"Your Majesty. IMHO, 200,000 troops stationed in Moscow is just too thin. ”

After the military meeting, Zhao Rang stayed behind to communicate with the queen alone.

The female tsar sighed: "Do you think I don't know, but if you don't draw troops from Moscow, you have to draw troops from the direction of the Black Sea and transfer hundreds of thousands of troops back to Kyiv, which is too close to Moscow." Grand Duke Konstantin is now commanding this army, do you understand? ”

Zhao Rang nodded, it is still a political issue, Konstantin is Alexander's younger brother, and it is really difficult to reassure people by transferring his army back to Kiev, and there is a railway connection from here to Moscow. Looking at it this way, the queen still did not trust the Russian army.

The Tsaress said: "Do you have the confidence to win this battle, this battle is very important to me!" ”

Under the earnest eyes of the female tsar, Zhao Rang couldn't bear to tell a lie.

"Back to Your Majesty. I can't guarantee it, I can only guarantee that our army will hold out to the end. Whether this battle is successful or not depends mainly on whether the main forces of the Russian army can complete the offensive operation, and our army only cooperates. ”

The Tsaresses nodded, a little sad, it was enough for the Urals to carry out a coup d'état, but the experience of large-scale battles was too lacking.

"Your Majesty need not worry, since General Gorchakov has decided to launch a counterattack, he must have the confidence that he will win. He is a calm old general, you can rest assured! ”

The Tsaress sighed: "I am not worried about him, I hope that our army in the Urals will achieve some victories." ”

Zhao Rang was quite ashamed, the army he led had too many shortcomings.

Instead, the Tsar comforted him: "It's okay. Recruits always need time to grow, I can understand that. Don't worry, what we have is time. ”

Gorchakov did not stay in Moscow for long, he had important things to do at the front, and this time he came to Moscow, which was only a political statement, on behalf of the rapprochement of the army and the new tsar. But whether it is really reconciled, he actually can't represent it. The main officers in the army still have a large proportion of nobles, and even if the House of Nobles has pledged allegiance to the Tsaress, there are still quite a few nobles in the army who cannot accept it.

But the confusion in the ranks is over for the time being, the escape has stopped, the change of power in Moscow has been completed, and now that everyone knows that they have a single Tsar, the period of ideological confusion has passed. But how much combat effectiveness can be maintained, Gorchakov is still not very sure.

With such an army, it is still a bit risky to have a decisive battle with the Prussian army. But he did not have time to wait, the Prussian army had to be repulsed, and the Russian army did not have the conditions to fight on two fronts. Compared to Austria, Prussia's front was too long, and the terrain of their territory was such that if the navy appeared on the Vistula and the front line was repulsed, it was extremely likely that Prussia would compromise.

Yermolov was much more relaxed, he stayed in Moscow to help Zhao Rang with the military movement, and provided many useful suggestions.

The Moscow garrison is also mostly recruited, and there are 300,000 Russian soldiers, on the front line in Kiev, but mainly Chinese soldiers, compared to the Russian army, the female tsar trusts the Chinese soldiers more, and the female tsar trusts the Russian soldiers of the Urals more than the Chinese soldiers.

The large-scale movement of the army can easily give the enemy an opportunity to take advantage of, but fortunately, after paying a lot of sacrifices, the Chinese army in Kiev has learned how to fight, at least in defensive operations, they have quickly matured. The fortifications they built became more and more complete, the veterans withdrew, and the new recruits took over, still stubbornly resisting the Austrian offensive.

After passing through Moscow, a large number of troops quickly marched into Riga, and there was a direct railway to the port of Riga, which greatly facilitated military movements.

A very important feature of this war was that both sides made great use of the rapid transportation capacity of trains.

Previously it was the Austrians' maneuvering on the inside, and now Russia has copied this tactic.

The growing strength of the Western Dvina, which was also discovered by the Prussians, repulsed their tentative attacks.

Gorchakov's fortifications on the Western Dvina were also quite complete and could not be easily breached.

Poland is a turning point, the Russian army is fighting in Poland and is too far from the rear, the Prussian army is crossing Poland and is also too far from the rear, and whoever crosses this distance on both sides will be affected by logistics and supplies, and the combat effectiveness will be greatly weakened.

And the losses of the Russian army are huge, Prussia cannot be without losses, and their casualties are also very large, after all, both sides have fought a war of attrition with high casualties before. Compared to Russia, Prussia was only a small country after all. Wars against countries with a population of 18 million against countries with a population of 50 million, although they have a stronger ability to mobilize, are only relative.

By the time the front reached the West Dvina, Prussia could no longer maintain superiority on the front. Not only was transport a problem, but production was also a big problem, and Britain had really begun to maintain neutrality, i.e., not to supply arms to Russia, nor to Prussia, which had to rely on its own immature military industry to support the battle.

At this point in the war, in fact, the Prussians have already understood that they have no greater chance, and the internal affairs of Russia are basically solved, and it will be difficult to take advantage of them on the battlefield. Prussia had been waiting for the Austrian war to take Kyiv and then the two countries began negotiations with Russia. As for Prussia, the land that should be in hand has already been obtained, and attacking forward cannot annihilate the seriously ill group of the Russian army, it is just a needless casualty.

In this case, the Russian army actually launched a counterattack.

The strength of the Prussian army on the front line was only 400,000, and the number of troops invested in the offensive by the Russian army was as high as 500,000. In the case that there is not much difference in the combat effectiveness of the two sides, it is difficult to make up for the gap of one-quarter of the cases through tactics, and the tactics of the Prussian army are not very clever. Under the command of more than 300,000 or 400,000 troops, the command system of the Prussian army can only be in a decent manner and cannot carry out large-scale maneuvers, which is destined to be another tug-of-war battle.

As a result, the Prussian army was forced to retreat continuously.

The King of Prussia regretted that if he had heeded Bismarck's advice before the Russian coup d'état became clear, perhaps Prussia would have taken all of Poland and withdrawn from the battle.

This war beyond the limits of Prussia, the consumption of Prussia is extremely great, Prussia has not yet been unified, their position in Europe can only rank fourth, this is the embodiment of comprehensive national strength, from the point of view of production capacity, Prussia created only 4 of the whole of Europe, Britain as high as 70, Austria and Russia each accounted for 7, France ranked second, accounting for 12 percent, Russia is close to twice that of Prussia.

Without the financial support of Britain, Prussia really could not afford to fight such a long war.

As for Finland, which has always been obsessed with, the Prussian king is also dead, as Bismarck analyzed, Prussia just occupied Poland and did not have the ability to hold it. Because the Russian navy finally carried out a large-scale operation, they landed at the mouth of the Vistula River and launched a long-range raid on Danzig, although they failed to capture Danzig, an important port of East Prussia, but left Prussia unable to reinforce the Neva front.

Seeing that the situation had reversed, the Prussian king quickly summoned Bismarck, hoping that there would be room for a turnaround.

Bismarck bluntly stated: "Your Majesty, the most favorable moment has been lost. Even if peace is negotiated now, it is difficult to get Russia's gratitude. According to reliable information, the Ural army appeared on the battlefield of the Western Dvina, although they did not attack. But their troops, their financial support, made a big difference in Russia's situation. ”

The king did not have the patience to listen to Bismarck's speech, he only cared: "Can we still get Poland?" ”

Bismarck said: "It's hard. But if Your Majesty is willing to send me to Moscow and entrust me with full responsibility for negotiations, Poland may be obtained. But we obviously can't wait for the victory of our Austrian allies in Kyiv! ”

The king said, "Then we can only wish them good luck." ”

In this way, Bismarck, through secret channels, put forward a request for direct negotiations with the Tsar, and the Tsar agreed.

Bismarck secretly rushed to Moscow.

The two met at the Grand Palace, and Bismarck bluntly stated that he wanted all of Poland as a request for an armistice from the Prussian army.

At this time, the Battle of Polesiye was still raging, and under the onslaught of the Russian army regardless of casualties, the Prussian North German coalition army was losing one after another, and they also had to guard against the security of the Vistula River, and they were powerless to reinforce the front. In addition, since the Russian army can land on the Vistula, they have the ability to threaten all East Prussian ports such as Memel. This further dispersed Prussia's forces.

Superiority on the battlefield has always been a bargaining chip at the negotiating table.

After fierce bargaining with Bismarck, the Tsaress reached an agreement on the condition that the Prussian army would withdraw west of the Neman River.

The border between the two sides is bordered by the Neman River, and from the Polesiye swamp to Memel, at the mouth of the Neman River, is Prussian territory. Russia controlled the area east of the Neman River and basically retained the territories of Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Bismarck returned to Berlin with a successful diplomatic treaty, and the king sighed, choosing between personal honor, national honor and interests, signing the treaty, and ruling its ally Austria, saying that Prussia could no longer afford to continue fighting, and could only accept the reality of an armistice with Russia, and could not continue to fight side by side with Austria.

Austria was furious at this sudden betrayal, but at this time they had no choice. They can only choose to negotiate peace with Russia, otherwise what awaits them will be the attack of the main force of the Russian army.

Similarly, Austria's negotiations with Russia were not informed of their allies, the Ottoman Empire.

At this time, the female tsar needed to recuperate and consolidate her power, and she did not want to continue to fight with Austria for a long time.

So she made further concessions, ceding to the Austrian Empire the area south of the Pripyat River, which included half of the Polesiya, up to the Podol Heights and the heights along the Dnieper, and the whole of Northwest Ukraine west of the Dnieper. But Austria needed to return to Russia the area around Odessa, which they occupied, the entire coastal heights of the Dnieper and the Black Sea coast south of the Podor Heights.

Obviously, the Odessa region along the mouth of the Black Sea is more important to Russia than the Catholic region of Western Ukraine.

Austria was also content to receive a generous territorial treaty, increasing their territory by a third and having a rich black Ukrainian soil.

But Austria had not yet discovered at this time, because Bismarck had planted a dangerous time bomb between the two countries because of the peace with Prussia and Russia alone.