The goodwill of the Chinese gave Zhukovsky unrealistic illusions, he was a humanist, full of respect and new to human nature, to put it bluntly, a naïve idealist.

This man is not really suitable to be a ruthless politician, he is more suitable to be a sentimental poet, a philosopher, and if he had been born in China, he would have become a compassionate civil official.

But it's a pity that he was born in Russia, where the political environment is dangerous, and he was put on the hot chair of the Russian prime minister.

He saw that China was friendly, and he thought of the Russian translations of the Chinese Confucian classics he had read, and he really had some belief that the people who ruled the country were people of high morals.

He became more confident in resolving the Sino-Russian problem, and he immediately proposed that China would withdraw its troops on the west bank of the Volga River. At least part of it can be withdrawn before negotiations are reached.

Chinese In order to show its expectation and sincerity for the signing of the agreement, China announced that it would withdraw the Kazan army, which posed the greatest threat to Russian Moscow, and return the city of Kazan, which had been occupied for eight years, to Russia. Kazan is connected to Moscow by water, and for security reasons, Russia has not even built a railway from Moscow to Kazan, which is not technically difficult.

Tsaritsyn, the hub of the Volga, was also returned to Russia, which was an important transportation hub for Russia to the Black Sea, where the products of the Russian Volga River basin were collected and distributed to the sea through the railway route Rostov, or by land of less than 100 miles, to the Don River.

But China retained Saratov, a city located on the highlands along the Volga, which was mainly located on the west bank of the Volga, parallel to the Volga, or the Volga was forced to flow along the edge of the highlands, the highlands or hills, with a height of three or five hundred meters, and Saratov was located in a hilly pass, which was the only way to the Don Plain, and the main reason and justification for occupying this place was that the Chinese railways crossed the river from here, without bridges, but by ferries. But it was promised to Russia that once an agreement of understanding on territory between the two countries was reached, Saratov would also be handed over to Russia. The Russians were convinced of this, and in their opinion, the more important Kazan and Tsaritsyn (Volgograd) could be returned, and there was no reason for Saratov to occupy it all the time.

They are satisfied with China's sincerity.

Of course, China appreciates the tsar's willingness to abandon Siberia and the lower Volga region, but the Ural region cannot be regarded as a disputed area, because disputes will lead to conflicts, and China hopes that the problems of the Ural region will be resolved once and for all, so as not to leave hidden dangers in the relations between the two countries.

China's suggestion was that if the Tsar had political difficulties with ceding the Ural region, it could also be bought by other means, such as selling its sovereignty, which China was willing to buy by giving up Russia's unpaid war reparations.

The Russians, on the other hand, said that the sale of their own territory could cause even greater criticism. The Russians suggested that in the Urals, a neutral zone or buffer state should be established, which would be under the joint protection of China and Russia, after all, the main inhabitants of this region are Chinese and Russians, which is reasonable. Both sides can send governors to rule over two major clans at the same time, or they can choose a nobleman to rule here, with guarantees and special powers.

Zhukovsky even naively thought that the two countries married Zhou Chun and his wife were the most suitable candidates for the royal family, and that they might as well let the prince and grandson come to rule here, and at the same time be crowned and rule the Chinese and Russians here. Of course, their newly-acquired throne of Assam remains.

The Chinese believe that it is administratively inconvenient for the couple to manage two countries thousands of miles apart. But it was also willing to consider Russia's proposal to create a buffer state, but it would have to be sent by China, which China believed was not controversial and that the two governments had already reached an agreement, but it was not determined because of the tsar. China enjoys completely independent jurisdiction here.

The negotiations could not be agreed in a short time, and the civil war had already begun, Zhukovsky asked someone else to take his place in the negotiations, and he himself quickly returned home, the Russian army had already left for the front, and the battle had already begun. Moreover, the situation of the war turned against Russia, and the Prussian army moved rapidly, and a week after the start of the war crossed the Vistula River and surrounded Warsaw. The Austrian army, on the other hand, attacked mainly from the south, and they entered Ukraine from the Black Sea coast.

At the same time, the Ottomans suddenly announced that they had formed an alliance with Austria and declared war on Russia. The Ottoman army attacked from the Crimean peninsula and marched along the Dnieper. The Ottoman Navy, in conjunction with the Austrian Navy, launched an attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the direction of the Black Sea.

The war is in full swing.

Although the situation seems to be passive, the main reason is that Russia's territory is too large, and mobilization has never been Russia's forte, and the Russians did not see the actions of the early empire as an unfavorable situation, but stepped up the mobilization of the army, and the 300,000 standing army of Russia before the war was obviously not enough to cope with this war.

The Tsar's General Staff believed that at least a million or more troops should be mobilized to become an active force that did not need to be mobilized from the Middle Ages. Not only are they of the right age, but they have also been formed units in the past, and although they have been captured in the war, most of them have experienced several years of war, and they have a lot of combat experience, and the officers and soldiers are even ready-made, and they can take up arms and fight.

Therefore, the prisoners repatriated from China were quickly armed and rushed to the front. These poor people, who had just been freed from hard labor, went to hell again.

The prisoners were mainly sent to the southern front to fight against the Ottoman and Austrian armies, and the Russian tactics were to concentrate the main forces to defeat the relatively weak Ottoman Empire and Austria, and then concentrate the main forces to fight the stubborn Prussia.

An important reason for this decision was that the Russian navy had an overwhelming advantage in the Black Sea, winning a complete victory against the combined Ottoman and Austrian navies, essentially annihilating the fleets of both countries.

In the last war, Russia's Black Sea Fleet was basically wiped out, but then Russia quickly rebuilt its navy, and they used the latest technology to form a fleet of eight 5,000 to 6,000-ton ironclad ships in the Black Sea, and the Russian naval fleet in the Baltic Sea was as many as 20 ironclad ships, second only to Britain and France in terms of scale alone.

Having gained supremacy in the Black Sea, the Russians believed that, in conjunction with their land forces, they would be able to launch a counteroffensive into the enemy's territory. On the one hand, they had to deal with the Ottoman army on the Crimean peninsula first, on the other hand, they would march to the lower Danube, and even finally to the Balkans, which they had long been familiar with, and how many times they had fought with the Ottoman Empire in history, it is not surprising that Russia will win again.

There were no big surprises, but the Russian army was unable to break through the Crimean defense line of the Ottoman army for a while, but it successfully drove the Austrian army out of Ukraine, and the front advanced to the territory of the principality of Moldova. On the Polish front, the Battle of Warsaw with the Prussian army was still going on, both sides continued to strengthen their forces, the Prussian army encircled Warsaw has reached 400,000 troops, and the Russian army reinforced Poland with only 300,000 troops, and the siege of Warsaw could not be relieved for a while, but Prussia could not break Warsaw in the short term.

Like China, the British remained neutral, but their attitudes gradually changed. They felt that Russia seemed to have the support of China, and that the marriage, the release of prisoners, and the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories showed that the relationship between Russia and China did not seem to be so simple. In an era of clandestine diplomacy, Britain could not help but wonder what secret agreements had been reached between the two countries.

Britain can't help but think of the sorties that preceded the Tsarist coup, when China also expressed support for Russia in many ways, and finally the Tsar annexed half of Poland and snatched Austrian Poland and Western Ukraine from Austria. It has always been strange that the diplomatic community judged that the Chinese emperor had been fooled by the Tsar, but that he did not take retaliatory measures at the same time.

British diplomats, although there are no geniuses, but most of them are very qualified professionals, they have long sensed the strangeness, if once in a while, it can be explained by Russia's strategic deception, but twice it is not easy to explain, as for the question of marriage, if China does not want to support Russia in this war, he simply cannot accept marriage at this moment.

Britain could not find any reasonable reason for China to support Russia, and there was only one reason, that is, China wanted to see Russia strong, even though it was not in the fundamental interests of the Chinese. But if a strong Russia expands to the west, China will suffer the least damage. The British believed that they believed in their judgment that China's strategy was to push Russia westward and expand in the direction of Western Europe, so as to defuse Russian pressure to the east.

According to this judgment, Britain felt that the risk was very high, and for Britain, the biggest risk on the European continent was the emergence of an absolute power, whether it was France or Russia, which would pose a threat to Britain. Even in the context of global hegemony with China, the great powers on the European continent will always be the most threatening force to Britain itself, and it is necessary to contain them.

Russia gradually gained an advantage in the direction of Ukraine, the size of the Austrian army is not small, but there is a big gap compared with Russia, and the Austrian army with a chaotic national composition has always had a situation where the will to fight is not firm enough and the command is relatively chaotic, even if this is a national war, it can only stimulate the will of the German soldiers in the Austrian army, and the soldiers of other ethnic groups are weakened, they will think that this is a war between the German nation and the Slavic nation, and the Austrian army, In particular, there were a large number of Slavic soldiers in the garrisons along the Danube.

The British judged that Austria was likely to be defeated, and as for the Ottoman Empire, the British judged that there was basically no chance of victory. Once the southern front is defeated, Prussia in the north will definitely be unable to support itself, and it will be impossible to compete with the powerful Russia alone by relying on a single Prussia.

Britain gradually began to support the Austrian side, this support of course could not be to enter the war, or even send a navy to blockade the Russian coast, all that could be done was to provide some financial help, because of the strict neutrality, Britain did not give Austria military aid, but Britain could help Austria finance.

War is about money and food, especially this kind of national war with millions at every turn, in a short period of time, countries can still rely on their own financial support, once the time is delayed, it will inevitably need a large amount of financing, this kind of war by financing, has appeared in Europe for hundreds of years, and in the end the richer side wins.

As a result, the British government began to acquiesce to the issuance of bonds by Prussia and Austria on the London market, while Russia's demand for borrowing was rejected.