Zhou Lang regretted a little, if he had known that it would be so difficult to clear the remnants of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he would not have left Jiaqing so much time, he would not have been afraid of casualties, and sent troops to destroy Jiaqing seven or eight years ago.

Zhou Lang reflected on himself, the biggest mistake was to underestimate Jiaqing's ability, or that he was too contemptuous of the Eight Banners system. This system is undoubtedly a backward system, extremely backward, a system that has not yet been freed from slavery.

But the problem is that the battle for victory and defeat is not about being advanced or backward at all, but about efficiency, resources, and courage. At the end of the day, it's all about organizational skills. The backward Eight Banners system was very simple and straightforward, but at least the organizational skills that showed itself in the war were not bad. They were able to defeat the Ming Dynasty back then, not because their system was more advanced than that of the Ming Dynasty, but because they were more efficient.

In the same way, Genghis Khan's system of 100 households and 1,000 households based on the basis of nomadic economy is not advanced, but it can sweep away most of the world's more advanced civilizations because he is efficient; Similar to the integration of soldiers and peasants in the Qin and Han dynasties of China, the Qin state's farming and warfare system was no more advanced than the commercial system of the Qi state, but the Qin people won.

When he found out that the Eight Banners system showed surprisingly stable characteristics in the backward nomadic areas, Zhou Lang knew that he was wrong, but it was too late, and then he was busy fighting for the Spanish colonies, and he missed the opportunity.

Fortunately, Zhou Lang is not bad at this, his efficiency is not low, he has a set of resource absorption system based on modern business management, Baqi because of the direct, can use administrative power to concentrate resources with limited output, Zhou Lang through the issuance of bonds and other financial means, the next few years, or even more than ten years of taxation as collateral, borrowed resources equivalent to decades of taxation.

Historically, advanced civilizations have been defeated by backward civilizations again and again, simply because their efficiency has been corroded, they are unable to draw more resources from society, their management has been corroded, and they are unable to effectively organize military forces.

The modern business system built by Zhou Lang has made up for the shortcomings of resource absorption of agricultural civilization; There is no problem of fatigue in the army he built in accordance with the military thinking and scientific management system of the firearms age, and as for the personal bravery, the role of personal bravery in modern disciplined troops is very small. What's more, fighting for courage, the current Great Zhou army also surpassed the remnants of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and they had long developed the habit of contempt for the Qing army's repeated victories, and the Qing army was repeatedly defeated and fearful.

Even though he knew that he would definitely be able to win the Manchu Qing, Zhou Lang still regretted the battle situation on the front line.

Because the two sides were almost head-to-head, the Manchu troops had the nature of village bravery, a kind of acquaintance community, and the assistant leader who led the army to fight was the village chief who usually lived in the same village with them, which caused a kind of psychological pressure on the soldiers who could not run, and how to face the villagers after running; Jiaqing's military discipline has also become stricter and stricter, and he has begun to show no mercy to escape. In addition, a large number of officers have quietly gone to study in Russian military academies.

Russia is a strange country, in terms of system, I'm afraid it's not as good as the current Eight Banners, at least Jiaqing abolished the coating system in Ili, and everyone is a banner person. Jiaqing's Eight Banners system is more like the armor protection system in the pre-Qin period, a linear management model based on the acquaintance society and one pass to the end. The Russian system is really a backward serf system, and the serfs have a personal dependence on the lord based on the law, unlike the Qiding in the Eight Banners village, whose dependence on the village is mainly economic, and the person is not controlled by the leader.

Of course, the new Eight Banners system created by Jiaqing is only a little stronger than Russia's serfdom, because he also strictly restricts the flow of population, and the user population is firmly tied to the land, the purpose is to worry about population loss, which is the same as Russia continuing to retain serfdom, because both sides have a large amount of developable land, and after the displaced people are out of the control of the government, they can easily get the land to survive, so as to become a force out of the control of the government, which is what neither Jiaqing nor the tsar's government wants to see.

It is said that Jiaqing's new Eight Banners system is more advanced, because the assistant leader who manages the banner people has less power than the feudal landlord who manages the serfs, they can manage the livelihood of the banner people, the land property, and the war, but they have no power to judge the life and death of the banner people, and the flag people do not have the feudal obligation to serve the labor of the banner leader, and the assistant leader is an official, not a lord.

The only similarity between the sarong and the lord is that Jiaqing also implemented a hereditary system, these sarong can be hereditary, and their status can be passed on to their children and grandchildren, as long as they remain loyal to the emperor, from this point of view, all banner people are Jiaqing's minions.

Because the leaders did not dare to flee for the sake of future generations, they did not flee, and the bannermen under their command did not dare to flee, and they maintained stable discipline on the battlefield.

This created a lot of trouble for the Great Zhou army, and it was very difficult for them to defeat the other side, just as Napoleon did with the Austrian army, it was difficult to completely defeat the other side and annihilate the other side as before.

The opposing side must be eliminated on the battlefield, or the opposing side must be allowed to retreat in an organized manner.

This kind of war has become an evenly matched fight for attrition and cost.

Winning is certain, Zhou Lang's troops went out of the Hexi Corridor, 100,000 troops besieged Hami, it took 20 days to conquer, three days to open the city gate, and the remaining ten days There were street battles.

Zhou Lang did not choose to take the Western Mongolian trade route, because after investigation, the road could support less than 20,000 troops, and could not support the actions of Zhou Lang's army, so he could only be forced to choose the traditional Hexi Corridor, like the conquest of the Western Regions by the Central Plains Dynasty in previous dynasties, step by step.

After the capture of Hami, the military operation was suspended for half a month, not because the army could not move, but because the logistics and supplies could not keep up. The consumption of modern warfare is really fatal, there is no need to worry about the production of materials, and transportation is very difficult. Zhou Lang not only mobilized 100,000 soldiers, but also formed 300,000 auxiliary troops to cooperate, and the auxiliary soldiers were mainly used to transport supplies along the Hexi Corridor. Along the official roads and post stations repaired over the years, all the way through, transporting a load of grain, more than half of it has to be consumed on the road, this mode of transportation, and the time of Qin Shi Huang is not fundamentally different, still relying on ox carts.

Twenty days later, the capture of Barikun. A month later, he captured the ancient city and Turpan, and advanced to Ili step by step.

Then he also sent civil officials to soothe the people, at this time, the management institutions of farms and ranches set up by the Eight Banners in these places were still there, and most of the young and strong were withdrawn, but the old and weak were still there, and they could still organize to resist, and Zhou Lang could not kill children.

The panicked Baqi village accepted the appeasement and was even willing to provide food, they had saved a lot of food over the years, and they couldn't eat it or sell it. The Great Zhou army paid for the money, and paid 30 percent higher than the price of grain in the mainland, because they sold more grain here, and transported less than a load from the customs. The cost is greatly reduced. The transport pressure is also greatly reduced.

After discovering that grain and grass could be collected locally, it became an important task to collect grain on the spot. As long as the weight-consumable food, such as grain, can be solved on the spot, logistics and transportation will only need to consider the issue of weapons and ammunition. An important issue in the reform of the army of Austria's Grand Duke Karl was the local requisition of grain and grass. The same was true of Napoleon's army, which was largely fed on the spot.

Of the two million people of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, more than half were cultivated farms, and there was not a lot of arable land in Ili, so their food production was enough to support the consumption of their two million people and to be rich, and it was not a problem to supply hundreds of thousands of Great Zhou troops. From the perspective of production alone, this system of integrating soldiers and peasants is actually very feasible, similar to Cao Cao's military tun.

The quality of a system does not depend on whether their organizational ideas are advanced, but on whether they are suitable.

The news from Ili reminded Zhou Lang of a view of the new institutional economics of later generations: systems are complementary.

That is, the smooth operation of the system depends on the historical, legal, social, technological, political and economic environment in which it is located, so the transplantation of a system must be matched by a complementary environment.

The Confucian capitalism that the Japanese had explored according to their own traditions and history performed well, while the blind transplantation of Anglo-American capitalism in South American countries brought about corruption and decline, and the Russians went into shock therapy, and as a result, they went into shock.

The Eight Banners system, which is based on the historical, cultural, and economic foundations of Central Asia, is actually far better than the rule and management of the Central Plains Dynasty in history.

After discovering these circumstances, Zhou Lang decided to keep this system unchanged for the time being after the elimination of the Manchu regime.

It's just that the Russians don't seem to intend to give Zhou Lang this chance, and they intervened.

The Russians wanted to mediate.

I don't know if they came uninvited, or if they were requested by Jiaqing.

The Russian consul said that he did not want to see a war between China and the Qing Dynasty, and hoped that the two sides would maintain peace, and they proposed that the Qing Dynasty would end the war by ceding some land and paying some indemnities.

The Russians also stressed that the war was without warning and that China had no reason to attack a peaceful country.

Yes, this war did not have any call-ups, did not go through Western procedures such as a declaration of war. But China's unification war has never needed this set of procedures, and everyone defaults to the fact that there can only be one emperor in the country, and there is no two days! So the war never ends until one side is eliminated.

With the progress of military operations, the Manchu Qing gradually could not hold on, their Dingkou did have 800,000, their arsenal reserves of weapons are also sufficient, their army can also fight with the Great Zhou army on the frontal battlefield without falling behind, but backwardness must be backward, even if the Eight Banners Army formed according to the model of the firearms unit, it is still the Eight Banners Army, and it cannot become a British army, and it cannot become a French army.

Because the 800,000 Dingkou simply cannot sustain long-term attrition, like their ancestors, once they cannot achieve a short-term military victory, they will immediately enter the crisis of destruction.

The Great Zhou army advanced all the way to the west, along the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, captured Karasar and Wulumuqi in Southern Turgot, and continued to advance towards Ili.

The Russians could not sit still, and seeing that the mediation failed, they began to transfer troops, stationed troops in the Kazakh steppe, and deployed them on the border with the Manchu territory, apparently intending to cross the border to receive the Manchu land once the Manchus were defeated.

Just as the 300,000-strong army marched outside the city of Ili, the Russian army crossed the border, crossed Lake Balkhash and advanced upstream along the Ili River. The Russian consul also informed the Chinese government that it was willing to send troops to help China destroy the Qing Dynasty.

China, for its part, strongly protested and demanded that Russia withdraw from its borders, otherwise it would mean war!

The Russians ignored it, and so the war broke out, and China was still embroiled in the quagmire of the Napoleonic Wars.