Section 441 Principles of long-distance and close-range attacks (2)

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In later generations, because of the common enemy of Europe and the United States, the relationship between China and Russia maintained a long period of harmony, and Zhou Lang once had the idea of forming a close alliance with Russia.

But it turned out that the stronger the Russian nationalism, the more they hated China. Think about it, how good the Chinese are at forgetting hatred, but in the 21st century, there are still a large number of people who believe that Russia has done more harm to China than Japan, and they do not believe in Mao Xiong from the bottom of their hearts.

Time turns, land reparations, these are added from China to Russia. As a result, the Russians began to hate China, and China began to have a perpetrator mentality. Just as Japan in the 21st century is full of distrust of China, and Germany after the Franco-Prussian War has always feared retaliation from France, because they think they have hurt each other. Fear that the other person will inflict this harm on themselves. In the same way, China and Russia have come together because of their common rivals in Europe and the United States, but the people do not trust each other, and the Russians are far more worried about the influx of Chinese than the Europeans and Americans. I always feel that Chinese capital entering Russia is ill-intentioned and colonizing Russia.

China now has this kind of feeling, but this should not affect the judgment of politicians of Zhou Lang's level, and their decisions will only be based on interests.

It is precisely based on the consideration of interests that Zhou Lang will never let go of any opportunity to restrict and weaken Russia. The premise is that if China can control it, a loss of control will give opportunities to Britain and France and other powers, which will harm China's interests.

Under normal circumstances, a large country like Russia, even if it only owns the European part west of the Volga River, is still a very large country, its territory is still the first in Europe, the area of arable land is cultivated according to the Chinese style, it can feed more than hundreds of millions of people, there is no shortage of mineral resources, coal and iron, and no one affects their weakness in entering industrialization.

If their rulers had remained steadfast, even if they carried out partial reforms of serfdom, gradual reforms, and slowly entered industrialization, they would have always been a great power. Speransky's reforms were a little radical, but he was cautious in his foreign policy.

In recent years, China has played a balance between China and Britain, obtained a large number of loans from China and Britain, built a large number of railways, developed a large number of minerals, embezzled land by rich peasants, and a large number of peasants moved to the cities, providing more and cheaper labor than during the period of serfdom, and all kinds of large industries developed.

In fact, under the original serfdom, Tsarist Russia did not reject large industry, in order to encourage industry and commerce, Peter the Great began to allow capitalists to own serfs, and even buy serfs in the whole village. The main reason is that the cost is high, and if a capitalist wants to open a factory, he has to buy it with a village and a serf, which is far less expensive than the cost of exploiting free labor in the European free market.

Therefore, the industry in Russia had always been based on the employment of serfs, rather than the purchase of serfs. The hiring of serfs was not the purchase of labor from the serfs themselves, but from the landlords. The landlords still had ownership of the serfs, and many landlords in the periphery of the cities allowed their serfs to work in the cities, but they collected a rent called servitude rent, which meant that when the serfs went out to work, they had to pay the landlord a compensation that exempted them from servitude.

The capitalists hired free laborers, and only had to pay these free laborers to maintain their living wages, and in the case of serfs, the wages paid not only allowed the serfs to live, but also had to pay an additional amount of exploitation by the landlords, so the cost was relatively high. Therefore, the reform of serfdom, although of progressive significance, was not so morally high, but it was only the struggle of capitalists and landlords for the right to exploit the peasantry, and like all political games, it was the tiger and the lion who fought for the right to hunt sheep. Ironically, many sheep joined in, shedding their blood and dying for it, believing that they were fighting for their own freedom.

The era in which the real peasants and workers fought for themselves was, in fact, the era of the workers' movement, and this was the way in which the real workers fought for their own interests, but it is a pity that the working class itself did not fight for its own strength, had too many shortcomings, and had no experience in domination, which led to the fact that in many countries where the workers' struggles were successful, the workers' lives were not as good as before, and the workers did not become the masters, but the upper echelons of the workers' struggle, transformed into the powerful of the past, and became the new tigers and lions.

Speransky's reforms, which turned serfs into free laborers, so that the capitalist tiger could now enjoy more and cheaper sheep, and industry and commerce grew rapidly.

So the Russians no longer imported cotton cloth from China and England, they imported cotton from the United States, and then spun and weaved their own fabric, and they did not import British wool, but imported wool from Central Asia and made it themselves.

What Russia needs to import is nothing more than a large amount of machinery and equipment, which China and Britain and Europe can provide.

If this process continues to develop slowly, Russia's industrial level will quickly become the first-class in Europe within ten years, perhaps slightly inferior in technology, but it can definitely be compared with France in terms of total volume, surpassing Prussia and Austria and other small countries.

It can be said that the industrialization of Russia has begun the industrial revolution, and the so-called industrial revolution is the industrialization of distance, and it has a profound impact on all aspects of society. In addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg, a large number of small and medium-sized industrial cities are appearing in places with easy access.

But at this time, Russia chose to expand, and chose to take advantage of the good opportunity of the European revolution to recover the land that had been robbed by the European powers.

This is not a strategic mistake, but it will come at an opportunity cost and miss out on a long-term environment for peaceful development.

Therefore, Zhou Lang chose to support Russia, he did not know what specific state Russia's westward expansion would produce, but Zhou Lang knew that Russia's westward expansion would definitely increase the contradictions and conflicts with European countries. Once these contradictions and conflicts accumulate to a certain extent, it will be the end of another Crimean War, and Russia will be weakened again, and this time weakened, they will completely lose the possibility of turning over.

At first, Zhou Lang thought that Russia's ambitions were limited to Russian Poland, so that they would peacefully recover part of Russian Poland from Austria and forcibly recover part of Russian Poland from Prussia, which would increase the contradictions with Prussia. But it will not necessarily lead to war, after all, according to the history of Prussia, they have already established the basis for the unity of the German regions through the Customs Union, and their development in the next thirty years will almost revolve around the theme of nation-state unity.

Poland was not part of the German National Region, so Poland was not his political subject, but the Tsar suddenly wanted Warsaw on a whim. This is interesting, when the two sides do not give in to each other, China and Britain think that there should be one and a half, which is even more amazing.

In the future, there will be a situation in which one is the Russian kingdom of Poland, with Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula as its capital, and the other is Prussian-ruled Poland, with Poland on the west bank of the Vistula as its capital, and two Polish kingdoms, and it does not matter on whose head the title of king is worn, what matters is that each wants to annex the other and become the only Polish state.

The will of the Poles to unify the country and the ambition of Russia and Prussia to compete for hegemony are intertwined, and here it is bound to become a fuse, which sooner or later will detonate the war.

Therefore, the result of Russia's westward expansion was more ideal than Zhou Lang imagined, because the threat created by Russia to itself was greater and more difficult to resolve.

As for setting up a situation for Russia in this way, it is not that Zhou Lang hates Russia so much, but it is really a geopolitical factor, and the land power countries can never get rid of a diplomatic principle of distant friendship and close attack, because you can see and touch distant countries, and you can see and touch your neighbors, and there are still many contradictions, so neighboring countries often cannot get along.

The Qin State used the strategy of distant friendship and close attack, not only to dominate the Warring States, but also to dominate the world; The British creatively invented the continental balance policy, created the era of maritime diplomacy, and dominated the world.

Diplomatic strategy is still very important.

Soon the Tsar received a joint mediation from Britain and China in Warsaw, hoping that Russia would divide Warsaw equally with Prussia. The King of Prussia also received such a request for good offices.

After careful consideration, both countries agreed to this demand, and for the tsar, they already gained a lot more than they lost. On the basis of Russian Poland, he had seized a small part of Prussia and divided Poland three times, and all of them were the best parts, near the Vistula River, where Warsaw was located.

Prussia must have been resentful of having lost the lands that had been partitioned of Poland in 1795. However, due to the situation at home and abroad, they can only choose to give in, they lose their land, they get national hatred and humiliation, and finally they will go to war.

Zhou Lang thought that this was the end of the matter, and the Russians took it when they saw it, recovered slightly more European territory than they had lost, and then quickly restored peace.

But the tsar did not know what to think, he remained in Warsaw.

Warsaw was extremely lively at this time, with various forces running around, and some of the great Polish nobles who had been pro-Russian in the past asked to see the tsar and declare their allegiance. It is not surprising that Poland has a deep historical relationship with Russia, and the Poles are actually closer to the Russians, and the Poles are also a branch of the Slavs, the West Slavs. They belong to two races with the Germans. In addition, Russia participated in the three partitions of Poland, they occupied Poland for a longer time than Prussia, and many Polish nobles received titles and lands from the Russian Tsar, or grew up during the reign of the Russian Tsar. It is not surprising that there are pro-Russian forces in Poland.

Strangely, some Polish political forces that were not part of the territory of Poland partitioned by Russia were also close to the Tsar, such as the separatist forces in the Polish region partitioned by Prussia and the Polish region partitioned by Austria, and they hoped to establish a unified Poland with the help of the Tsar's power.

The demands of the Poles were simple, a united Polish state, and as for whether the monarch of this Polish state was the Russian Tsar, or the Austrian Emperor, they did not care. This shows how strong Poland's thirst for a country was from Napoleon's support to a Polish Grand Duchy, Poland's allegiance to Napoleon until his downfall.

The Prussian revolution was relatively soft, the standing army was large in number, and it was supported by the British, and China was still behind it, so the tsar chose to compromise with Prussia; But Austria was now in a state of disarray, relying on the protection of the Tsar, the Austrians were fighting the Italians while suppressing the Hungarian rebels, and the Russian army was helping to suppress the Hungarians.

It seems that at this time, the Austrian emperor was not qualified to refuse Poland, which was begging for the partition of Austria.

At a time when land was at its fingertips, Russia was never a country capable of restraining itself.