Prussia was not fighting as a single country, but gathered more than 30 North German states, and the German Confederation was one of the subjects that declared war on Russia.

Among them, the three kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden in the south were pro-Austrian and formed an alliance with Austria, and the Protestant North German states in the north were pro-Prussia and formed an alliance with Prussia.

The large number of German states at Prussia's disposal increased dramatically, and the siege of Warsaw was dominated by Prussian troops, which numbered only 300,000 at that time. When Gorchakov reinforced, it had already been reinforced to 500,000 people, and the strength of the two sides was quite equal at this time. By the time Gorchakov relieved the siege of Warsaw and became the commander-in-chief of the Russian army in Poland, the Prussian coalition had increased to 600,000 men, and the strength began to prevail.

Thanks to the support of the British, the German Confederation could issue bonds in London to raise funds, and the funds obtained would purchase a large number of British arms, so that the North German Confederation's army was more secure. Able to equip a rifled gun with a lot of water, as well as a large number of high-quality guns.

This is important because, historically, until the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussian military industry was unable to fully supply Prussia's large army, and each war was equipped with large quantities of British munitions. In addition to China, that is, Britain, the countries that can produce rapidly in the world can only meet the needs of peacetime, and there will be a shortage in wartime, not to mention Prussia.

Of course, this war also made a windfall for some Prussian enterprises that had just entered the production of arms, such as the Krupp company, which had just produced guns and cannons last year, and obtained a large number of orders, which accelerated the growth of this arms empire. But the Prussian army was equipped mainly with weapons and ammunition produced by the state arsenal.

In addition, the Prussian army was equipped with a more revolutionary Dreiser needle rifle than other countries, and in this war, it did not show its cross-era power. In the battle with the Russian rifled rifles, they were mostly defeated. Because although this rifle is a rear-loading rifle and has the characteristics of a fast rate of fire, due to the metalworking capacity of this era, there has always been a problem of poor air tightness, which affects the range of the rifle, which is only half of the rifled front-loading rifle. The soldiers of the Russian army, who do not have a high level of training, are accustomed to shooting at a distance of three or four hundred meters, but they can kill and injure a large number of Prussian troops. By the time they were within range of the Prussian army, the bayonet charge of the Russian GIs had already begun.

There were always problems with the command of the North German coalition, which was commanded by Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, who was also the king of Poland. At this time, the two Polands stood side by side, both with Warsaw as their capital, and Prince Wilhelm and Alexander II both proclaimed themselves kings of Poland. Internationally, East Poland and West Poland have begun to be referred to as Russian-controlled Poland and Prussian-controlled Poland, respectively.

Wilhelm, as King of West Poland and Prince of Prussia, led a large coalition of North Germany, Prussia and Poles, but with his ability, or his personal ability at the level of communication of this era, it was basically impossible to command hundreds of thousands of troops.

This is why Moltke designed a large staff to replace the commander-in-chief to command the army, because a person's ability, no matter how high the level of knowledge, how broad the knowledge, and how rich the experience is, he cannot take into account all aspects of the battlefield. Moltke could combine professional geographers, maps, meteorologists, engineers, economists, and even historians to work out a more detailed and professional combat plan. This was an important step in the army's transition from the art of the individual to the scientific management of the army.

When Napoleon commanded an army of 350,000 troops, the victory rate was extremely high, and the reason was that on this scale, Napoleon's command genius could be unleashed to his heart's content, and more than 100,000 people could only be decent, and when there were 500,000 or 600,000 people, it was even chaotic, and the reason was that such a large-scale command was beyond his personal ability.

Ancient Chinese famous generals often commanded hundreds of thousands of troops, but that famous general was not assisted by a large number of staff.

Therefore, the huge army commanded by Prince William has always had a defect of not being flexible enough, and when maneuvering, it is not even comparable to the always crude Russian army.

After the absolute superiority of the army, William was not able to adopt a wide range of flexible tactics to encircle the enemy, but still advanced on the local battlefield with the scale of tens of thousands of troops, gradually encroaching on the areas occupied by the Russian army. The cities from East Prussia to Warsaw were gradually occupied, but Warsaw was still controlled by the Prussian and Russian armies across the river.

The casualty rate of this kind of gradual encroachment and non-emphasis on flexible tactics is extremely high, and almost all of them are using their lives as fuel to gain momentum for progress.

And the Russians are gradually losing money, and the reason is still due to the munitions. Russia does not have the ability to supply rifled rifles to a million troops, and it is not that Russia does not want to buy them, but that they cannot buy them.

Military spending is also a huge burden, Russia tried to ask China for financial support, as before, hoping to issue bonds in China, but China refused, hoping to buy arms from China with real money, China also refused, there was only one reason for refusal, to remain neutral, or the tsar was willing to sign the treaty, and then China could consider these conditions.

The die-hard tsar was clearly not at the end of the day, and with a contempt for technology, he was heavily armed with smoothbore guns in the Russian army. Anyway, it's all guns, but the range is shorter and the accuracy is lower.

As a result, the more you fight, the smaller the number of Russian troops, the weaker the combat effectiveness, and the greater the losses, which is no longer something that Gorchakov's command ability can compensate. The Russian army is becoming more and more passive, with the same strength, the frontal battles with the North German states continue to lose, plus the strength is still like the other side, the Russian army can only be squeezed step by step, and gradually compressed in the area south of Warsaw.

Austria, however, maneuvered inward, by train, and transported the army to Bohemia, from where it entered the Krakow region of southern Poland. On the one hand, the Russian army has been cut off from the Lithuanian region in the northeast, and with the appearance of the Austrian army in Krakow, it is also possible that the connection with the eastern Ukrainian direction will also be cut off.

Gorchakov asked to retreat to the Ukrainian region, which the tsar considered too much of a blow to the morale of the Russian army and tantamount to ceding Poland to Prussia, and he asked Gorchakov to hold on, while promising to send more reinforcements.

As a result of this hesitation, the Austrian army successfully advanced from Krakow to Lublin, Lviv and other areas of Austrian Poland, which were formerly part of the Austrian Empire and where Austria had great influence. The Prussian army advanced south from East Prussia to Brester, forming an encirclement network against the Russian army on the northern front.

The Tsar did raise reinforcements, but was unable to do so before the encirclement was formed. Reinforcements and Gorchakov jointly attacked and tried to open a gap, but at this time, a large number of Russian troops equipped with smoothbore guns were completely behind. It is almost a replica of the Crimean War, under the shooting of rifled rifles of the Austro-Prussian army, tens of thousands of living forces were lost, but more than 400,000 Russian troops in the encirclement could not be rescued.

Since the Austrian army was an elite unit drawn from the southern front, the tsar believed that the Austrian army on the southern front must be empty, and he ordered the southern front, which had been replenished with enough troops, to launch a large-scale offensive and mobilize the Austrian army on the northern front, so as to create an opportunity for Gorchakov to break through.

The second offensive of the Russian army on the southern front began.