In the face of the impending crisis, Russia found that it could only respond to the war, because Austro-Pu was looking for fault, and unless they made real concessions, they could not stop, and the real concessions could only be the return of Poland and Western Ukraine, which Russia absolutely could not agree.

Fighting a war against Austria, Russia is not afraid, this is not the same as history, although in terms of overall technology, Russia does still have a gap, but take out any military-related indicators, whether it is the length of the railway, mineral development, or iron smelting, machinery, and the most intuitive military industry, in fact, Russia surpasses the two countries, and even the total amount can be compared with the sum of the two countries.

The Russian military industry has a tradition, it has never been the best in Europe, but it has never been the worst in Europe, it has always been able to keep up with the mainstream. In addition, Russia is rich in resources, and it has unique conditions for engaging in metallurgy, and the iron ore in Kolsk and the coal mine in Donbass are enough to compare with the coal and iron resources of Prussia and Austria combined.

The grain production is even more than the two countries combined. Even though thousands of years have passed, in the end, it is still food and weapons that are fought, and the people who eat food and use weapons.

The most important thing is people, and demographically, Russia's fertility rate has always been the highest in Europe, and possibly the highest in the world, at least in the 18th and 19th centuries. Despite the wars and upheavals over the years, Russia's population has stumbled from less than 40 million during the Napoleonic Wars to 50 million. Historically, their population during this period was even close to 60 million, because of these wars they had 10 million fewer people than in history, but the main ones who were eliminated were the old and weak, and now among these 50 million people, the proportion of strong people is larger, and the reserve soldiers are more sufficient. The tsar also found that the kulaks, having replaced the aristocracy as the managers of rural society, were no less able to mobilize than before.

The German nation at this time combined, at best, was at the level of 50 million people, and it was still fragmented and scattered among dozens of countries, counting Prussia and Austria alone, Austria had a population of less than 30 million, and Prussia was not even 20 million, and the total population was not comparable to that of Russia.

Russia is not short of food, nor of weapons, nor of men, and of course he has no shortage of railways to transport food and weapons to endurance.

The only thing they are worried about is China, and Russia has an overwhelming advantage over Austria in some hard power, but at the same time, it is an overwhelming disadvantage in the face of China. Therefore, when it saw that Prussia and Austria began to stir up national sentiment within the German Confederation, Russia realized that war was inevitable and began to do diplomatic work with China as soon as possible.

Zhukovsky led a team to visit China, played the friendship card, and raised the issue of marriage between the two countries. The Russians wanted to marry one of the Chinese emperors to Alexander's sister, Grand Duke Olga Nikolaevna, and they hoped to marry one of the crown prince's sons.

If it weren't for the revolution of 1845, Olga would have married the prince of Württemberg in 1846, and the revolution affected a lot of things, followed by war, and then strained international relations. So the Russians remembered to marry, and apart from marriage, they really couldn't think of any reason to get closer to China in a short time.

But they will only marry their daughters, and they don't consider marrying Chinese princesses, firstly, because the Tsar's son is still very young, and secondly, it is possible for Chinese blood to enter the Russian royal family, and they can allow Alexander to have six successive generations of Russian Tsars of German descent, but they are unwilling to accept that the next Tsar may be of Chinese descent.

Not only because of racial prejudice, the reason why the Russian tsar married with the German aristocracy, such as Alexander's mother was a princess of Prussia, mainly because the German states were generally weak, this kind of marriage was the tradition of the European aristocracy, and the marriage with a small country would not allow the small country to dare Russian politics through marriage, but China is not necessarily, if a prince of Chinese descent appears in the Russian royal family, once there is a dispute over the succession to the throne, China has the ability to support the prince of Chinese descent to inherit the throne. After that, Russia would have to be under the influence of China for a long time.

Why do you want a Russian princess to marry the son of the crown prince, the main reason is that the Russians feel that the prince of China is too worthless, unlike the situation where male heirs are often extinct in European countries, the number of princes in China is too exaggerated, Zhou Lang is still fertile, and two princes were born last year. And Zhou Lang's adult princes are even more reluctant to let the style of their fathers, and now the male members of the Chinese royal family have more than 30 princes and more than 100 emperors.

The crown prince had three sons, two of whom were adults, one of whom was also ten years old, and six daughters, all of whom had reached the age of majority. The crown prince is destined to inherit the throne, as the son of the crown prince, he still has some influence on the future of China, if it is an ordinary prince, or the son of an ordinary prince, it is almost impossible to have any influence and action. So the second must also be the son of the crown prince, of course, the concubine they do not have luxury, because the Chinese are also unlikely to accept the appearance of an emperor of Russian origin, but the second son can also be considered.

The idea put forward by Russia had been communicated through the consul before, but I did not expect that China was also very interested, so there was Zhukovsky's high-profile visit to China, otherwise he, the prime minister, would never have left Russia at the tense moment when war was about to break out.

Almost as soon as Zhukovsky left Moscow, the Prussians and Austria were authorized by the German Confederation to issue an ultimatum to Russia.

Then Zhukovsky went to China and quickly made public the news of the marriage between the two countries to the Chinese royal family, and the situation became complicated for a while.

Prussia and Austria are a little dumbfounded, whether it is Prussia or Austria, they have carried out a lot of activities in China before, and they have all been given that China will maintain a neutral attitude, especially Prussia, although it is not as active as Austria, but it has made a substantive move, that is, it has signed an agreement with China on the right of free transit, no one expected that China, which has always claimed neutrality, will marry Russia in the blink of an eye, and their ultimatum has been issued, and now it is difficult to ride a tiger.

The consuls of the two countries immediately came to the door to inquire about China's attitude, and the Chinese Imperial Court continued to express its neutrality, declaring that the marriage would in no way affect China's attitude towards the war in Europe.

Russia and China entered into a marriage, and their confidence hardened, and Russia rejected Austria's ultimatum, and then Austria and Austria could only declare war on Russia on behalf of the German Confederation.

By this time, it was the spring of 1848, eight years after the last war, and a war of great scale had once again broken out on the land of Eastern Europe.

But even though he knew that the war had broken out, Zhukovsky remained in China, and he wanted to witness the completion of the wedding, and at the same time he wanted to continue to discuss with China the issue of the outstanding territorial dispute between the two countries. He never wanted to leave any hidden danger of Chinese interference in this war.

Due to the situation, the wedding was held quickly, and according to Chinese tradition, the nearest auspicious day was chosen.

The crown prince rushed back from India, and his son's wedding, he must witness. And when he comes back this time, he won't be going back.

The crown prince had frequent contact with Russian diplomats and royal nobles, and constantly expressed his love for his second son, Zhou Chun, saying that this was his most intelligent son, who was excellent in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and a well-known poet. After the marriage of the emperor and grandson, the husband and wife will receive the throne of one country, which is the kingdom of Assam, which he ruled in South Asia for ten years.

The crown prince boasted to the Russians about the richness of Assam, where there were thousands of kilometers of great river plains, endless fertile farmland, and a warm climate with good weather and good weather. Even in the mountains, tea can be grown. The river is navigable and directly adjacent to the rich Bengal, making it ideal for development.

In the past ten years, the crown prince has carried out large-scale development of the area, and the population has rapidly swelled from about 2 million in the past to 8 million, the vast majority of which has grown by immigration. There are hundreds of different tribes in the area, so they have always been backward and unable to unite against their strong neighbors. The most recent period of independence was also the establishment of the kingdom of Ahama by the conquest of other tribes by the past Dai tribes from China and Burma.

It was not until the eighties of the 18th century, on the eve of the French Revolution, that the kingdom of Ahama began to decline. The local Hindu Vaishnavia Mohanta revolt and weakened the power of the Ahuma rulers. The Burmese seized the opportunity to invade Assam from the eastern border, slaughtering large numbers of Dai people, and then began a precarious colonial rule here.

The crown prince inherited such a mess, militarily the local tribes have little ability to resist, they can't even resist the Burmese, let alone pretend. But the endless rebellions were always a problem, and the crown prince pursued a policy of arranging households and people, and how to manage the Indians in the Americas, how to manage the local tribes here. The compulsory household registration will definitely cause resistance, but after the household formation, it can play a role once and for all, and the vast majority of the Indians in the Americas can live in peace, not to mention the people with a relatively high level of education who have received the baptism of Hinduism.

Coupled with the ensuing Han Chinese immigration, and the new agricultural and handicraft technologies brought with it, and the improved transportation, the economy here grew rapidly, and the characteristics of the Assam region suitable for the cultivation of black tea were also discovered by the agricultural experts in the crown prince's team, and a large number of tea was introduced here, and the tribal peoples who chose to live or were driven up the mountains in history quickly accepted the cultivation of tea and began to make steady profits from it.

The stable order provides the conditions for economic growth, technology and the introduction of new crops promote economic growth, economic growth in turn stabilizes the social order, everything is developing benignly, it can be said that the unique climatic conditions have made this a relatively rich region, the crown prince did not brag on this point, at least the living standards of the people here are better than the vast majority of European countries, and of course better than Russia.

As soon as they heard that the Russian princess married into China, it was not the situation that they imagined that they could only become a dispensable imperial concubine and get nothing but a title, but they could immediately own a country, and the Russian nobles were quite happy, especially the relatives and friends of the tsar.

On the other hand, Zhukovsky also succeeded in reaching some understanding with China on the territorial issue through the crown prince, and China has loosened its grip on withdrawing troops from the west bank of the Volga. It is possible that a new treaty will be signed in which Russia will recognize China's sovereignty over Siberia and the lower reaches of the Volga and Don rivers, but will reach a settlement while retaining the disputes in the Urals.

As a gesture of goodwill, China will release nearly a million Russian prisoners in China, including more than 200,000 nobles.

These million Russian prisoners, who had been building railways in China for eight years, and the vast majority of them were still in the prime of life, and it seemed that the best way out for these people who had maintained organizational discipline and had been out of social relations in Russia for eight years was to join the Russian army that was mobilizing and then go to the front to fight against Austria.

The goodwill shown by China excited the Russian team, and the diplomatic benefits of the marriage were much greater than they had anticipated.

But this once again caused Pu Austria to be nervous, and even Britain began to get nervous.