After the conquest of the three Central Asian khanates, the last obstacle on the road south to Afghanistan and Persia remained, the Turkmen region. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

From 1877 onwards, Russia launched a full-scale offensive against the Turkmen region, while at the same time waging a large-scale war against the Turkish Ottoman Empire. In September 1879, when the Russian army attacked the important town of Geok Thepe, an important town in the Akhal-Tekin oasis, they were attacked by the heroic Turkmen and fled back. In February 1880, Alexander II convened a council and decided that the whole of Turkmenistan must be conquered, demanding that "we must not retreat a single step, for this would be a sign of weakness for us in Europe and Asia, and would probably cause Russia to suffer incalculable losses greater than in the whole expedition." "Tsarist Russia rushed to repair the military railway from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea to the Akhal-Tekin oasis, so that the Russian army could receive a large number of equipment and supplies.

At the end of 1880, 11,000 Russian troops with 97 artillery pieces invaded Turkmenistan again, and the Turkmen held out for three weeks under the continuous bombardment of Russian heavy artillery. The Russians suffered more than 1,200 casualties before capturing Geok Thepe on January 12, 1881. The Russian army, regardless of men, women and children, frantically slaughtered 8,000 Turkmen who did not have time to evacuate. Then the Russian army continued its offensive and occupied Ashgabat (the capital of Turkmenistan), essentially occupying the entire Turkmen region.

At the beginning of 1884, the Russian army captured the last important town of the Turkmens, Merv, the hub to Iran and Afghanistan. Russian troops continued south along the Murghab River from the city of Merv to the Kushka Valley on the Afghan border.

Seventy miles away from the Kushka valley is Herat, a strategic place between the Caspian Sea, the Amu Darya River and the Indus River, which is already under British control.

The distance between the two sides was only 70 miles, which made the British extremely nervous, and they went north to Afghanistan to block the Russian southward and create a buffer for the Indian colonies.

After fierce negotiations between the two countries, Russia finally compromised, and Russia completely occupied the territory of Cumen, but Kushka became the southernmost point of the Russian Empire, and Russia would no longer be able to go south, nor would it be able to go south smoothly under British interception. In fact, it may not be a bad thing for the British to cede Afghanistan to the Russians, and this imperial cemetery may have buried the Russian Empire earlier. The British, on the other hand, chose to pay a high price to maintain control in Afghanistan and fight against the local tribes again and again.

Russia can no longer go south, so starting from Central Asia, there is only one direction of expansion left, that is, eastward into Xinjiang, just when they meet the weakest Chinese dynasty, what will become of history, even the veteran Zhu Jinglun feels that it is impossible to judge.

But Zhu Jinglun knew that the Ming Dynasty was undoubtedly involved in the process of drastic changes in the world pattern, and the expansion of Tsarist Russia in Xinjiang was beyond the reach of the Ming Dynasty, but Tsarist Russia wanted to go south from Mongolia and break through the geographical restrictions of no ice-free port, and Daming absolutely could not let Tsarist Russia easily achieve its wish.

Because Zhu Jinglun also can't judge how uncontrollable Tsarist Russia will become once it expands to the sea.

In the direction of the Mediterranean, it is obvious that the greatest impact of Tsarist Russia is not Britain, but in the direction of the Indian Ocean, Tsarist Russia is only a British colony, although this colony is very important, but Britain's attitude of repeatedly not hesitating to fight seems to prove that encircling Russia is not only explained by interests.

If it is said that India's digestion of British goods exceeds that of the whole of Europe, which is the core interest that Britain cannot give up, then Britain's encirclement of Tsarist Russia in the Pacific region is difficult for ordinary people to understand, especially incomprehensible is that Britain did not hesitate to form an alliance with Japan in order to block Tsarist Russia from going south, which greatly improved Japan's status, and in the war, sincerely helped Japan win the war against Tsarist Russia.

The British said that it was to prevent Tsarist Russia from going south to infringe on British interests in the Yangtze River, but people who knew a little bit of history knew that Shanghai was the first mouth under the control of foreigners at that time, and although the Yangtze River was a British interest area, the Yangtze River itself was an international waterway in the mouth of foreigners, and this waterway was open to Britain and Tsarist Russia.

Therefore, even if Tsarist Russia does not expand into the Bohai Sea by force, their economic interests can also expand in the Yangtze River valley, so it is difficult to explain Britain's diplomatic behavior in terms of interests, or at least only interests.

In fact, what Britain wants to do is not to let Tsarist Russia get an excellent ice-free port, no matter in which direction, Tsarist Russia cannot get such a port, because as long as Tsarist Russia gets such a port in any direction that is not limited by season, Tsarist Russia can really embrace the sea.

Once this polar bear, which was rampaging on land, suddenly embraced the ocean, what a strong impact he would unleash on the completely open sea was something Britain did not dare to risk experiencing. Britain cannot take the risk of allowing a land power like Tsarist Russia to transform into a maritime power.

So this can explain why Britain tried its best to win over the Ming to fight against Tsarist Russia, even if it helped the Ming to become stronger, it didn't care, because although the Ming also had contradictions with Britain on some issues of interest, the Ming itself was a country that embraced the sea, and it was negotiable. Tsarist Russia's purely expansionist purpose has long lost the trust of all European countries. From the British point of view, it was predictable that the Ming would be slightly stronger, while the entry of Tsarist Russia into the sea was completely unpredictable.

But Zhu Jinglun knows very well that the clumsy performance of the Tsarist Russian nation on the ocean, to be honest, he really thinks that the performance of the Tsarist Russian Navy is not as good as the Beiyang Fleet, at least the Beiyang Fleet was not sunk by Japan in the head-to-head duel at sea, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan died from the coastal defense guns after the Japanese conquered the Weihai fortress, and the Tsarist Russian Navy really gave Japan a record of all-annihilating ironclad ships, and achieved the reputation of Togo Heihachiro as a famous general in the world.

Zhu Jinglun did not dare to guarantee whether history would continue to develop as always, so blocking Tsarist Russia was also the established policy of the Ming Dynasty, at least Zhu Jinglun definitely did not have the clever idea of cutting his own flesh to raze and raze, just to prevent Tsarist Russia from going south to plunder the interests of China, it was enough to prompt him to act.

In other words, Da Ming will eventually end up being a thug for the British to block Tsarist Russia, but Zhu Jinglun is not in a hurry to be a thug for the British right away, he still needs to get enough commissions from the British to be a knife in the hands of the British.

Therefore, in the war in Vietnam, Zhu Jinglun was not in a hurry, Russia had just arrived in the Bohai Bay, and the British fleet was still there to deter, and Russia would not be able to eat the fat of Huludao for a while, so the Ming Dynasty would have enough time to lay out in Vietnam, so that the situation in Vietnam would develop in the direction that was most conducive to the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, it is also necessary to take advantage of the need for Britain to cut as much fat as possible from France, the old hegemon of the weakening European continent.

At least Europe's division of the huge cake of Africa, the last piece of black land on the earth that has not been divided, makes Zhu Jinglun very greedy.

But don't think that everyone is qualified to carve up, Daming did not participate, and it is impossible to be invited to the carve-up conference in Berlin, in fact, it is equivalent to being turned away, and there is no ticket to participate in the carve-up of Africa at all.

According to the provisions of the General Resolution of the African Conference, when the Powers occupy land or establish protectorates on the coast of Africa, they must notify the other signatories of this Agreement so that they may make their own demands if necessary, and at the same time guarantee the establishment of dominion powers sufficient to protect the existing rights and, if necessary, the freedom of trade and transit to comply with the conditions laid down, so that it can be considered an effective occupation and be recognized by other States.

In other words, the colony could only be established if all other countries agreed to it. Obviously, the Western European powers have formed a grand strategic alliance with the interests of Africa as a link. If the Ming Dynasty wants to occupy the colonies, even if the strength is strong enough, as long as all the European countries are not powerful, don't want to get their approval, don't want to successfully occupy the colonies.

This is why, although Russia was a member of the Berlin Conference, had also made substantial expansions in the Ludolf region of Africa, and had planned to penetrate Ethiopia, it had never succeeded in establishing a colony, because all the countries of Western Europe were wary of Russia, and they would rather allow a country of the Italian level to seize Ethiopia than allow Russia to occupy a colony in Africa.

It was also in this way that European countries later formed a grand strategic alliance in the wave of carving up China, which made Li Hongzhang's strategy of destroying and destroying a country a joke, because by dividing the flesh on his body, it was impossible to make the heads of the great powers fight for blood bleed, because people discussed the division of meat.

Da Ming wanted to share the fat of Africa, but he had no chance at all, no qualifications to participate, no tickets to the Berlin Conference.

But the French had the tickets in their hands, and they took the front row early, and they cut a large piece of meat into the Congo River basin, the fattest river basin in Africa.

It was not realistic for the Ming to take the meat directly from the French, because all the hungry wolves in Europe did not want to see new hungry wolves appear.

However, if we can obtain some rights and interests from France, it is not impossible to enter Africa through the platform of France.

At this time, Britain needs to be matched, at least to get Britain's understanding, otherwise even if France agrees, this mouthful of meat, Daming will not be able to swallow it.

As a result, the situation of the Ming-French War became a situation in which the Ming Dynasty adopted passive tactics on the main battlefield, surrounded the French army but did not fight, but sent all the active warships to Africa to compete for interests.

At the end of October, just as the rainy season in Vietnam was coming to an end, the Second Fleet of the Ming Navy launched an attack on the French military base in Madagascar.