Feng Yunshan listened to Zuo Zongtang's judgment and nodded, indeed, although Prussia has developed vigorously over the years, its foundation is too thin, although the army has developed relatively strong recently, the navy is very weak, and the overall economic strength of the whole country cannot be compared with Britain, France and other countries, which is a restriction on the army.

It's just that the interest group that dominated the Prussian kingdom, including the Junker officer aristocracy that later became the German Empire, were all extremely ambitious guys, and Feng Yunshan fully understood that they had made such a move to attack Tsarist Russia. But today, even if Prussia could defeat its opponents in the Franco-Prussian War with the French Empire, as it did historically, it would not be able to defeat the combined forces of France and Britain, let alone Tsarist Russia, Denmark and other enemies.

As for the Austrian Empire, Feng Yunshan, who is familiar with history, is not too optimistic.

Therefore, Feng Yunshan said to Fan Ruzeng: "Fan Aiqing, let the people of your secret service department in Europe make every effort to inquire and collect news during this time, and I must completely grasp all the movements of European countries." After speaking, he said to Zuo Zongtang: "What Zuo Aiqing said is very reasonable. I also believed that the Kingdom of Prussia was no match for Britain and France. However, in the current situation in Europe, Britain and France have united to interfere in Prussia's attack on Tsarist Russia, and France is still ambitious to occupy more territory, it depends on whether Prussia can resist it. If it can't resist, it will definitely withdraw the army attacking Tsarist Russia and admit defeat, in this case, Tsarist Russia will be relieved. And the Kingdom of Prussia will also suffer a huge blow, and our interests in Europe will be seriously damaged. Therefore, we must find a way to aid Prussia, but after all, it is Europe, it is too far away from the Empire, and there is no fundamental interest in territory, so it can only be ordinary aid, and it is impossible to really send the Imperial army to fight and die needlessly.

The most fundamental is one thing, the first is to try everything possible to weaken Tsarist Russia, and the second is to mess up Europe! Only in this way is it in the best interests of our Chinese empire! ”

Zuo Zongtang naturally listened to the emperor's opinion, he knew what the emperor meant, and suggested: "Your Majesty, since this is the case, then we will provide some funds and weapons to support." ”

A few days later, Feng Yunshan received a report from Foreign Minister Wu Ruxiao that Guo Songtao, the special envoy to Europe, had returned from the West, and he hurriedly summoned Guo Songtao.

Guo Songtao was ordered by Feng Yunshan to come back to the post of Minister of Commerce some time ago, and his original special envoy to Europe was handed over to Zeng Jize to take over.

Guo Songtao took the train from Guangzhou, arrived in Shengjing as fast as possible, and rushed to Feng Yunshan to inform him of the news he had brought back from Europe.

Not knowing what conditions France offered, the Austrian Empire renounced its alliance with Prussia and remained neutral. This put Prussia in a difficult situation, and it seemed that there was no other way out than to admit defeat and surrender to Britain and France.

France dispatched 200,000 French troops with a total of 7 corps of the Rhine Army as the main force to attack in two routes, attacking the Rhine region and Württemberg respectively; A fleet of more than 20 capital warships sent by Britain also broke into the waters of Jutland, and together with the 50,000 Danish army of Yang Fulu, directly landed on Jutland and attacked the Kingdom of Prussia; However, the Russian army repeatedly shrank its forces, retreated into the hinterland of Moscow, and came into contact with the main forces of the 150,000 Prussian army that were attacking; The 100,000 troops of the Austrian Empire were all withdrawn to the area west of the Dnieper, and the troops were no longer aimed at Moscow in the direction of Tsarist Russia, but instead deployed in the area northwest of Kiev, eyeing Minsk and Poland, which Prussia had already occupied, and it was clear that Austria and Tsarist Russia had reached some kind of agreement.

The most ridiculous thing is that the Commonwealth of America, which is in a remote corner, actually sent a fleet of warships to escort merchant ships, and transported 8,000 troops from Boston across the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe to attack Iceland and Greenland, which the Kingdom of Prussia had seized from Denmark not long ago. Apparently, it was intended to be a base for Nuuk, which had taken advantage of the chaos to occupy Iceland and Greenland, and to establish the Commonwealth of America as a springboard for entering Europe in the future.

For the Kingdom of Prussia, the situation was very aggravated, and there were enemies on all sides.

But Prussia also exceeded the expectations of all countries, and according to the latest news and intelligence brought back by Guo Songtao, Prussia's military strength was far more than everyone estimated.

Guo Songtao revealed that the total strength of France's army is about 500,000, and the number of troops that can be mobilized for combat is about 350,000, and most of the rest are land garrisons, which are difficult to mobilize for a while.

On the Prussian side, what surprised everyone was that in addition to the 150,000 troops who went on an expedition to Tsarist Russia in the northeast, while being attacked by the French and Danish armies, Prussia in the north immediately mobilized 80,000 troops into Jutland to meet the Danish army, and in the southwest on the Rhine River and Hesse in Frankfurt, Prussia also quickly mobilized three corps with a total of 320,000 troops, in addition, Prussia even sent an army of 50,000 people from Saxony to Bohemia to reinforce the Prague area, Make a precaution against the reconquest of Bohemia by Austria, which has been neutral.

In this way, Prussia alone has now deployed more than 600,000 troops. Guo Songtao, who has been in Europe for many years and is very familiar with Prussia, estimates that the entire German Confederation, headed by the Kingdom of Prussia, has an army of nearly one million. Even, because the Kingdom of Prussia implemented a universal conscription system, many men in the prime of life who had not served in the military had served in the military, and if the men of the whole country were mobilized, the formation of a force of more than 1 million, reaching 1.3 million or even 1.5 million, and now the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Confederation led by him are the most powerful in Western Europe.

The only thing lacking was that Prussia's economy was far from being as strong as the army it had shown, and the war dragged on for a long time and consumed a lot, and it was likely that Prussia would not be able to bear it. Therefore, according to Guo Songtao's intelligence, Feng Yunshan guessed that the reason why Prussia did not withdraw its army to attack Tsarist Russia was to occupy the territory of Tsarist Russia as much as possible in order to expand the strategic space, and even to make up for the consumption of the war by capturing the resources and wealth of Tsarist Russia.

But now, Feng Yunshan felt that it was better for the Chinese Empire to stay on the sidelines.

However, half a month later, Feng Yunshan's idea was changed by the news of the war from Europe.

Nowadays, the news from Europe to Shengjing of the Chinese Empire is transited through the telegram from Istanbul to the port of Aden, from the sea to Xingapur by speedboat, and then changed to a telegram directly to Shengjing, although it is already considered very fast, but it still takes more than half a month.

The 180,000 troops of the Prussian First and Third Army Corps and the 70,000 troops of the French Combined Army of the Rhine Army met head-on in the area between Lorraine and Saarland, and the Battle of Lothar took place, and finally the Metz Army suffered a heavy defeat, losing nearly 40,000 troops, and less than 30,000 men returned to Lorraine bypassing Luxembourg.

The Prussian Second Army of 140,000 men and another part of the French Combined Rhine Corps, the Charon Corps, a total of 120,000 people, were preparing for a decisive battle in Alsace, but at this time the news of the defeat of the Matz Corps had spread, and Paris ordered the Charon Corps to abandon the tactics of a frontal decisive battle and retreat to the northwest instead, joining the Royal Guards and the 6th Army led by the French Emperor Napoleon III in Metz, a total of 50,000 people.