With his head bowed, Boktor Khan Yixin walked quickly into the headquarters in the fortress of the city of Trading, where he was now nominally the supreme commander of the Mongolian Eight Banners Army, and Muravyov did not forbid him to appear at the headquarters of the coalition forces.

Muravyov discussed the battle situation in the war room of the headquarters with several Russian staff officers, generals, and a Cossack major general named Rosovsky. The war chamber was filled with the smell of cigar smoke mixed with strong coffee, and the strong smell of sweat emanating from hairy Russians. I don't know how long these people have been stuffy in this small room.

Seeing Yi Xin walk in, he nodded slightly to everyone, and everyone looked at him, no one knelt down to greet him, and then they all turned their heads to look at the map. Muravyov beckoned to Yixin very politely and invited him to his side.

"Your Excellency the Governor, what's wrong?"

Yi Xin already felt an unusually oppressive atmosphere, which was not at all the case when he inspected this war room a few days ago.

"A little accident," Muravyov's expression was faint and not solemn, "the Chinese are building a railway to Kulen." ”

"A railway?" Yi Xin didn't think clearly about what the relationship between the railway and the war was?

"And it's also a steel-rail railway, and the transportation capacity is much higher than that of slab rails." Muravyov added, "We estimate that once this railway is completed, the Chinese will have the advantage of logistical supply on the Baikal battlefield, which is a great advantage!"

The 1500 verst transport line was an extremely long distance for the carriage, and it could not be completed in 2 months. But for a train on the rails, it's just a few days! And the transport capacity of the train far exceeds that of the horse-drawn carriage. I reckon. Rely on this railway. The Chinese can maintain an army of 200,000 on the Baikal battlefield! ”

It looks like it's a lost contract! Yi Xin said in her heart. Not 200,000, 100,000 people will be enough to take down the fortress of the city of Trading, and then advance the front all the way to Lake Baikal!

"Where is this railway being built now? When will it be paved to Cullen? Yi Xin's voice was a little anxious.

"Because it is a ready-to-build railway, it is laid very quickly, and it may have entered the territory of Khalkha Mongolia." Muravyov frowned and said, "The terrain of Mongolia is dominated by grasslands, which is relatively flat, and there are no big rivers. It is easy to lay railways. ”

"Your Excellency the Governor, what are we going to do?" Yi Xin said tentatively, "Do you want to take the initiative?" ”

"Of course! His Majesty the Great Khan, of course, you must take the initiative! Let the Chinese taste the power of the Cossack saber! ”

It was a Cossack with a French mustache who interjected, the major general surnamed Rosovsky. A Cossack cavalry division under his command mobilized from Europe, with a total strength of more than 3,000 men, was definitely the elite main force in the coalition army.

Yixin looked at Muravyov, the governor of East Siberia and the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, without any expression on his face, and after a while, he nodded and said, "Yes." Must strike! At least slow down the Chinese in building railways. ”

He looked at Yi Xin with a smile, but his tone of voice was non-negotiable: "Your Majesty the Great Khan." If you do not object, I would like to send a mixed corps of Cossack cavalry and eight-banner cavalry to attack the railway engineering corps of the Chinese from the west of Kulen to the southern front. ”

"What? Sortie of Cossack cavalry!? Your Excellency the Governor-General, is the Russian Empire ready to declare war on the Ming Dynasty? Yixin looked at Muravyov in surprise.

"War has not yet been declared! But it's only a matter of time......"

Muravyov already knew that the Russian army was going to invade Moldova and Wallachia in July, which meant that war with Turkey was inevitable! As an ally of Turkey and an eastern power fostered by Britain and France, the Ming will almost certainly join forces with Turkey to go to war against Russia.

He said coldly, "But I will make the Cossacks wear the clothes of the Eight Banners, Your Majesty the Great Khan, do you agree to do this?" ”

"Well, well, it's up to His Excellency the Governor!"

Muravyov then talked to him about the military situation, and invited him back to the palace to rest on the grounds that he was busy with military affairs, and did not personally send Yixin away, but summoned the Major General Rosovsky to the edge of the map table.

"Major General, do you need more Cossacks?"

This Rosovsky did not have the boldness and full confidence just now, but was silent for a long time before he whispered: "3,000 people!" The whole division must be brought with them, otherwise it will be dangerous to encounter the Chinese Guards cavalry, and as for the Eight Banners, it is better to send 6,000 and bring a few cannons, construction tools and explosives, so that they can attack the camps of the Chinese workers and the fortresses of the Ming army and destroy the railways. ”

"What a shame!" Muravyov patted the beloved general on the shoulder, "Major General, everything is left to you, remember, the preservation of the Cossack cavalry comes first." Even if you can't finish anything, you must bring me back the Cossack cavalry in its entirety! ”

"Yes, Your Excellency the Governor, I will bring the troops back intact."

"Not all the troops will be intact, just the Cossacks!" Muravyov lowered his voice, "I will transfer Yixin's guards to you to the grassland, to consume them as much as possible, and if you encounter the Ming army's guards cavalry, let them go to the palace!" ”

Major General Rosovsky was stunned for a moment: "Your Excellency the Governor, don't you worry about Yixin?" ”

Muravyov smiled faintly and said in a low voice: "This is an army after all, and the allegiance is not to the tsar!" My Major General, did you say I could rest assured? ”

……

Fighting a war and fighting logistics is common sense in military science. As early as the preparation stage for the war, the commanders of the Ming army and the Russian army realized that logistics would be the key to determining the outcome of this military contest between China and Russia.

The Russian army's response strategy was to shrink its defense, abandon almost the entire Khalkha Mongols, and concentrate its main forces on the trading city of Maomao, which is more than 3,000 miles away from Beijing. It is hoped that the vast and barren Mongolian steppes will be used to exhaust the Ming army's offensive strength - if it had been ten or even years ago, such a strategy would have almost made the Russian army invincible. The number of the Ming army of the Northern Expedition was as high as 200,000! If it was to be transported by horses, it would have to use more than a million pack horses, and the troops had to be withdrawn before the winter of 1853, when the Mongolian plateau was covered with snow and ice, and there was no way to feed the millions of pack horses. Without them, not to mention maintaining an army of 200,000 under the city of Buying, even an army of 50,000 would not be able to sustain it.

However, Zhu Jishi wanted to use a railway to establish the absolute superiority of the Ming army in logistics and supply! And his goal was not to buy and sell cities, but to Baikal.

Back in the Old Summer Palace, after Zhu Jishi arranged Princess Mathilde into the Yuanying Temple, he immediately rushed to the Zhengda Guangming Palace. Liu Jiong, chief of the General Staff, immediately handed over the latest report on the progress of railway construction.

"Your Majesty, the report of the Kuzhang Railway Supervision Office, now that the Kuzhang Railway has been paved to the Gobi Desert, where the terrain is flat and very easy to construct, the progress is very fast, faster than the original plan."

"Can the logistics and engineering materials of the engineering team be transported?"

"It's not a big problem, it can be transported by the railway lines that have already been built, and although the steam locomotive is not yet in place, it is easier to use horse-drawn flatbed carts than carts and horses. If we wait until next year when the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is completed, the construction of the Kuzhang Railway can be accelerated. ”

"I'm afraid that the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway will not be completed on time, right? The Qinglong Bridge section and the Badaling Tunnel are not easy to get. ”

Zhu Jishi looked at the model railway that was not extending on the sand table, and sighed: "The distance of building a railway is no longer the length of the distance, but the quality of the terrain. Although the distance of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway is short, it is necessary to pass through the Yanshan Mountains, and the distance of the Kuzhang railway is far away, but the terrain is flat. Mu Lin, if the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway cannot be completed on time, does the General Staff have any contingency plans? ”

"Now that the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway has been repaired to Xuanhua, there are more than 100 miles of land left horizontally and vertically, and it is not that there is no way to go, and the horse-drawn shoulders have also transported things up. Your Majesty, don't you worry, don't we also transport the materials for the Kukuzhang Railway now? (To be continued......)