The sun is shining and the breeze is warm.

"Driving ......"

A long motorion of heavy wagons drove into the fortress of Novokuznetsk, north of Jaisampo. The city, which has been built for more than 100 years, seems to have gone through a complete cycle, from a military fortress to an ordinary city, and then from an ordinary inland city to a military fortress again.

The Russians spared no expense to turn a wooden city into a concrete fortress, and they adopted the invention of the British engineer J. Smitton, and fired a large amount of hydraulic lime at any cost, which can be regarded as the original version of modern cement in Europe, which is not much different from the cement used by Chen Han on a large scale. After more than three years of construction, the fortressification of Novokuznetsk was completed.

Now the Novokuznetsk fortress has become a barrier for the Russian army on the northwest battlefield to prevent the Chen-Han Defense Army from attacking the Western Siberian Plain. It is located in the southern part of the Kuznetsk Basin, at the confluence of the Tom River with its tributaries, the Abba and Kondoma rivers. Roughly located between the Ob and Yenisei rivers, it is one of the key Russian positions on the West Siberian Plain. As far as the whole war situation is concerned, the city can play a strategic role in the hands of the Russians for a day.

Billowing black smoke and white water vapor dispersed, and the vicinity of Novokuznetsk was rich in coal and iron resources. Over the years, the Russians have also built a medium-sized ironworks and a small arsenal here. There aren't many guns made here, but it's important to be able to repair broken guns and equipment here.

Therefore, black smoke and white fog have become the hallmarks of this fortress.

Before the convoy had come to a stop, the overseer, armed with sticks and whips, shouted at the coolies who were lying on the ground basking in the sun, shouting and whipping with the clubs and whips in their hands.

"Stupid pigs, you stupid pigs, get up for me! Unloaded! "The lead supervisor is a middle-aged fat man who is more than 1.8 meters long. He waved the whip in his hand, scaring the overseer, his red rosacea so harsh.

There was a commotion. The coolies all stood up, their sleeves rolled up and waited at the parking area. Few of these people were Slavs at all, all of them were Tatars, Kazakhs, or Poles sent from Eastern Europe, while the overseers were almost all Slavs, and the few outliers were Russified Poles.

Heavy carriages stopped in the field, and some coolies cooperated with the coachmen to unload the horses, and the heavy horses were sweating all over their bodies, and their fur seemed to be covered with a layer of crystal in the sun.

The stuffy jar-like wagons were opened, and more coolies were removed from them in droves.

In recent years, Russia has also stepped up the construction of transportation in Siberia, especially in the flat West Siberian Plain, waterways, and land routes.

The materials of the Russian army are the same as the military supplies of the Chen Han National Defense Army, which requires countless vehicles and horses, and ants to move to the front line.

Their transportation conditions may not be as good as those of Chen Han, but Russia also has an advantage that Chen Han does not have—heavy horses.

One by one, the horses were pulled out of the noose and pulled into the ring, panting for breath while keeping their heads down and drinking water, or gulping down grass and black beans. And the long dragon composed of countless heavy carriages was also paralyzed in the field like a dead snake at this moment.

The closed carriage was opened one by one, and it was filled with bundles of coats, bedding, shoes and hats, and boxes and boxes of muskets, grenades, rockets, sabers, cuirasses, and barrels of gunpowder. However, in some carriages, there was also a 'national curse' full of Russian flavor:

“Сука，блядь，чтотытампиздишь?……”

“Хуйсним，япош?л，нихуйянебудуделать.……”

"Dog,, what are you doing there?" It's the right thing to do to get out of here.

"their genitals, I'm leaving, don't do anything else......"

One by one, Russian soldiers dressed in dark green lined red soldiers' coats jumped out of the carriages in a hurry. Each of them wore a new tall hat with a thick and thick feather ornament. The collar and cuffs are bright red, and the red epaulettes indicate their seniority, so the military uniform was a new type of military uniform that the Russian Empire began to replace only two years ago, but it has not yet been fully popularized in the army.

In today's Tsarist Russian army, the troops that can all change into new military uniforms are either the Janissaries of St. Petersburg or the real elite troops. For example, the team in front of you is the well-known veteran elite Moskgrenadier Regiment. In his hand was not a low-quality Tula musket, but a brown bass flintlock pistol from England.

This time, each of them came with a leather backpack, which is a cylindrical bag. Each soldier was also equipped with a saber, a brass handle saber, a dark brown leather scabbard. The ammunition pack is adorned with a bronze metal plaque of a Russian double-headed eagle, and the Moscow Grenadier Corps has a grenade on every corner of the ammunition cover. Then there is the water bottle in one hand, the water bottle is usually fixed to the backpack for easy carrying, and the bottle cap also serves as a water cup.

This kind of military uniform, especially the military uniform of the officers, is very gorgeous. Embroidery threads, trim and brightly colored decorations were the three magic weapons that European officers could not do without in this era.

The coolies were surprised to find that not all of the stuffy jar wagons were filled with ordinary goods, but also some of the tall Russian soldiers.

The coolies of Zhiqu were immediately silent, and without being reminded, everyone dodged to the side, bowed their heads and did their work.

Only when the busyness is over, and when it is time to eat, they bite each other's ears with interest and talk.

It turns out that Novokuznetsk is not a supporting role in this big war, but a protagonist. There are so many elite soldiers......

The army that arrived today was about the size of a battalion, so the defenders of Novokuznetsk were almost three thousand men. But this is not the final number from time to time, and there are trains below......

While the laborers were busy, the soldiers in the carriages had already jumped off the train and lined up on the platform. Unbeknownst to them, all this was being watched by a Polish overseer.

Overseers have a much higher status than laborers, and they can get a lot of information that workers don't have access to. The laborers muttered only superficial things, and when it came time to eat, the news that was circulating from the mouths of the overseers was truly valuable.

This army packed in stuffy cans is the old elite of the Russian army - the Moscow Grenadier Regiment, which is only a little ahead, the large army is still behind, and the Russian army plans to transport ten full battalions of troops to the fortress of Novokuznetsk, when the total strength of the fortress will reach 10,000. These 10,000 people will be organized into a new Siberian Army, well, this army will have only one Siberian division. Obviously, the Russian army is not just going to play a defensive war in Novokuznetsk, they also want to attack, but also want to counterattack.

Moving south from Novokuznetsk, they can threaten Jaisangpo and take care of the Tangnu-Ulianghai region.

"So, the maximum number of troops projected by the Russians is only 10,000?"

"There aren't too many troops. But those people seem to be the elite of the Russians, and they are very fierce. The army is neat and well-equipped. A British gun in his hand. ”

"The ammunition boxes are quite heavy, but it doesn't feel like there's a lot of weight in them, but they're big."

On the battlefield in the northeast, the Russians' rockets have already tasted by Chen Han; On the northwest battlefield, the 30,000 people led by Wei Xiuzhi also fought with the Russian army several times, and also tasted the taste of Russian rockets. That's really a lot of power.

……

There were so many people inside and outside the Novokuznetsk fortress, and they didn't notice that in a certain inconspicuous restaurant, several people unconsciously got together, muttered for a while, and then unconsciously dispersed.

Chen Ming continued to advance to the northwest, and his goal was Ili, where he could directly command the entire northwest. Along the way, he also met with indigenous representatives along the way and allowed officials to meet with them. This was a decision he made when he set off from Nanjing.

Finally, when Chen Ming arrived in Yili, the time had already reached July. It has been three or four months since the war in the Northwest began.

The war between us and the enemy did not go very smoothly, because no matter how many troops had superiority, they were blocked out of the city when facing the fortress. However, under the offensive launched by Chen Han, the situation in Sanzhan Kazakhstan has already had a final result.

After Abu Ben's death, although he continued to maintain the foreign policy of his father's era, Russia and Chen Han were not offended, and continued to walk the tightrope in the middle, but he was powerless to stop Chen Han's influence from slowly spreading in Zhongyuzi.

There is no way, the days of the Great Yuz Abiris Khan are envied by too many people in the steppe.

In particular, after the population of fine wool sheep has expanded a little bit, the whole Dayuzi has an additional source of money that is not worried about sales. The per capita income and standard of living of the entire tribe are rising dramatically.

Seriously, the wool thing doesn't sell at all. That is, it is sold to the Russians in the north, and the latter must have as many as they want.

Russian wool spinning has been trapped by the limitation of raw materials and the production is insufficient, but Russians really can't do without wool spinning.

After the outbreak of the second Sino-Russian war, Xiaoyuz Achuwak Khan, who was forced by Russia to recruit troops to participate in the war, finally chose to fall to Chen Han's side, and Aychuvak did not dare to be an enemy of Chen Han at all. The Wari Khan of Zhongyuz did not last long, and under internal and external pressure, there was a small-scale coup d'état in the court of Zhongyuz, and then it became clear that the internal pro-Russian faction of Zhongyuzi chose to fall to Chen Han.

Chen Han's years of hard work in Kazakhstan have finally reaped huge fruits.

Wari Khan's younger brother Kasemu Sultan commanded 6,000 cavalry of the Middle Yuz, and combined with the 4,000 small Yuz cavalry led by the Sultan of Jongchula Lesser [son of Aychuvak Khan], and the 10,000 cavalry led by the Sultan of Srgri of the Great Yuz, a total of 20,000 Kazakh cavalry, together with the Mongol cavalry, which was only a small number, and cooperated with the Wehrmacht, and had divided and surrounded Pavlodar, Barnaul and the fortress of Omsk at the confluence of the Om River and the Irtysh River, and surrounded these three important Russian cities.

Pavlodar, like Novokhabarovsk, is a city that arose out of war. It is located in the Irtysh River valley, on the dividing line between China and Russia, and can be said to be the first line of defense in the war.

The first thing Wei Xiuzhi encountered after setting out from Zaisangbo was the city, and his sudden attack was discovered by the Cossack cavalry when he was still more than a hundred miles away from the city, and it was impossible to achieve the effect of a surprise attack. Therefore, for this city, Wei Xiuzhi is besieging but not attacking.

Barnaul, located on the left bank of the Ob River, is the center of non-ferrous metal mining and smelting in the region east of the Ural River, such as copper, lead, zinc, tin and other metals, which are mostly produced here.

Therefore, if you want to weaken the combat effectiveness of the Russian army, it is also necessary to surround and cut off traffic.

The Russians are very short of lead, and this shortcoming has not been solved until the era of the Red Empire. And in this era, guns and bullets are made of lead metal, and the consumption and importance are not inferior to those of the Red Empire, right?

As for Omsk, it is the largest population concentration of Russia in Siberia and one of the most important cities, not only a hub for water and land transportation, but also a military and political center.

Of course, Chen Han has to fence this first.

In the predetermined plan of the General Staff, the battlefields of the Northwest Military District in the early stage of the war were these three places.

If the Russian army in these three positions is not solved first, don't expect to get the West Siberian Plain, and then go to Orenburg.

And as for the Novokuznetsk fortress, seriously, the General Staff did not take it seriously. Because it is seven or eight hundred miles away from the Tangnu Ulianghai Sea, and it is at least a thousand miles away from Jaisangbo. At that time, the Northwest Military District had already reacted.

As long as the Russians dare to send troops and no longer shrink into the fortress as a turtle, then the Northwest Military District will dare to eat him!

So, now the battle situation in the northwest has become a bit of a stalemate.

Chen Han took the initiative to attack, but in the war, he only besieged but did not attack; The Russians are passively defensive, but only when the turtle does not dare to show its head.

When Chen Ming arrived in Yili, he saw the battle situation in the northwest like this. He really hoped that the Russian army in Novokuznetskri would really move south to attack Zaisangbo.

Intelligence shows that the Russians have amassed tens of thousands of troops there. If they don't try to fight back, the Russians' brains will be broken, and where will they mobilize so many troops and materials.

According to the solidity of the Novokuznetsk fortress, it is quite a few to put three or four thousand soldiers inside.

At this time, when Chen Ming arrived in Ili, a high-level Russian army combat meeting was also underway in Tomsk.

The meeting was chaired by the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Russian Army, Pyotr Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev, a well-known European general of the Tsarist Russian Army, who was awarded the rank of Russian Field Marshal in 1770.

In 1748 (the last year of the War of the Austrian Succession), he participated in the Rhine expedition and left behind a great success.

As a meritorious figure in the Tsarist Russian Army, Rumyantsev originally served as the commander of the group army in the Southern Route Army, but unfortunately he disagreed with the commander-in-chief of the Southern Route Army, Potemkin, and was finally kicked to the east.

There was no way, Potemkin was a favorite of Catherine II, and although his tactical command ability was always questioned by St. Peter's government and the opposition, Potemkin was promoted to field marshal four years ago, and then became the first person in the real sense of the Russian army.

Perhaps at this time, Her Majesty's favor for Potemkin is no longer as good as before, because Potemkin, who has become the second person in Russia, will undoubtedly hurt his relationship with Catherine II because of some problems in power, not to mention that Catherine II has an extra little fresh meat named Praton Zubov by his side, but Rumyantsev was still kicked away.

The total number of Russian troops on the Eastern Front was less than 100,000 (excluding the Turks), which also included the Russian-Qing forces of the Governorate of the Amur River. The number of troops in Rumyantsev's hands may not even be 60,000, because the amount of troops given by the Russian Army is all the number on the books, saying that there are 65,000 troops, but they themselves do not know how many vacancies there are.

The total number of troops in Rumyantsev's hands can only reach this number, and more than 20,000 of these 60,000 people are pinned down in three besieged cities/fortresses such as Barnaul, and then divide the troops to defend local strategic points, and then gather 10,000 Russian troops in Novokuznetsk, and the mobile force in Rumyantsev's hands is only a little more than 20,000.