"My lord, this is a letter from His Majesty the Tsar."

In the main camp of the Russian Imperial Expeditionary Force, in Andrei's tent, a dusty messenger respectfully handed the letter in a cylinder to Andrei, who was dressed in a silk robe.

"Well, you go down and rest." Andre motioned to one of his attendants and asked him to bring the messenger down.

When Andrei opened the letter with a focused expression and read it for a minute, his voice suddenly rose by eight points: "Someone, bring me General Menderov, I have an urgent military situation from Moscow!" ”

After the attendant who delivered the order left, Andrei couldn't help but slam the letter on the table: "Damn! Why can this Hong Tiancheng always conjure up a lot of troops out of thin air! What kind of 'person' are we fighting?! ”

"Oh, dear Lord Andrew, is there anything that calls me at this time? I'm talking to my generals about the next offensive, and if nothing important, you should know the consequences. ”

As General Menderov's voice came from outside the tent, a bearded general in military uniform walked in with a beer belly.

Andrei raised his eyes and said in a deep voice: "General Menderov, I'm afraid that the days of the two of us fighting side by side will soon come to an end. ”

"Oh? Maybe that's not a bad thing for me. General Menderov raised his chin haughtily, lacking even the most basic friendliness towards Andrei, the tsar's lackey.

Of course, this is also the common posture of the big nobles who oppose the tsar in the Duma parliament, in front of the tsar, they may have to be respectful to the tsar himself regardless of the rules, but in front of Andrei, a dog of the tsar, the noble title is far inferior to his own, General Menderov, who is the head of the great aristocratic family at the top of the Russian Empire, naturally does not need to suppress his contempt.

The most important thing is that General Menderov was like a subordinate to ask him to directly pull him out of the routine military meeting, which made General Menderov very unhappy, if it weren't for the urgent military situation in Moscow, he would not have made Andrei's unreasonable request at all!

Andrei handed the letter to General Menderov: "Look at this, this time, our opponent has given the empire a big 'surprise'. ”

"Oh! My God! The Taiping army actually hit the hinterland of Smolensk! Are all the generals defending the city stupid pigs?!

The main force of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is obviously approaching the city of Kiev! ”

General Menderov exclaimed in disbelief.

The content of the letter is very simple, Smolensk was invaded by tens of thousands of Taiping troops, Andrei was quickly recalled, and the command of the Kiev campaign was handed over to General Menderov.

It's just that General Menderov was not happy that he had regained power, and it was enough to let the usurping tsar in Moscow give up the right to speak on the expeditionary force, which is enough to show how erosive the war in Smolensk has become!

If Smolensk is lost, even if the battle of Kiev is won, at most it will be worth the merits, and the tsar's dream of establishing a solid authority is doomed to be unrealized.

In the same way, the weakness of the Russian Empire is not a good thing for the Duma parliament, you know, many of the big nobles of the Duma parliament have interests and even fiefs in the Smolensk region.

"The main force attacking the Smolensk region must be the Lithuanians! Damn it! I should have known that Hong Tiancheng couldn't have kindly distributed so much land to Lithuanian civilians, and the original security forces linked to the land were all reserve soldiers used by Hong Tiancheng to deal with the current war.

Ignorant Lithuanian mud legs, they can be so idiotic as to work for the devil who has usurped their land and homeland for a few loaves of bread!

The civilians at the lower levels are really brainless waste! ”

Andrei vented indignantly.

As the head of the intelligence agency of the Russian Empire, Andrei knows far more than Menderov, a big nobleman who only knows how to fight for power and all kinds of women, and he naturally knows about the Chinese language test system and the land recruitment and military merit system implemented by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, what he didn't expect is that those Lithuanians will really die for Hong Tiancheng for the land!

You must know that an army to maintain law and order and foreign conquest are completely two different concepts, for example, those private soldiers and even guardian knights provided by the honorary nobles who defected to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom may be no problem to use for the mob, but if they are allowed to go to the battlefield, it is appropriate to be the first group of people to collapse, if the battlefield disadvantage is too great, it is very likely to defect instantly.

This is the reason why servant armies are often used as auxiliaries and cannon fodder, not because the overlord does not trust them, but because they do not have the consciousness to sacrifice their lives for the overlord.

Even the Han Eight Banners and the Green Battalion army driven by the Manchu Qing Dynasty controlled the army by controlling the big traitors, and it can be said that those Green Battalion and Han Eight Banner troops that replaced the Ming Dynasty to quell the rebels were loyal to traitor leaders like Wu Sangui, not the Manchu emperor who had never even met in person.

This is also the reason why the Han army under his command responded after the three traitor leaders raised the banner of judgment, after all, their allegiance was not the Manchu Empire itself, but unfortunately, Kang Mazi learned a lesson during the rebellion of the three feudatories, established a set of policies to directly control the Han puppet troops, and successfully pacified the three feudatories.

In an age when the concept of nation was very weak, it was easy for such an alien regime to win over the natives to work for them, because there were too many temptations for mud legs who had problems with food to pay.

General Menderov turned to Andrei with a puzzled expression: "40,000 Lithuanians, even if the land occupied by the Taiping army is enough to be allocated, where will they get the food and weapons and equipment to support so many off-duty soldiers?" ”

Andrei squinted at Menderov, and couldn't help but scold this group of 'parasites' in the Duma parliament, what do they know besides their fiefdoms and positions?

With Menderov's status in the Russian Empire, if he really wanted to know his opponent, how could he not even know such semi-public information!

"The reason is very simple, because the Taiping army does not need to collect supplies, they just need to take it with their hands.

The famous Taiping Sacred Treasury system allowed Hong Tiancheng to have the maximum war potential, because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could deprive all the people under its rule of all the property that the Taiping army deemed necessary to take for the needs of war!

As long as the Taiping army conquers not a desert without a single person, they will always have a source of supplies, and we are fighting a group of lawless and bottomless alien demons! ”