Li Zhangtong said: "After this battle, the British isolated themselves!" ”

The crown prince waved his hand and motioned for Li Zhangtong to continue.

Li Zhangtong said: "Previously, Britain dismembered the Sino-French alliance and let France, the largest ally in Europe, abandon me. Britain allied with Germany and established a balancing position in Europe. Once Russia is divided, the balance in Europe will inevitably be broken. ”

The crown prince said: "Russia is divided into two countries, can it break the Anglo-German alliance?" ”

Li Zhangtong shook his head: "That's not going to happen, but Britain itself will dismantle this alliance." ”

The crown prince said: "This is not logical, how can Yingyi cut off his wings?" ”

Li Zhangtong smiled: "Yingyi has no choice. Britain has been isolated overseas, pursuing a policy of balancing the mainland. After the reunification of Germany, the national strength was growing day by day, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had already dominated Central Europe. The Franco-Russian alliance can counter the German-Austrian alliance. This time Russia is divided, and it will not be able to maintain the alliance with France. If France does not want Germany to dominate Europe, it will inevitably support France in the future. Once the British supported France, the Anglo-German alliance was self-defeating. ”

The crown prince said: "Sounds reasonable. Yingyi doesn't want Germany to become bigger, so he will inevitably join forces with France to resist Germany and dig his own grave! ”

After reaching an agreement with the crown prince, Li Zhangtong hinted to the Germans on an informal occasion that China and Germany had the same attitude, and that China would not directly intervene in the Russian civil war, and that it would oppose the intervention of any major power in the Russian civil war.

After that, the development of the battle turned out to be as expected, and the Russian army in confusion was indeed no match for the Polish army, and under the attack of the Polish army, it was defeated one after another, the battle line was advanced to the line of the Daugava River, and important cities such as Minsk were lost.

The Polish army forcibly crossed the Daogawa River and went straight to Velikiye Luki, depending on the situation, with the intention of cutting off Moscow from Petersburg, and then the Polish army had the initiative whether it was going north or east.

The Battle of Velikiye Luki ended in a Polish victory, and the Poles succeeded in taking control of the Russian railway line to the Baltic. At this time, Poland had mobilized two million troops to invade Russia, and there was still the potential to continue mobilization, and the Poles made such great efforts because Bismarck had such a strong control over Poland, but mainly because the war was related to Poland's own interests. According to Germany's secret agreement with the Constantine regime, Poland would receive Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and other Baltic lands east of the Neman River, which was an important step towards the restoration of Greater Poland.

This kind of motivation is enough to make the Poles play with their lives. It's just that this seems to be at odds with Bismarck's persuasion to fool the British, and it is clear that Bismarck either betrayed Poland or England.

Convinced that the Baltic region could be annexed to Poland, the Poles did not continue eastward into Moscow, but divided their troops into two routes, one way to Petersburg, all the way to the Gulf of Riga, one by one to conquer the Baltic region, after capturing the weakened Riga, then divided into two routes, marched towards Petersburg, and the three-way army pounced on Petersburg.

At this time, the female tsar had to ask Zhao Rang for help, and asked Zhao Rang, who was in an all-out attack on Constantine, to send troops to help her. Zhao Rang had no choice but to withdraw the Russian soldiers from the generals and let them go north to aid Petersburg, and he led the Chinese troops to continue to squeeze the Constantine rebels.

Zhao Rang has successfully recovered the area around Moscow, and previously planned to break through the Russian heights from Orel, drive directly to the Dnieper, and divide the Konstantin rebels in two, but after transferring nearly a million troops, Zhao Rang was unable to implement this roundabout strategy, so he could only continue to choose to advance head-on, and he still sought stability.

And a large number of reserve troops were also transferred, east of Moscow, the reserve army in the Volga valley also had a million people, all of which were sent to Petersburg, and the million reserve army in the Don valley was ordered to attack Ukraine to the west to contain and mobilize the Konstantin group.

Konstantin struggled to mobilize more than a million troops in the Ukrainian region, plus his existing forces, barely enough to gather two million troops, and the strength is still insufficient.

If the situation continued in this way, Konstantin would still be defeated, and with the participation of the Poles in the war, he would hold out for another six months to a year at most. The reserve army east of the Dnieper will not be able to stop the attack of the Russian army at all, the main thing is not a matter of equipment and training, but a problem of mentality, and the Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine are more pro-Russian, which is determined by history.

Historically, Ukraine has long been in the middle of a war between Russia and Poland, which has been fought for more than a decade. The result of the war was the signing of the Peace of Andrew Sovo in 1667, which divided Ukraine equally along the Dnieper River. This marked the beginning of the history of different religions and separation of the eastern and western parts of Ukraine. It was not until a century later, when Poland was divided three times by Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary, that most of the territory of Ukraine was unified into Russia.

Russian rule in Ukraine, though equally unpopular, is seen as alien rule among the Ukrainian elite, which has awakened to its national consciousness. Soon after the signing of the Peace of Andrew Sovo, the Russian government began to restrict Ukraine's autonomy, gradually closing Ukrainian schools, banning the use of the Ukrainian language, and even banning the use of the word Ukrainian in various Russian documents, replacing it with Little Russia. The Russian government closed Ukrainian schools at the same time as it did not open Russian schools at the same time, which turned the policy of cultural assimilation into a policy of cultural destruction, and as a result, the illiteracy rate in Ukraine, which was originally more culturally developed than Russia, began to be higher than that in Russia, approaching 90%.

In 1795, after the partition of Poland by the Russian Tsar, the whole of Ukraine was basically incorporated into Russia, and then began to implement a stricter Russification policy throughout Ukraine, promoting the use of the Russian language, and suppressing the use of the Ukrainian language in the press and public activities.

This led to the emergence of nationalist movements in Ukraine, especially in the regions of Western Ukraine, where all religions differed, and national independence sentiment was very high. This time, in order to confront the female tsar, Konstantin even made a promise to give Ukraine a certain degree of autonomy, which was supported by many Ukrainian elites, but Western Ukraine was very active, and pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine has been tepid.

On the one hand, Konstantin has to deal with Zhao Rang's army approaching Kiev head-on, on the other hand, he does not dare to lose eastern Ukraine, and constantly strengthens the defense of eastern Ukraine, along the Severodonetsk River, with his back to the Donetsk Ridge, deploying 800,000 troops, because behind it is Donetsk, the coal farming land of Ukraine, and Zaporozhye, the center of metallurgical and mechanical industry, once these two places are lost, Konstantin's weapons production will stop.

On the southwestern front, Dobroga's army had already routed the Moldovan army, but instead of pursuing it all the way into the mountains, it went straight to Odessa along the lowlands of the Black Sea coast.