The combat effectiveness of the British army is beyond doubt, both the navy and the army are elite enough, but on the Kazakh battlefield, in addition to the early performance, the British army basically played soy sauce in the middle and late stages.

The offensive launched by the Chinese army was mainly aimed at Russia, not because the Russians were easy to fight, but because Russia was deployed in the north, and the Chinese commanders needed to hold back the Russian army. So the British troops on the southern front fought soy sauce, although there were also battles, but most of them were meaningless.

The reason why the British chose to station on the southern front was mainly because the railway was in their hands at the beginning, and the Russian control was more extensive, so it was placed in the north, and the British army insisted on itself as a separate combat unit, so they defended the southern flank. Under the leadership of Wellington, the British army did not blindly avoid war, in fact, they also frequently took the initiative to attack, but the Chinese army took a defensive position against the British army, and Wellington could not help it.

This makes the British army led by Wellington look mediocre in this war, Wellington has no way, although he is a famous general, but he has not fought this kind of war of millions of people, his 500,000 British troops, against the enemy hilly defense line garrisoned by a million troops, it is impossible to achieve any decisive victory, in short, this battlefield is not the stage of Wellington, because this is the vast Kazakh steppe, not the cramped Waterloo village.

Maybe let Wellington command the entire Anglo-Russian army, and the outcome would be different, but the Russians would not let the British command the Russian army, just as it was impossible for the British to let the Russians command the British army.

So the British basically fought soy sauce for more than a year, and everyone ignored the British army, who would have thought that this role of soy sauce would end up playing such a way and running away.

By the time the Chinese army, which had already moved the main forces to the northern front, discovered the movement of the British army, most of the British army had already withdrawn from the defense line on the Turgai River, and judging by the speed of their retreat, they probably began to retreat soon after the Chinese army occupied Orenburg. Now it is no longer realistic to intercept the British army, and not many of the 800,000 second-line troops on the Kazakh hilly defense line can be mobilized.

However, 300,000 troops were still deployed to try to attack the British line, and the British army retreated faster. The Chinese army only made a tentative attack, but as a result, they captured a lot of positions, and decided to hold on to the large number of fortifications built by these British troops. In this way, the Russian army was blocked on the Turgai Plateau, the north is a thousand-mile roundabout encirclement of China's heavy defense, the east is the Kazakh hilly defense line, the south is the Tulgai River, and the only way to retreat is the Ural River in the west. Millions of troops have been mobilized to attack, but now in terms of firepower and troops, the Russians have been absolutely inferior, unable to conquer for a long time, and have suffered heavy losses.

The Northern Front Roundabout Corps now has the vast majority of the Chinese army, but two million troops have been assembled in Orenburg, and three-dimensional fortifications consisting of fortresses, trenches and ramparts have been built around Orenburg, and the Chinese have always been good at repairing fortifications.

The two million troops had to guard against not only the Russian army in Turgay attacking south of the Urals, but also the reinforcements from the north of Russia. And it was not deployed only around the city of Orenburg, but along the Ural River and the Obshi Heights on the northern bank, a defense line of hundreds of miles was established.

The Aubush Plateau, with an altitude of more than 500 meters above sea level, stretches southwest from the branch of the Ural Mountains north of Orenburg to the east bank of the Volga River, and is the watershed of the Ural and Volga rivers in this area, where the Ural River, which flows in a southwesterly direction, is blocked and flows south into the Caspian Sea. The Chinese army fortified along the heights and the Ural River, at a distance of almost four hundred kilometers from Orenburg to the bend. It is becoming less and less likely that the Russians want to pass through this line of defense.

The information that the Chinese army had besieged the 2 million main forces of the Russian army on the Turkige Plateau quickly spread throughout the world. Only then did all the countries become convinced that Russia was really finished.

This end is no less than the blow to Zhao State in the Battle of Qin and Zhao Changping back then. Although Russia only maintained a maximum of 2.5 million troops, this number is the number of troops participating in the front, and in order to maintain this strength on the front line, in fact, the number of young and strong people mobilized is much greater than this number.

In order to maintain 500,000 troops on the front line, the British recruited more than 700,000 soldiers, because there are always casualties on the front line, even if there are no frequent battles, the number of deaths caused by disease is very large, and the non-combat attrition caused by climate reasons also needs to be replenished. According to conservative estimates, the Russians have conscripted at least 3 million soldiers into the army. For a country with a population of less than 40 million, it basically means that all people are soldiers. It can be said that the young and strong who can be used have all joined the army.

And now the main force of this army is surrounded by someone else, which means that a whole generation of young people in Russia is under siege.

How could the Russians not be finished. One of the things that Russia did better than Zhao back then was that they continued to form new troops in the rear to rescue the main force in the encirclement, and did not let Zhao Kuo fend for himself in the encirclement like King Zhao Xiaocheng did.

However, only 1 million people in the newly mobilized army of Russia have combat effectiveness, and the remaining recruits are generally minors, and there is a serious shortage of weapons and ammunition, with an average of only one rifle for three people, and the artillery equipment is even more outdated. With such reinforcements to rescue the main force, it is conceivable that the result will not be too good.

The Russians were wise, and at this time they chose to sue for peace, conveying their sincerity to sue for peace through neutral countries. As long as the Chinese talk sincerely, nothing can be considered now, because an entire generation cannot be killed.

China accepted the negotiations, but put forward a demand that was difficult for Russia to accept, asking the Russian troops in the encirclement to lay down their arms as a condition for negotiations. Letting the main forces lay down their arms is tantamount to self-disarming, and the Russians are not unable to agree, but dare not agree. Convinced that there was no hope of a breakthrough, the Russian army ordered the troops in the encirclement to temporarily stop the needless breakthrough. Instead, with a small force bypassing the enemy's frontal defense line and retreating on its own, it is impossible for the main army to completely withdraw, and there is still hope that some mobile cavalry can be withdrawn. The Russian cavalry is huge, and if all the cavalry can be withdrawn from the lower reaches of the Urals, it can reduce the losses of Russia by two or three hundred thousand people.

The Russians were constantly moving, the Chinese army was not idle, and the retreat of the British was a serious lesson. Let the Chinese commanders know that their encirclement is not yet solid. So the military operation continued, the Russians and the British hoped to break out from the lower reaches of the Urals, and the Chinese army also advanced to the lower reaches of the Urals, this kind of large river, which did not need to be fortified and stuck a few crossings, was enough to block most of the enemy troops.

No one expected that as the news of Russia's defeat spread, the greedy vultures set their sights on Russia's huge carrion.

A chain reaction has emerged.

If the Manchu Qing had entered the war earlier, it was a prediction of Russia's defeat, and the Ottoman Empire suddenly declared war on Russia, citing Russia's persecution of Muslims, and the young Ottoman Sultan Abdul Mejid I, who had gained a firm foothold in the country, issued a holy war edict at home and mobilized.

Of course, they have also communicated with China, and now they are also snatching meat from Chinese bowls to eat. Fortunately, during the war, China had co-opted the Ottoman Empire, promising to allow them to restore the territory of Crimea and cede the Crimean Peninsula to the Ottoman Empire. The Manchu army of one million had entered this area to fight, and the Ottoman Empire did not know about the agreement between the Manchus and China, and he was worried that the Manchus would occupy this place, after all, the Manchus were already the most threatening country to the Ottoman Empire outside of Russia, and they had to guard against it.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet had already been destroyed, and the Ottomans had a sizable fleet that successfully escorted the Ottoman fleet to land on the Crimean Peninsula and then advance towards Sevastopol.

The Ottomans also mobilized a million troops, which pressed on the balance of war, so that the Russian side once again sank a step towards hell, and the defeat was getting closer and closer, and the most optimistic estimate is that as long as the Russians fail to break out of the encirclement or reach a peace agreement before the arrival of this winter, it will be difficult for the main Russian army to survive this winter.

There are more countries staring at Russia, and Austria is becoming more and more unable to hold back. Austria's territory in the Black Sea region is becoming more and more valuable, although the Danube estuary principalities, there are no particularly rich resources, but the agricultural conditions are good, mostly plain terrain, continuous fertile pastures have historically attracted the Slavs of the Volga River valley, through which the Bulgars migrated to the Bulgarian region; After Austria occupied the area, together with the Hungarian plain in the middle and upper reaches of the Danube, it constituted the granary and pasture of Austria. Pastures, in particular, have allowed Austria to develop a large-scale wool textile industry in recent years. Not only was it self-sufficient in grain, but it was also exported to Italy in large quantities, earning Austria a large amount of foreign exchange earnings.

To the east is Ukraine, which is equally fertile and rich in mineral deposits, and it is impossible to say that Austria has no ambitions.

Prussia also did not mind annexing Russian Poland, which had some metal deposits and metallurgical capacity, and Warsaw was one of the largest cities in Central Europe. The region of East Prussia, where Prussia had its origin, seemed to be too close to Russian Poland, and it seemed reasonable to adjust the territory to the east. In addition, the king of Prussia did not forget Finland, which was almost captured last time, and if Finland could be occupied, Prussia would become the undisputed hegemon of the Baltic.

The biggest obstacle to the territorial expansion of the two countries was Britain and France, especially France, which absolutely did not want to see Austria and Prussia become bigger.

If the two countries want to join this gluttonous feast to carve up Russia, they also need to reconcile complex political relations.