After a month of stabilization on the Kazakh battlefield, fierce fighting broke out again.

What is frightening is that this time it was defeated again.

The consequences of the defeat were exaggerated by the alarmist rhetoric of the newspapers, which generally described the present situation in terms of the entry of enemy troops.

The Kazakh forces have been greatly strengthened during the month, and on the basis of a well-developed hilly defensive line, it is very difficult for the enemy to easily conquer it, and the defeat is still a field defeat.

The Army, which had received ample reinforcements, thought that they could already engage in a field war with Russia. At that time, they were transferred from the country to three war corps and seven auxiliary corps, attacking 130,000 troops, so that their main force exceeded 200,000, while the Russian army attacked only 150,000 troops.

But the result of the battle was still a failure, judging from the final battle report, Russia received a reinforcement army, and finally turned the situation around, and won the victory from the front, otherwise this kind of big battle of hundreds of thousands of people, it would be difficult to distinguish the winner for a while and a half. This is true even in the field.

The Russians received reinforcements from the British, 50,000 men, 10,000 cavalry, and 40,000 infantry. According to the judgment of the front-line troops, it was believed that the British army was more combat-ready.

This judgment is not surprising, although the British Army has never had any exploits to boast about, in the Napoleonic Wars, the most famous is only a Waterloo, but Waterloo is nothing more than a dying battle fought by Napoleon after the Restoration, Wellington defeated only the weakest Napoleon. The Battle of Waterloo is remembered not for the victory of Wellington, but for the defeat of Napoleon. The Belgian royal family canonized the land and forests around Waterloo to Wellington as a fief, and established a Wellington Memorial Hall in the local town, but the embarrassing thing is that later generations of tourists went to Waterloo to visit the battlefield of Napoleon's defeat, and most people did not know that there was a Wellington Victory Memorial here.

But there is no decent record, not only does it show that the British army is not professional and strong, but their opponents are too weak, which hides their combat effectiveness, and neither the influence of India nor the indigenous people of Africa is big enough to show the strength of the British army.

But if you study it carefully, you will find that Wellington, like Napoleon, is a famous general in a hundred battles in this era, and Wellington's victory rate is higher than Napoleon's, and there is really no defeat in his combat record, including meeting Napoleon. Many stories depict Wellington as a famous man who has been defeated repeatedly and finally turned around, but this is just the story. In the real record, Wellington had never met Napoleon before Waterloo. When Napoleon was roaming Europe, he fought first in India, then in Spain and Portugal, and in the Peninsular War, Wellington won every battle against the French, and many of Napoleon's famous generals were defeated at Wellington's hands. Every battle that Britain lost was not commanded by Wellington, either because Wellington was absent, or Wellington was transferred back home, or even resigned for a time.

The strength of the British army was not due to the personal bravery of the British soldiers, mainly because of the stricter equipment and training, and the soldiers were mainly recruited into a situation of recruitment, mainly composed of poor classes, mainly the children of the poor in Scotland and Ireland, and also a large number of Germans, who thought that these people had the spirit of giving everything for the country, which was unrealistic. Compared with the French Revolutionary Army, the British army was still at the mercenary level in nature. But mercenaries are also very powerful, such as the Spanish and French Foreign Legions.

The reason for the strength is first of all training, the British army's salaries and equipment are piled up with money, in the 22 years of the war against France after the French Revolution, the British spent a total of 831 million pounds, which is an unimaginable figure, at this level of expenditure, the material conditions of the British army are better than any country, including France.

In training, the British infantry regiment has always been able to guarantee the training quota of 60 rounds of ammunition and 60 rounds of empty cartridges, while the Prussian hunters and precision marksmen have only 60 rounds of ammunition training guarantee, and there are no empty cartridges, and in the later period, even 60 rounds of ammunition cannot be guaranteed, and the quota of 30 rounds of ammunition for ordinary infantry is only at its best. At the same time, the Austrian line had only 10 rounds, and the Russians had only 6 rounds.

Britain's main rival, France, trained ordinary soldiers at the beginning of the French army with 30 rounds, but by 1813 it had become two or three rounds to let soldiers know how much recoil the guns were, and then they would go into battle. The training of the French cavalry after 1805 was usually only two to three weeks, while the British cavalry was always more than six months. The British army was the only country that maintained the standard of military training and weaponry from beginning to end during the Napoleonic Wars, and it was also one of the few countries to maintain a conscription system.

The sudden appearance of this British army can indeed break the balance of the battlefield, and the war report says that when holding the Russian army, the British line infantry suddenly drove onto the battlefield, tore a gap with dense firepower, and finally broke the balance.

But Zhou Lang felt that this might be due to tactical reasons, the real main force was still the Russian army, and the Russian army was not weak. Zhou Lang has always disagreed with the prejudice of the military and the general public that the Chinese army is far stronger than the Russian army, and he judged it from common sense. An Russian army that fought the entire Napoleonic Wars and served as the main force in the later period could not be too weak. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian army has been fighting, fighting the Crimean War and suppressing domestic rebellions, and these battles have at least given the Russian officer class a far better combat experience than the Chinese counterparts.

It is true that the reasons given by the army, Russia's weapons and equipment, and military expenditure, are far from being comparable with China's, but this is not the decisive factor in combat effectiveness. Russia has low military spending, and there is an organizational situation with low military spending.

The big advantage of the Russians is that the price is low, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian army was paid in silver kopecks, at this time the British soldiers' salaries were 11 times that of the Russian counterparts, and later the Russian soldiers got more depreciated ruble banknotes, and the gap in military spending would be greater. In peacetime, British soldiers received rice, meat, peas and cheese in addition to bread, Russian soldiers had only flour and beans, and in wartime they had a small amount of meat and vodka, and Russian soldiers sometimes got not uniforms and boots, but cloth and leather, and they made their own clothes and shoes. The same was true of ammunition, gunpowder, lead and paper were distributed to the regiments for the soldiers to make themselves. This significantly reduced expenditures, but it turned out that it did not seriously weaken the combat effectiveness of the Russian army.

The Russian army was still scattered and stationed in the countryside in peacetime, which not only greatly reduced the standard of living, so that the soldiers could live with low salaries, but also greatly reduced the burden on the country, allowing the local government to feed the army, which allowed the Russian government to maintain a much larger army than the British all year round with only more than 10 million pounds of income.

The huge and bloated army, the culturally backward serfs, and the aristocratic officers who were extremely poor and extravagant, and corruption was rampant, which was once a one-sided understanding of the Russian tsarist army by later generations. Can even Bismarck be terrified all the time?

The strength of no country is a fluke, Genghis Khan can dominate the world, it is not because of the ferocity of the Mongols, it is a high degree of discipline that organizes the Mongols, and the Qin people who were not organized by the Shang Dynasty were once only fierce, and they were humiliated by Wei Wushu many times.

The Russians were able to win all the time on the basis of serfdom, for no other reason than because his army was strong and his army was professional enough.

The core of an army is still the officer class, and if the officer class is professional enough, the army will be more professional in comparison. The Russian army, like the rest of Europe, consisted mainly of nobles, and unlike other countries, they were more noble.

For a long time, the number of British nobles was only about 200, while the number of Russian nobles was as high as millions, and it grew rapidly, according to the Russian census, in 1700 there were only more than 20,000 nobles in Russia, and their families totaled 70,000. In 1737 there were 50,000 nobles, including 150,000 with their families. In 1782 there were 108,000 nobles in Russia, and in 1795 there were 362,000 nobles, or 2% of the total number of inhabitants of the country.

The reason why the number of nobles is so large is that it is relatively easy to obtain a knighthood in Russia, while the British aristocracy implements the primogeniture system, and the number of nobles is passed down from generation to generation, and it is difficult to grow rapidly. The Russian aristocracy was based on land, and in order to establish a defense on its vast territory and meet the invading enemy at any time, Russia dispersed its noble servants to the densely populated interior and sparsely populated frontiers, according to the principle of "whoever serves, owns land; Whoever owns the land has to serve".

Therefore, it is easy for the Russian aristocratic family to spread out in this way, so that more and more children can become nobles by serving the tsar. Many of the sons of counts could easily obtain various minor aristocratic titles, and nobles were even landlords in Russia.

And the more wars, the more petty aristocracy was created, and after the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian aristocracy was close to a million, and now it has exceeded a million.

Such a large number of people serving led to the fact that many nobles could only exist as ordinary soldiers in the army, of course, they were artillery, cavalry and other technical arms, not infantry like cannon fodder.

A large number of educated children of the nobility served as rank and file officials, allowing the Russian army to maintain this certain level of culture. In addition, the service period of the Russian army is very long, and the legal service period is up to 25 years.

With such a long period of service, even a military layman has enough time to grow into an expert, and the Russian aristocracy, especially the children of the wealthier nobles, are often born in military schools and hold high-ranking positions, which further ensures the professionalism of the Russian army.

Of course, the Russian army also has some disadvantages, such as ordinary soldiers as serfs, poor military literacy, poor training level, resulting in the shooting level of Russian soldiers is almost the lowest in Europe, as a supplement, the Russians formed artillery units, their artillery equipment level is higher than Napoleon's army, with high-density artillery to make up for the lack of rifle firepower, before rifle fire can not become a decisive force, Russia can make up for its own shortcomings in this way.

In short, such a Russian army has not made the Chinese army fight cheaply on the battlefield, and has always been recognized as one of the most powerful armies in Europe.

The main force is such an army, plus the sudden entry of the British army, defeat is inevitable.

Zhou Lang is worried that the British have begun to enter the Kazakh steppe through the Black Sea, and the number continues to increase, and the agreement between Britain and Russia has been made public, and Britain will provide 500,000 troops to fight with the Russian army in this war. With 500,000 British troops and 1 million Russian troops, this war is a huge challenge to China's military delivery capacity and material replenishment capacity in the remote Kazakh steppe area.

If they win, Europe will be overshadowed by China's military power for many years to come, and they will not be able to turn over, at least until they complete industrialization.

If it loses, the entire northwest of China is likely to collapse. Not only will the Kazakh steppe be lost, but Ili may not be able to be saved. The most important thing is to let the Europeans see that they can easily confront China when they unite, and they only need Britain and Russia to unite to defeat China, so that Britain, France, Prussia and Austria and other countries will unite, let alone worry about China, and they will only unite more and more in the global competition with China in the future, and use the power of the alliance to fight China.

Therefore, it is necessary to completely dispel their idea of unity, and let them understand that even the alliance of Russia, which has the strongest army, and Britain, which has the most powerful navy, will not be able to defeat China, and make them feel that the alliance is futile, and they can only rely on China in the future, then a world peace under China's rule will appear, and this is the era of China's hegemony!