Admiral Boloyevich was depressed, and after the Russian offensive began, all his plans for counterattacks were rejected by the emperor.

The Austro-Hungarian base camp on the Eastern Front was located in Limburg (Lviv), the capital of Galicia, which was also the largest railway hub and logistics support base of the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front. The precipitous mountainous terrain of Moldavia along the Dniester River was a huge barrier for both Austria-Hungary and the Russians, and extremely disadvantageous for both the side of a large-scale attack.

The Emperor rushed to Limburg, but, unexpectedly, he asked Boloyevich to prepare for the transfer of three armies to the Italians.

"Russia will collapse soon, and we don't need to spend too much energy on the Eastern Front now." Sitting in the war room of the headquarters of the base camp, Li Haiton said to his generals in an unquestioning tone.

"We are now capable of crushing the Russian offensive and even taking Kyiv." Mr. Boloyevich said he was telling the truth, that Austria-Hungary now had 1.8 million troops on the Eastern Front, compared to 1.3 million on the Russian Southwestern Front, half of which were recruited last year and lacked training and equipment.

Lehedon lowered his head and looked at the map on the table for a while, before he raised his head and said to the chief of his general staff: "If you follow your plan and take the whole of Ukraine, how many casualties will there be?" ”

"About 500,000 to 700,000, but ......," Bolojevich said, then stopped, suddenly realizing that, with the character of an emperor, it was impossible to tolerate such a huge number of casualties.

"What if we're primarily defensive?" The Emperor continued.

"It should be around 100,000." Glojevic said.

"That's the question, even if we occupy the whole of Ukraine, the war will continue, but we lose a quarter or even a third of our troops in a single campaign, how can we sustain this war." Lechelton sighed, and then said, "The Americans are already anxious to get involved, and this has become very obvious since the beginning of February. ”

"Although the reaction of the United States has been somewhat strong, they may not be lightly involved in the war." Bolojevich said.

"Definitely, their bankers have already bet too much on the British and the French to watch the British defeat." "I have tried my best to accept their mediation, to negotiate with the special envoy of the President of the United States, to try to reach some kind of peace terms, but I have not been able to do so." The British demanded that we return to the pre-August 1914 borders, which was simply unacceptable. The situation is grim now, the newspapers in the United States are already making excuses for entering the war, and the tone of their government notes is becoming more and more harsh. ”

"This requires us to end the war against Russia as much as possible." Bolojevic said.

Helton nodded, "We need to find a suitable time. What is the latest information on the Russian side? ”

"Not yet, the Russians are on strike in the past two days, and we can only get some news from the border areas." Lieutenant General Hader, who is in charge of intelligence, said.

After hearing this, Li Haidon smiled, "This is good news, maybe this strike will cause a drastic change in Russia." ”

"Like 1905?" If so, Boloyevich asked, it would be good news, that the Russian Revolution of 1905 forced the Tsar to withdraw from the Russo-Japanese War.

"No!" Lechelton said, his face lightened, "but it's much better than that time." ”

The Austro-Hungarian army and the Russian army were engaged in fierce fighting on the Proskurov line, and intensive artillery fire had been bombarding each other non-stop for almost a week. Every night, the dark night sky is shattered by the fuchsia streamer of cannonballs. From time to time, the sky shone with firelight, and the earth trembled, and the earth had already become scarred before the snow had melted.

Su Bingwen's battalion of Chinese workers was located about 40 versts from the front line, and in southern Ukraine, about 50,000 Chinese laborers were forced to go to the front to do heavy logistical work such as transporting supplies and building fortifications. Although the Russians were on the offensive, they achieved limited success, and instead lost Zhytomyr under the counterattack of the Germans.

Since March, the wave of strikes has been gaining momentum, and the situation in Russia is now very chaotic.

On March 12, the Russian offensive came to an abrupt halt.

An infantry division stationed in Helstino as a reserve of the South-Western Front was withdrawn from the front and was ready to be transferred to Petrograd to suppress the riots and riots there. However, the shape shì changed too quickly, and when the division was about to board the train, news came from the front that the tsar had signed the edict of abdication, and his designated heir, Grand Duke Mikhail, refused to accept the appointment as the new tsar.

The Reich now has no Tsar, the Provisional Council of the former State Duma has taken over power, but the Soviet power, consisting of representatives of the Petrograd Social Workers Party and representatives of the workers and soldiers, continues to call the shots.

Chaos was spreading, the Russian army was in a panic from top to bottom, the soldiers refused to return to the front, and some units began to mutinied. The front-line command seems to have forgotten about the existence of the Chinese workers, as the general representative of the Chinese workers' battalions on the Ukrainian front, General Song Huanzhang seems to be a little anxious, some of the Chinese workers' battalions only have a few days of food left, and he needs to solve this problem quickly.

With the whistle of a steam locomotive, a military troop train slowly pulled into the Kirovograd station. Night had enveloped the city on the banks of the Ingul River, and the station was still in chaos, with porters in shabby uniforms unloading large quantities of military supplies, and dangerous piles of ammunition everywhere on the platform.

"Hello, Mr. Song! I'm Ivan Yukovich, Tax Commissioner of the City of Kirovograd. After the train from the front line came to a stop on the platform, a Chinese beside him said something to him, so he confirmed that Song Huanzhang and the others got off the train and were the people he had been waiting for for a long time, so he stepped forward and greeted him with a smile on his face.

"Hello...... Mr. Yukovic. Song Huanzhang shook his hand and said reluctantly. Looking at Ivan, who was obviously a Slav, it was hard for him to imagine that the person in front of him was a liaison sent from above.

"I am a member of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine." Perhaps seeing the confusion on Song Huanzhang's face, Yukovic explained. The Ukrainian Liberation League was founded in Vienna by a group of Ukrainian political organizations in exile seeking to establish an independent Ukrainian state in Russia and in Galicia and Bukovina to seek the same autonomous status as the Czechs or Poles. After the outbreak of the war, this anti-Russian organization was strongly supported by the Austro-Hungarian crown prince and grew rapidly, with many members engaged in espionage or sabotage activities in Russia.

Although the tsar did not recognize the existence of the Ukrainian nation, the Ukrainians did not think so, and under the call of the Khmelnitsky banner, there were still many Ukrainians, especially scholars, who were seeking the path of independence.

"Okay, let's go back to our room and talk about it." Yukovic said, leading them out of the station, then into a carriage and heading toward the city.

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