The defeat of Kazakhstan was only one battlefield in the war between China, Russia and Britain, but because of the intensity of this battlefield, it overshadowed some of the advantages achieved in other theaters.

The Chinese army marching into Siberia has been victorious, but because there is nothing worthy of a single victory here, it has not attracted people's attention.

Just as China is in a disadvantageous position in terms of geography and transportation in the Kazakh region, because of the railway, Siberia, which Russia originally had an advantage, has become a disadvantageous area for Russia, and the waterway in Siberia is indeed a good transportation channel, but it is compared with the steppe Gobi in China in the past, after the opening of the railway, it is easier for China to transfer troops to the Heberian border, and the waterway of the Russians has become inferior.

In this direction, the number of troops sent by China was not as large as that sent to the Kazakh region, but because of the weakness of Russia's investment in this area, the Chinese forces had an absolute advantage, and more than 100,000 troops entered the Siberian region and soon captured the Baikal area.

The mines occupied by the Russians were restored, and the village soldiers took on the role of the former auxiliaries, responsible for maintaining law and order, suppressing local resistance, and keeping traffic flowing. The soldiers and auxiliaries continued to expand the occupied area and marched along the trade routes to the western part of Russia, while the northeastern zone was relatively calm for the time being, and the Chinese attack plan did not have a plan for large-scale operations in the area east of the Lena River, and small-scale operations were limited to organizing tribal forces around Heilongjiang to sweep up Russian military strongholds. and the navy going north to attack Russian military fortresses in Kamchatka and other places, the largest of which was to attack and occupy the Russian garrison, but the ownership of Sakhalin Island, which has always been disputed.

The war went on for half a year, but judging from the battlefield, it was not even clear that this was a big war. Far less intense than the Napoleonic Wars, a country could be wiped out in one or two decisive battles. But in fact, the forces used by both sides have exceeded the vast majority of battles in the Napoleonic Wars, just because both sides are territorial behemoths, China has shrunk thousands of kilometers in the Kazakh region, which has long crossed many borders in Europe, but in the East, the war is still fought in the absolute sense of the border area.

By the summer, the strength of the two sides had surpassed any war in the Napoleonic era, including the war in which Napoleon mobilized 600,000 troops into Russia, China had concentrated 600,000 troops in Kazakhstan, Britain had sent 300,000 troops here, and the Russian army had sent 400,000 troops.

The 300,000 troops that had entered the Siberian region had attacked westward to the Yenisei River. The resistance became more and more intense, and Russia's military power in Siberia remained weak, with no more than 100,000 regular troops. However, after the Napoleonic Wars, the tsar began to implement serfdom in Siberia as well, when he exiled many landlords and nobles who rebelled in the war, and allowed these people to bring their serfs to Siberia for cultivation, these measures greatly increased the population of Siberia, and the Russians east of the Ural Mountains reached more than 4 million people, opening up tens of millions of cultivated land landlords' estates.

Although these people were exiles, most of them sided with the Tsar in the war, and the regular army was insufficient, and they spontaneously armed themselves to resist the advance of the Chinese army.

This made the Chinese army encounter little pressure on the frontal battlefield, but the public security environment has always been very poor, and the war fought is more like a law and order war. In the face of this situation, the combination of political and military force is almost the only way, and it is much more effective to co-opt some local forces who can cooperate to fight those rebel forces than to suppress them blindly.

Among the local forces, the Buryatia and other nomadic tribes with ties to China were relatively easy to woo, but the serf landlords were very difficult to woo. In addition, half of Siberia is a free people, and before the Napoleonic Wars, there were no serfs in Siberia, and this was originally a place of exile for disobedient serfs. In the time of Catherine II, the privileges of the landlords were greatly increased, allowing them to exile their serfs to Siberia, in order to give the landlords a strong deterrent effect on the serfs.

Since exile in Siberia was almost synonymous with "hell", the forced exiled serfs had little time surviving the winter, so the population grew slowly. But these exiled serfs, as long as they survived, became freemen, before the tsar introduced serfdom in Siberia, there were 1.9 million people here, and now more than 2 million of the 4 million people are descendants of these freemen.

Although their ancestors were exiled, although the tsar was never friendly to them, but these people were scattered and could only rely on the tsar's government agencies, and now the tsar's government institutions were destroyed, but it was not easy to organize these people, they also had a religious tie, under the Orthodox culture, the tsar had the supreme religious status in their hearts, and no one dared to rebel against the tsar.

For the time being, the first thing to fight for is their neutrality.

The security war and political offensive and defensive in Siberia are not ways to quickly distinguish the winner from the loser, and the final decision of the war must be a frontal decisive battle on the battlefield, so the tsar was indifferent to the loss of Siberia, and placed the main forces in the western region, and united the British army to fight a decisive battle with the Chinese army.

The British gradually assumed the role of a frontal attack, and the British began to repair the broken railroad and add more reinforcements, and the British army reached 500,000 before the middle of summer, while the Russian force increased to 800,000. Instead, China reversed its military disadvantage, increasing its front-line forces to 1.5 million and hoarding 1 million reservists in the Ili region, most of which were planned to be sent to the western region.

After getting through the initial difficulties, the two sides basically entered the stalemate phase.

The British continued to attack, storming the Kazakh hilly defense line, while the Chinese army attacked in the middle of the defense, attacking from time to time, and the two sides often fought fiercely in the steppe area, winning and losing each other. The main forces of the Russian army have begun to move to the Siberian region, not to support the Yenisei River in the east, but to move south from the Irtysh River, where they hope to break through the defense line of the fortresses established by China along the river, attack the Ili region, and outflank the rear road of the main Kazakh Chinese army.

But unfortunately, as an important defense line on the right flank of the Kazakh defense line, the quality of the fortifications built by the Chinese is quite reliable, the garrison is sufficient, the materials are sufficient, and the Russian army has not been able to attack for a long time, and this direction has also begun to stalemate.

Ordinary people can only understand victory and defeat, and because they can't understand the meaning of this kind of stalemate, everyone still thinks that the Kazakh region is a failure, losing a lot of land to the enemy, and sending so many troops to it that cannot be recovered.

Huang Qiu also captured 30,000 American troops, and the crown prince directly captured 50,000 Spanish troops, basically annihilating the main Spanish force on the European battlefield, and began to launch a frontal offensive against the United States.

In the face of the favorable news that continues to come back from the United States, Zhou Lang has no choice but to increase propaganda and tell everyone that the crown prince has been winning the war.

In the current situation, some victories are needed too much to boost the morale of the people. At the same time, a series of propaganda offensives are also being carried out, telling the people why they are fighting this war, and putting all the responsibility for the war on the West, in the Americas, the explanation is that the Americans stole Chinese gold, the Spaniards wanted to rob it, and the crown prince sent people to take it back, but the other side took the lead in declaring war. The explanation in Europe was that the Russians wanted to seize China's railways, so they declared war on China. In a word, these Yi people are ganged together and want to grab things from China.

This is in line with the perception of most people, that is, the logic that the Yi people are robbers, others always seem to want to take advantage of us, and if they don't let them take advantage of it, they will rob it, from the Xiongnu, Turkic to Mongolia, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

In this wave of propaganda, the crown prince began to become a hero, and the victory he achieved was not important, the key was the victory that everyone could see.

But in the eyes of the discerning man, such a victory has no value and should not have happened in the first place. Any war, once it develops to the point where one country needs to fight hard against many countries, must have produced some special failed mistakes.

The crown prince's victory was covered by these mistakes, these diplomatic failures.

There should not have been a war in the Americas, and there would have been no involvement in the war. It is even possible that China should organize alliances in the Americas to besiege others, such as the United States to besiege Britain and Spain to confront the United States, rather than pushing all regional forces into hostility.

This is not just a problem of gold mines, but the contradictions that have accumulated during the crown prince's long reign in the Americas, where Spain was able to maintain its colony in the Americas, relying on the support of China earlier. Whoever were in power here, the Spaniards would prefer to rely on China rather than the United States, which had colonial ambitions for itself.

On the issue of dealing with the Spanish colonies, the European and American countries used commercial infiltration, while the crown prince was more aggressive, and carried out forced immigration activities along the Río de la Plata, and constantly established colonies independent of the Spanish colonial government in the hinterland of the Spanish colonies.

Supporting commercial forces to compete for minerals in Peru, Chile and other places, hiring Indians to mine, and organizing mine protection teams to fight against Indian forces, these mining areas are almost independent of the Spanish colonial government, and often conceal their income, and pay very little taxes.

The Spaniards have always dared to be angry and dare not speak, so they can only introduce British capital to confront, and get closer and closer to Britain and farther and farther away from China.

These crude diplomatic and political measures of the crown prince have aroused the disapproval of more and more officials in the country, who believe that the crown prince lacks political skills, and have repeatedly hoped that the crown prince will be transferred back from the Americas.

These voices reached their peak before the war, but then came to an abrupt end with the war, and disappeared completely as the news of the crown prince's successive victories returned.

A military victory, temporarily overshadowing a diplomatic and political defeat.

But Zhou Lang knew very well in his heart that in the American experience, the crown prince failed.

On the contrary, the emperor's eldest son, Zhou Chenggong, who has been free-roaming, is quite politically talented, he has sought the throne of Greece for himself, and his governance is also remarkable.

The success of delaying the Manchus into the war was an example, but as China continued to retreat in Kazakhstan, the Manchus became more and more impatient, and the diplomatic consul sent back intelligence warning that the Manchus were very likely to join the war, but Zhou Chenggong repeatedly insisted that the Manchus were reliable.