After the first contact with the 10,000-strong army of the Taiping army did not kill a single soldier of the Taiping Army, and all the units of the Ottoman Turkish army fighting in the Balkans were like frightened rats, sending a large number of scouts to reconnoiter the traces of the main force of the Taiping Army, and then without any hesitation, they stayed away from the main force of the Taiping Army as much as possible!

Even the new Ottoman Turkish army, as if hiding from the plague god, walked around the main force of the Taiping army, without the slightest intention of winning or winning......

This approach of the Ottoman army is undoubtedly correct at the strategic level, because in the field, whether it is defense or offense, the Ottoman army is not the opponent of the main force of the Taiping army.

In other words, the Ottoman army hoped that the Taiping army, which had not many people, would divide its troops so that it would be easier to break them down.

In the Balkans, the Ottoman army and the Taiping army were severely polarized, and the Ottoman army was weak in combat, but the number was increasing!

The Ottoman army had fought in the Balkans for so many years, and every time they won a victory and captured a town, they recruited cannon fodder soldiers from prisoners of war and local youth.

A flintlock pistol, arquebus, or even a spear or kitchen knife can arm a conscripted cannon fodder!

The Ottomans also divided these newly recruited troops into two ranks, the voluntary surrender of the prisoners of war and the soldiers recruited by the local youth, formed into a servant army, although there was no military pay on weekdays, only food, but when the war was fought, there was a wartime allowance, and half of the booty could be drawn!

The other class is the glorious tradition of the Ottomans, the slave soldiers.

Prisoners of war who were unwilling to die for the Ottomans would be relegated to slave status, and each time the Ottomans conquered a piece of land, they would capture many 'recalcitrant elements' from the local area, and sometimes loot the local green-skinned hooligans and criminals, who were all reduced to slaves and gathered together to form slave soldiers.

The officers of the slave soldiers were Ottomans, and the weapons of the slave soldiers were all cold weapons, and many of them even carried wooden sticks and dung forks in their hands, and even kitchen knives were inferior to ......

These slave soldiers served as coolies on weekdays, and when they were fighting, they served as cannon fodder in the first line of cannon fodder, and part of the servant army was tasked with keeping an eye on the slave army to ensure that they did not riot......

Of course, in order to increase the fighting enthusiasm of these slave soldiers, the Ottomans made military merits and service promises, as long as they received a certain military merit, or how many years of service, they could get rid of slave status, if the people were still alive at that time......

Although the slave soldiers were not regarded as human beings by the Ottomans, they could at least eat a mouthful of food, and in this era, although they certainly did not have enough to eat, at least they would not starve to death!

In order to expand the size of the slave army, the Ottomans also recruited refugees in the Balkans, even women, of course, if they were good-looking, they would definitely not be able to be pulled into the battlefield, either into the back house of an officer, or become a 'camp woman'.

Everyone understands what the main work of women in the camp in the 17th century was......

The soldiers in the servant army are still young and strong men, but the quality of the slave soldiers is uneven, from 60-year-old men and old ladies to ten-year-old children, everything is complete, as long as there is no problem with the legs and feet, the Ottomans are cold and cold......

Anyway, the slave soldiers themselves are slaves, and it doesn't matter how many they die.

Of course, in the eyes of the Ottomans, the status of the servant army was similar, except that the servant army was better treated than the slave soldiers.

It is worth mentioning that the Ottomans even had a share of the spoils of war for the slave soldiers, and for each time they won a battle, the slave soldiers could get 10% of their booty, and because the slave status of the slave soldiers belonged to the Ottoman army, private property could be protected, and the private property here was limited to the spoils of war.

In this way, the Ottomans fought more and more troops in the Balkans, which was the main reason why the Balkan countries were beaten one after another.

After all, the Balkan countries do not have many firearms, and the tactics of crowds are almost incomprehensible to them, even if the morale of the Ottoman servant army and slave soldiers is low, it is okay to fight one out of a hundred, and who will not fight with the wind!

It's just that a unit of this nature, the Servant Army and the Slave Army, with a slightly larger casualty, will all collapse, no matter how few enemies on the opposite side!

It's like the encounter in the first contact, where tens of thousands of people were destroyed by hundreds of people in a matter of minutes......

It is precisely because the Ottomans used this way to expand their army without limits, eating all the rations of the enemy, and maintaining morale by plundering, so even the Ottoman army itself did not know how many troops there were in the Balkans!

The only thing they know is the number of the new army and the old army, but because the leaders of the old army have wantonly expanded their armed forces in the Balkans, even the exact number of the old army is not known to the Ottoman military bosses......

Only the new army, which was directly subordinate to the Ottoman Sultan of Istanbul, could not be expanded at will, and its numbers have been very stable.

After the main force of the Taiping army entered the Balkans, although it was like a bamboo, did not even fight a decent battle, and maintained a glorious record of zero battle losses, the main force of the Ottoman army was like a balloon that had been punctured, and the poisonous gases in it were scattered everywhere.

The main Ottoman forces that were scattered and held military power became the leaders of the old armies, except for the new army, which was quite reliable, those army leaders seemed to have become large bandits, but fortunately, their families were in Istanbul and did not dare to disobey Istanbul's military orders.

In this way, the Ottoman army, which was scattered in one place, avoided the main force of the Taiping army, and interspersed to the rear, and if it encountered a small group of Taiping army or the Han army, several or even dozens of army leaders gathered together with their own servant army and slave soldiers and the old army, and under the command of the highest-ranking military leader, they were escorted up by the tactics of crowds.

As a result, the Balkan occupation area behind the Taiping army was a mess, and the Han army could not fight the Taiping army, and when they saw the Ottoman army, which was several times larger than their own, they often chose to retreat in the city to defend, which provided a broad space for the Ottoman army to gallop......

The main force of the Taiping Army soon found that it did not have much effect except to turn the Balkan region into a white land, and it was natural that the main force of the Taiping Army made the same choice as the Ottoman army, dividing the main force into dozens of units, using the battalion level as the basic combat unit, and expanding to the entire Balkan region!

Anyway, the main Ottoman forces in the Balkans had already dispersed on their own, and the Taiping army was not worried about the defeat of the division of troops.