The geographical location of Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk is a natural gateway to and from the Urals, and in exchange for any country, these two places form cities.

Both cities are located at the eastern foot of the Urals, but this Ural Mountains have the reputation of the Eurasian dividing line, but they are really sorry for the status of the dividing line, it is like hills. In particular, the area of Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, which is geographically part of the Middle Ura Mountains, stretches from the Hangor River to the south to the Ufa River, with a length of more than 322 kilometers; With the exception of the highest peak, Mount Baseg, which is 994 meters high, the height of the other mountains rarely exceeds 488 meters. All the mountains are flat at the top, with few isolated hill outcrops.

Therefore, this section of the Middle Ural Mountains is like a large exit, and the width of the mountain range is 40 to 150 kilometers at an average height of less than 500 meters, which is really difficult to call dangerous.

Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk are on this mountain, it is said that it is the eastern foothills, but the mountains are several tens of kilometers wide, in fact, they sit in the mountains, and the terrain is flat.

The two cities stand out from the crowd not only because of their flat terrain. The most important thing is water conservancy, and both cities are close to the river. Moreover, there are two rivers on both sides of the city that originate from the Ural Mountains in the east and west, which is very coincidental, one mountain and two rivers, one in the east and one in the west, and a city in the mountains communicates the two rivers. On a map with a slightly lower scale, it is impossible to distinguish between two rivers, and it can be mistaken for a connected river. This means that from Europe upstream, it is possible to access the waterways of Siberia directly from these two cities.

That's why the two cities stand out, he communicates the water systems of Siberia and Europe.

On the east side of Yekaterinburg is the Iset River, which flows from the center of Yekaterinburg and is the city's largest source of water, and finally flows into the Tobol River and eventually into the Ob River. On the west side is the Chusova River, which leads directly to Perm, where it joins the Kama River, which eventually joins the Volga, which directly connects to Moscow. On the east side of Chelyabinsk is the Mias River, which flows into the Iset, and on the west side is the Ufa River and the Ural River, which communicate with the Kama River and the Volga River system, and the Ural River flows directly into the Caspian Sea.

Because of this geographical location, the Chinese army could attack all the way along the river to Moscow. Although not all rivers are navigable, large boats cannot be navigable, small boats and rafts are sufficient, people walk along the river banks, and goods walk on the water, which is not the same as land transportation where people eat and horses are fed.

As long as the supply of goods is guaranteed along the river, provided that it is not harassed by the Russians, Napoleon just did not solve the problem of this partisan, and as a result, he was planted in Russia. Napoleon's bloody example, it is impossible not to learn a lesson, not to mention that Zhou Lang has always been most concerned about logistics, the most important thing in Chinese military science is to put grain and grass first, this first does not mean that grain and grass must go to the front, but a degree of attention, because there are too many examples of failure because of lack of food and grass in history, this point of view is extremely popular, because after the processing of opera and storytelling, the audience of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is very wide, among which Zhuge Liang came out of Qishan six times, which time was not because of the problem of grain and grass and retreated.

Therefore, Zhou Lang asked the army to stop advancing after defeating Ufa and Perm. Use the controlled waterways to raise enough supplies, and wait until enough supplies are concentrated here before advancing, so that the Russians' fortified and clear field tactics will be of little use.

Kutuzov is an old gangster, and the little hooligans who fight on the street know that they should not be led by the rhythm of others, and they must seize the initiative, and Kutuzov certainly knows the reason to take the initiative. As soon as the Chinese army follows its own pace, not striding after the Russian army, but securing supplies before acting, Kutuzov will definitely try to disrupt this rhythm and counterattack.

It is easier to defend than to attack, and holding on to areas that are easy to control is a drain on the living forces of the Russians.

But this is not Zhou Lang's way to fight back against Kutuzov, because this is just not going according to Kutuzov's plan.

Kutuzov probably judged that China was the same as France, and the labor expedition was to strive for a quick victory, but China was different from France, Napoleon hoped to achieve other goals with military action, and this purpose would not purely affect the outcome of the battle, Zhou Lang only cared about winning or losing, because he found that he could not get much benefit from the Russians, and fighting Russia was purely to fight him, so he only looked at victory and defeat, and focused on the military itself when considering military issues.

But the problem is that Russia's weakness has never been military, it is a backward country, politically, economically, and culturally backward, but only one military has never been backward, before Peter the Great's reform, Russia introduced firearms technology, and after the reform, it was actually the methods and ideas of using firearms.

Thanks to the reforms of Peter the Great, the Russians entered the age of firearms even earlier than some Central and Western European countries, such as Poland, which has been fighting with cold weapons thinking, so it was defeated by the more backward Russia.

So it is difficult to defeat Russia directly militarily, but backwardness means weakness. Grasp these weaknesses and you can kill the other person!

In fact, Napoleon had already found this weakness, that is, the biggest death hole in Russia, serfdom!

But Napoleon did not find a solution, and before entering Russia, he carefully studied Russian culture and found that serfdom was the most contradictory problem in Russia. However, Napoleon still did not know enough about Russia, and the materials he could see were all written by the Russian intellectual elite, and he never understood serfdom from the perspective of serfs. And if the Russian elite could solve the problem of serfdom on their own, this problem would not be a problem.

Napoleon's was led astray by the Russian elite, who felt that as long as the serfs were emancipated, he would be able to gain the support of the majority of society in Russia. It is a pity that the ideas of the Russian elite are all referring to Europe, and even directly referring to France itself, France only abolished the remnants of serfdom during the Revolution, by abolishing the feudal obligations of the peasants to the nobility by decree, confiscating the land of the rural communes enclosed by the aristocracy, so that the aristocracy could no longer enslave the serfs through feudal labor, nor could they squeeze the serfs through the land, so that the serfs really became peasants.

Therefore, after Napoleon entered Russia, he sent troops into the Russian villages, constantly posted his proclamation of policy, told the Russians that he wanted to emancipate the serfs, announced the abolition of the privileges of the nobility, and so on.

But the Russians didn't buy it, not because the serfs didn't want emancipation, but because the situation in Russia was somewhat different from that of France, and Russian decrees didn't work. The serfs also did not believe that a foreign emperor could save them by a decree. In Russia, there are two types of legislation, one is Duma legislation, the other is called executive legislation, laws can be discussed in the Duma, but the government also has the right to issue decrees at any time.

In fact, the most important thing is that the Russians could not see the benefits from Napoleon's decrees, people were realistic, the Russians were far less romantic than the French, no French were imaginative, and only a slogan, a promise was needed to make the French rise up and start a revolution, while in Russia, the serfs would only watch from the sidelines. It's like the Chinese of this era, full of distrust of the official, who comes to pay taxes and food, right?

But for Zhou Lang, it's really not!

He didn't need the Russians to pay for food, because he didn't want to establish power in Russia, so he could be like Li Zicheng, loudly proclaiming that King Chuang was coming and not paying food. Don't think that Li Zicheng is popular, he just put forward a slogan, and historical research proves that he really did it. When he plundered prefectures and counties, he never released grain, but never collected grain from the peasants, and his military rations came from torture, plundering landlords in the countryside, rich merchants in the cities, and entering Beijing to torture those Manchu civilians, military and magnates. This left him without the support of the landlord forces, and he was finally defeated.

So if you want the Russian peasants to rise up and support you, or at least stand by and support you, and wave the flag for you, you have to let them get the benefits, not a vain decree.

Zhou Lang plans to do this.

Like Napoleon, he also went to the countryside to abolish serfdom, and then smashed the estates of the local nobles, and distributed the land of the nobles to the serfs. With the development of the capitalist economy, in many developed areas, because grain could be easily sold, the aristocracy even embezzled the peasants' share of land through power, and in some places it even developed to the extent that the peasants' share of land was completely embezzled, and the landlords only provided rations to the peasants, but did not give them a share of the land.

Serfdom in Russia is divided into three types, state serfs, court serfs and landlord serfs, state serfs are serfs subordinate to the state, they provide labor and taxes for the state, court serfs belong to the tsar to provide court supplies for the court, and landlord serfs belong to the landlords, they are the most miserable.

Zhou Lang decided that wherever the Chinese army passed, he would smash all the aristocratic estates, let the serfs divide the land and property, and issue them new title deeds.

None of this is important, the most important thing is to convince them that you can keep them for a long time, so that they can really see hope. The serf revolt in history was not for this, but because the history of Russia was so short, their serf revolts all ended in failure, so the serfs generally did not believe that the solution could be solved by violence.

If they have to see this, then they must continue to occupy the ruling area for a period of time, as long as some people see hope and let some people get benefits, the seeds will sprout.

However, if you want to rule the place for a long time, it is not possible to rely on the army, and it is difficult to communicate even the language, and the foreign army can only be isolated, so Zhou Lang needs the support of the local Russian elite, of course the ordinary elite cannot, most of the Russian nobles and landlords are in favor of serfdom, just like the Chinese landlords support the imperial examination, which is their source of power.

But in any country, in any nation, there are always some outliers, they are opponents of the current system, culture and society, they can be reformers, they can be revolutionaries, they can be anti-thieves, they can be chaotic parties, the key is to see whether they succeed or not.

There were especially many reformers in Russia, and they were all excellently educated aristocratic elites, who opposed slavery not out of personal interest, but because of love for the country and the nation, who were the conscience of society, and who were at risk of being exploited by the enemy.

Zhou Lang found that Speransky was such a person.