Dominate the Country

In late March, just when the battle report of the Northern Frontier Corps conquering Chita was sent to Nanjing, Chen Ming's long-prepared imperial carriage finally left Nanjing.

He wanted to lead the army in person, but the resistance he encountered in Nanjing made him feel that he was stronger than the enemy he was facing.

Whether it was the concubines in the harem, the important ministers in the cabinet, or the senior officials in the ministries and commissions, almost no one agreed with him to lead the army in person.

This war was not a war to determine the country. In the eyes of a series of people in Nanjing, China would win this war. There was no need for Chen Ming to lead the army in person. How could they know the significance of this war in Chen Ming's heart?

This is an attack on the Russians.

No matter how close the relationship between rabbits and polar bears was in the era before Chen Ming traveled through time, Chen Ming would never forget the damage caused to China by the Russians in history.

The last war was just a last resort, but this time he participated intentionally. This is an absolute active attack!

His eldest son Chen Ding was also in the group. He is now a fourth-year student in the Army Department of the Central Military Academy. He got married two years ago and has three children. Of course, these children are not born by Zheng's daughter alone. I seem to have confused Zheng Hongyu and Wei Xiuzhi before. It is Wei Xiuzhi who is in the Northwest Military Region. It is normal for the eldest son of the emperor to marry the first wife and take the second wife. This time, Chen Ding will be a staff officer beside Chen Ming. If he performs well this time, Chen Ming will give him a title after returning to Beijing, and then throw him to the Logistics Department.

Train in the Logistics Department for two years, then go to the Staff Department for two years, and then jump out of the military system and enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs...

As a member of the royal family, even if he cannot sit on the throne in the future, he can get a piece of fertile land in America. As a solitary king, there is really no need to understand the internal affairs and laws in detail. Even if Chen Ming, who has been an emperor for more than ten years, does not dare to say that he can handle the specific affairs of the prefectures and counties better than the county magistrates and prefects below.

If you don't want to lose power, you just need to hold the military power. The training of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to broaden his horizons and know the world, so that he won't be fooled in the future...

This route is not only designed for Chen Ding alone. All of Chen Ming's sons will go through this system after graduating from college.

His sons don't need to really enter the front line of the army, but lead the soldiers to fight in person. There are still big differences between the traditions of China and Western countries. Most of the royal children of the latter have to enter the army. Take Russia, Prussia and Austria as examples. In each generation, there are royal blood relatives, princes and other figures who become military marshals, and even famous generals in Europe. But in the Eastern world, military power is something that no wise prince dares to touch.

Even if the digital legion is very popular in the 21st century, the relationship between Yong Lao Si and Lao Shisan, everyone says it's good?

After Yong Lao Si succeeded to the throne, Lao Shisan not only got a ***** but also sat on the prime minister.

But after Yong Lao Si succeeded to the throne, did Lao Shisan dare to reach out to the military power?

Peel off the layers of glamorous coats, the inside is very skinny.

But they must understand the army and know how to infiltrate their influence into the army. This is the basis for maintaining power!

Chen Ming also brought a guard of about 10,000 people, which were the elite soldiers he selected from the personal guard division, the guard division and the guard cavalry division.

The army boarded the ship from Nanjing, went up the river to Wuhan, and then went north to the Central Plains, and then entered Shaanxi and Guanzhong from the Central Plains. The end of the 800-li Qinchuan is Gansu.

The transportation infrastructure that Chen Han has spent a lot of effort to build in recent years will play a huge role in this process.

Whether it is a national highway or a railway. The final result is the same - saving the army's marching time.

The troops went north from Xiangyang to the Central Plains. Chen Ming proposed to take Chen Ding back to his hometown Lushan. In addition to worshiping the ancestral temple, he also hosted a banquet for the old and young in the old capital.

Then ride the horse to catch up with the army.

Chen Ming originally planned to do so. The calculated time was not bad. He felt that he could catch up with the team when he was in Luoyang. But in fact, he made the army wait for two more days in Luoyang, because his speed was far from the original plan. After riding for a long distance, the skin on the inside of his thighs was worn out.

"The thigh meat is regenerating..."

No one knows that when Chen Ming rode back to Lushan, the flesh on the inside of his legs was already rubbed painfully. But Chen Ming could endure it, his physical fitness was still very strong, and he endured it.

But when he left Lushan and headed north, he naturally slowed down.

Chen Ming was very surprised by this unexpected situation. Knowing that he also took a carriage.

Liu Paopao's sigh at the beginning actually fell on him, which was really unreasonable.

But think about it carefully, how many years has he not led troops to fight? Since Dingguo, he has rarely left Nanjing, and rarely rode a horse, except for the rouge horse. And whenever he left Nanjing, the way of travel must be to take a treasure ship.

Riding a horse is really rare.

Liu Paopao had only been in Jingzhou for five or six years, and he lamented loudly that he was getting old and had not yet accomplished anything, so he sighed about the "fattening thighs". Chen Ming had been in Nanjing for two "five or six years".

He had not ridden a war horse for a long time, and the flesh on his thighs had grown. Although Chen Ming did not feel that he had wasted the past ten years, he was secretly alert - time is short. In a blink of an eye, his body is almost forty years old.

Just when Chen Ming led his troops into Shaanxi, the Sino-Russian war had already started.

The defense forces in the three battlefields of Northwest, North Xinjiang and Northeast China all entered the offensive, and Chen Han invested a total of 130,000 or 140,000 troops.

Among them, the Northwest battlefield alone occupied 80,000 people.

Wei Xiuzhi's vanguard was 30,000 people, and there were 50,000 troops in the follow-up. And this is still the initial military force. If necessary, Chen Han can invest more troops, and they have sufficient finances.

And how many Russian talents are there opposite them?

The military strength of the Orenburg Governor's District has been strengthened by St. Petersburg in recent years. The number of troops two years ago was more than 20,000-this is already a large number, and now it is estimated that it will double, that is, about 50,000.

Although Catherine II repeatedly ordered the conscription of troops, it is rumored that the total number of Russian troops has reached 500,000. But how much water is there in this?

Don't forget how many people there are in the whole of Russia, just over 30 million [including the annexed Polish region].

So how many men between the ages of 20 and 40 are there in this country?

Recruiting 500,000 troops on the basis of more than 30 million can be called a warlike aggression.

And with Russia's finances, they have to support 500,000 troops. Are they raising beggars?

According to some intelligence reported by the Military Intelligence Bureau, many people in the Russian army use Tula muskets of poor quality, which is due to its low cost (1/4 of the British equivalent). The Russians contracted a large part of their weapons production to six arms dealers, and whether it was a state-owned military factory or a private arms dealer, in order to make as much profit as possible, they all squeezed the workers. Besides, Russia's military manufacturing is quite primitive, and the production process is extremely dependent on manual labor, but many effective and durable tools are not available to the Russians, especially hammers and drills, and it is almost impossible to get good iron processing machinery. Russian craftsmen can sometimes only use planes and chisels, which is a major disadvantage of Russian military industry. It is easy to imagine the quality of the barrels made in this way and how time-consuming and labor-intensive it is.

If it were not for Peter I, who had the foresight to build the first large-scale steel plants in Russia in the Ural region on the border between Europe and Siberia, so that Russia could still meet its military needs even though it was still using metal smelting technology that was far behind the times, the cost of their muskets would not be so low.

Russia is the largest iron producer in Europe, and its copper production is second only to Britain. Siberia has all the important raw materials needed by the Russian military industry system, iron, copper and wood, and Russia has sufficient such resources. This is also one of the important reasons why the cost of Russian muskets is only one-fourth of that of the British. And with the huge production scale and rapid production speed, it is not surprising that there will be substandard rifles.

When Chen Ming got this information, he felt that the old Russians often fought with others with bayonets. Was it because their own muskets were too poor in performance and were completely at a disadvantage in volley shooting, so they played hand-to-hand combat again and again?

Another thing is Russia's financial problems. The latter is a very serious issue for all countries in the world, especially as a big country. Once they enter a state of war, they must not only pay attention to the financial crisis, but also the political crisis caused by the financial crisis. France is a living example.

Finance has a great impact on a country's diplomatic and military policies. In the Napoleonic Wars in the original time and space, Prussia and Austria changed their policies due to financial problems. I will not elaborate on it here, just know it.

But Russia's fiscal policy is very strange. They rely on loans. As long as Russia is involved in a war, their finances will be in deficit, and annual expenditures often exceed annual revenues. However, Russia can borrow money from Dutch bankers to make up for it, and then the fiscal deficit will rely on the paper ruble. So that the actual value of the paper ruble today is only about 1/2 of the silver ruble. Inflation has led to a surge in national expenditures. The uncontrolled inflation and the collapse of paper currency credit have also made the Russian Ministry of Finance uneasy. In addition, when fighting on foreign territory, no one is willing to exchange goods and services for paper rubles.

But in the eyes of Catherine II, none of this is a problem. She just needed enough money to win the war.

The biggest advantage of Russian human resources is that they are cheap. Even if the Russian army is paid in silver kopeks, British privates are 10 times more than their Russian counterparts, and the ruble has depreciated so much. More importantly, the salary of the British Red Shrimp Soldiers is not high, at least much lower than the actual income of Chinese soldiers.

In peacetime, soldiers from Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and other countries can get rice, meat, peas and cheese in addition to bread, while Russian privates only have flour and beans, although there will be meat and vodka in wartime. Russian soldiers sometimes get clothes and leather instead of uniforms and boots, and they have to make their own clothes and shoes. The same is true for ammunition. Gunpowder, lead and paper are distributed to each regiment for soldiers to make themselves.

Chen Ming couldn't believe his eyes when he got this information. The cost of the Russian army is really too low. Before this, he couldn't imagine that the sons of these Russian mothers were so easy to support.

The low cost of recruiting new soldiers made the Russian army the largest and cheapest army in Europe. Their source basically relied on farmers and slaves. The ordinary army battalions of the Russian army have 74% farmers, 24% slaves, and 2% town residents (craftsmen, merchants, etc.), or ethnic minorities, such as Tatars. This system makes the Russian army more outstanding in the competition.

The recruitment limit of the Russian army is 17 to 35 years old, and the minimum height standard of soldiers is 1.6 meters. The shortest conscripts will be assigned to the light infantry company, and the tall ones will be assigned to the grenadiers.

Chen Ming does not believe the number of "500,000". What is the concept? In a country with a population of more than 3,000 people, a standing army of 500,000 people was recruited. If this is true, Catherine II's mind will be full of rice fields.

But if the Russians have been wary of China, the number of troops has increased over the years, and the total force has reached 300,000+, Chen Ming still believes it.

Chen Han's main force is deployed in the northwest. As for the northern border and northeastern battlefields, they can be connected as a whole. The scale of 50,000 to 60,000 troops on both sides is enough to cut off the eagle head of Russia looking east.

The total force of the Russians and the remnants of the Qing Dynasty there may be only 30,000 people. Chen Han still has an absolute advantage.

Don't forget that Chen Han has planted another nail inside Russia, and at the same time they can recruit Mongolians.

The west of the Kazakh steppe to the Ural River is the world where the Mongolians fly freely. In the future, Chen Han will instigate them to attack Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the south and eliminate the khanates in Central Asia. It would be best if Chen Han seized the opportunity to occupy Afghanistan.

This is not because Afghanistan is a shitty "graveyard of empires" and conquering it can satisfy Chen Ming's inner passion. It is purely because of Afghanistan's geography and resources.

Although Afghanistan's international presence is constantly being attacked and there are endless wars, Afghanistan's territory is not small. In the future, it will be 650,000 square kilometers. Although we don't know its specific size now, the basic area is there, right?

This place is located at the intersection of West Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, connecting the East and the West, connecting Central Asia, West Asia and South Asia, and can be called the "key" to the South Asian continent. Its strategic position is very important.

Brother San has been conquered by foreign nations several times, all from Afghanistan.

It borders Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to the north, and the narrow strip of land protruding in the northeast (Wakhan Corridor) borders China, and it is adjacent to India [Pakistan] in the east and southeast, and borders Persia [Iran] in the west. If this place is taken, Chen Han can explore India from another angle and have further exchanges with Persia. Although China's ally in the Arabian world is the Ottomans.

But those who do not plan for the overall situation are not qualified to plan for a corner; those who do not plan for the general trend are not qualified to plan for the moment. We must look long-term and look at the world decades later.

What will the Ottoman Empire be like at that time?

With the development of science and technology, Europeans will have another chance to fight against China's hegemony. Maybe they will no longer have the confidence to overthrow China at that time, but they will definitely compete with China for interests in the Arabian World and Africa.

Persian oil is very coveted.

Sooner or later, Chen Han will also have a close relationship with Persia.

...

Let's get back to the point and look at the terrain of Afghanistan. The reason why this place is called the graveyard of empires in the 21st century is that Afghanistan is mountainous, with plateaus and mountains accounting for 4/5 of the country's area, and there are deserts in the southwest. The complex terrain makes this place a paradise for "guerrilla warfare". Even in the 21st century with advanced technology, the Lighthouse Country cannot completely deal with the base. Not to mention this era.

If the local tribes insist on resistance, it will really hurt people.

What really fascinates Chen Ming in Afghanistan is its mineral resources. Although it does not have as much oil as the Middle East, it itself is a miracle in the history of world metal mineral reserves. The entire Afghan territory is buried with metal resources that make the whole world tremble!

Including iron, chromium, copper, lead, zinc, nickel, lithium, beryllium, gold, silver, platinum, palladium, talc, marble, barite, precious and semi-precious stones, salt, uranium, etc.

In this era, it is of course difficult to effectively develop the mine resources there. It is not only a problem of transportation, but also a problem of smelting. Although Afghanistan has rich mineral resources, it lacks coal. It is wishful thinking to start development in this era. You must wait until 200 years before you can benefit.

But this is enough for Chen Ming to think about it. Who makes Afghanistan so close to China?