end, the result of the vote in the South was still to choose to join the South, although the Southern Alliance announced the abolition of slavery, but the war made the southerners' hatred of the Yankees increase, and the referendum would have too much emotional impact. And in the Southern referendum, they refused to recognize the right of blacks to vote on the grounds that blacks had no tax records and that the votes were basically entirely conducted by whites.

As a result, Kentucky, which was fighting between the liberal forces and the slave-owning forces before the war, chose the north, and he was divided in this war, and the slave forces supported the South, and the liberal forces supported the North, but the liberal forces prevailed, so in the war it was the slave forces that went south, and the entire state fought for the North.

But the returning electorate of white soldiers and slave owners brought Tennessee back into the arms of the South.

Such a Southern Union, despite its commitment to abolition, could not actually abolish slavery.

After the war, they refused to start the abolition program, citing financial pressures, and only the one million blacks who had already served in the Confederate army were immediately granted free man status, and a free service statute was passed stipulating that blacks could only be granted free status by serving the Union government. Or if the slave owner relinquishes ownership of the slave, the slave can also be granted the status of a free man. This opened the way for blacks to be free at least.

As a result, slavery was retained in the South, and slavery was not abolished in the North, because Maryland and Kentucky, which had remained within the Northern Union, continued to retain slavery.

After the completion of the peace talks, the two countries signed a peace agreement recognizing each other as independent states.