The biggest problem of marching into Moscow has been solved, and the rest becomes simple.

Both were generals who had commanded an army of hundreds of thousands. Schlieffen and Grouchy quickly organized their troops to go on the road. It was almost August, and winter came earlier in Russia than in France and Prussia, so there was no time to delay any longer.

Countless soldiers began to march toward Moscow in the southeast. This journey was almost 700 kilometers long. Both Grouchy and Schlieffen were well prepared for the arduous march.

But after setting out on the road, the two of them were simply overjoyed.

Nothing else, as they found the roads surprisingly good.

And...! Although the news that St. Petersburg was besieged has spread in Russia, the Russians did not seem to have thought that the coalition forces would bypass St. Petersburg and march directly to Moscow.

This road was originally planned to be fought while marching. To this end, a small number of cavalry were fully deployed to the front army to quickly destroy the enemy's resistance.

As a result, Schlieffen and Grouchy found that there was almost no resistance from the Russians. The only ones who came out to resist seemed to be some women who were stronger than the men.

They were armed with dung forks and wooden sticks, trying to protect themselves from being raped by coalition soldiers.

Can……!

After Schlieffen and Grouchy met these women, they became more interested in the pigs in the pigsty.

After all, these pigs would be a nice dinner. These women would be a nightmare at night.

If you march too fast, the supplies will inevitably be unable to keep up. It is normal to plunder a little from the enemy. Everywhere they go, the soldiers will openly plunder.

Both Schlieffen and Grouchy seemed to encourage this kind of robbery. They distributed more supplies to the troops behind and less to the troops in front.

Those cavalrymen had to find food by themselves.

After marching for two days, they actually traveled more than 100 kilometers. They encountered no organized resistance and all the fighting was sporadic.

Moreover, the Russians fighting against the coalition forces did not look like soldiers, and the weapons in their hands were even more primitive and terrifying. Grouchy even captured a large open fire gun, which was a product of the same era as the matchlock gun.

As the best commanders on the battlefield, Schlieffen and Grouchy were keenly aware that the Russians were finished!

On the southern front, they must defend Kiev no matter what, under the siege of the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romanians and Poles!

Kiev is the birthplace of the Slavs and the center of Russia's breadbasket.

As long as there is a slight chance, Russia is absolutely unwilling to give up Kiev. After all, the birthplace can be given up, but people have to eat.

The frozen land near Moscow is far from producing enough food to withstand the consumption of war. If you want to have a full stomach, you have to hold on to Kiev.

The strength of the coalition forces is powerful. Although the Russian army is only defensive, it still consumes huge manpower and material resources. The southern Ukrainian battlefield alone involves more than one million Russian troops.

As for the Riga-Vilnius-Minsk battlefield on the northern front, it is the Prussian army and the French army that have unprecedentedly powerful combat capabilities.

These troops are not comparable to the ragtag troops on the southern front.

They are all big countries that have fought large-scale wars. Russia was also forced to invest all its elites on this front line of battlefield in an attempt to prevent the coalition forces from continuing to advance eastward.

The two battlefields have exhausted almost all of Russia's reserve troop sources.

In fact, there is no army at all in the vast hinterland of Russia. Schlieffen and Grouchy's original plan of marching and fighting at the same time obviously overestimated the Russians.

Now they simply can't muster an army to fight against the coalition forces.

The Prussian and French allied forces cut into the heart of Russia like a knife cutting through butter, with the blade pointed directly at the heart of Russia, Moscow.

What's even more terrible is that in recent years, with the help of Dorgon, Russia has almost adopted the same strategy as the Ming Dynasty, which is to build roads first if it wants to get rich.

The highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg is a key project, which must not only maintain quality but also quantity.

The road underfoot was so flat, and allied soldiers were marching on the road. Behind each company, there were carriages stolen from Russian houses, carrying stolen supplies.

The guns and ammunition carried by the soldiers had little chance of being fired.

In this way, the coalition forces rapidly marched towards Moscow at a speed of fifty to sixty kilometers per day.

At this time, Moscow had no time to fully mobilize for war.

"Brauchitsch! The Prussians and French are marching towards Moscow. Is there any way we can stop it?" Queen Ekaterina angrily asked her prime minister.

Prince Peter was trapped in St. Petersburg, and Kutuzov was commanding the northern front in Minsk. Catherine could only ask this poor old man why he was now the Prime Minister of the Russian Empire.

"Your Majesty, we have no way to stop them. All the troops have been sent to the front line. There are only 13,000 Praetorian Guards in Moscow and only more than 10,000 city defense troops.

There are still 30,000 new recruits who have just joined the army and are still in training on the outskirts of Moscow.

All these people together amounted to less than 60,000 people. According to intelligence, the army rushing towards Moscow was dominated by Prussian and French troops who were accustomed to fighting, and the number exceeded 200,000.

With our strength, we can't stop it at all." Brauchitsch replied very helplessly.

"Immediately organize citizens to enlist in the army. Young men and women must take up arms to defend Moscow. Moscow is absolutely not allowed to discard them." There was no doubt in Yekaterina's tone.

There are not many railway lines in Russia, and the intersection is in Moscow.

This also resulted in Moscow becoming a transit point for supplies from the front line and the rear.

Once Moscow is lost, what will happen to the things stored in the warehouse? If the Russian railway is cut off, how can we still deliver supplies to the front line?

"Your Majesty the Queen! If we organize citizens to enlist in the army now, the factories will not be able to operate. Once the factories stop working, then...the soldiers on the front line will be short of guns and ammunition.

And we don't have enough weapons to arm so many people at the same time.

I still have a letter from Prince Peter here. His letter said that St. Petersburg is in urgent need of weapons. Otherwise, he may not be able to hold on."

"You mean, we have to sit back and wait for death now?" Empress Catherine stood up and stared at Brauchitsch.

"Perhaps there is only one way for us to get out of this predicament at the moment." Brauchitsch seemed to be very determined, raising his head and looking into the eyes of Empress Catherine.

"If you have a way, why don't you tell me quickly!" Yekaterina looked very irritated.

"Surrender!" Brauchitsch gently uttered two words.

Ekaterina seemed not to recognize Brauchitsch and stared at him for a long time.

"You said surrender?" July is the warmest season of the year in Moscow, but Ekaterina's tone was as cold as ice.

"Yes, surrender!" Brauchitsch seemed to be willing to give in, looking at Ekaterina without giving in.

"If we surrender, we will have to fight for so long and why so many people will die! You old thing, are you confused?

No! I was confused, and I actually used you, a fool, to be the prime minister.

Get out! Get out!" Ekaterina pointed at Brauchitsch's nose and roared.

"If we continue to fight, we will still fail. Then more people will die. It is better for us to save some seeds now and wait for future opportunities to get back what we have lost.

The Ming Dynasty people have a very philosophical saying, that is, giving up! If you give up, you will gain!

This means that when you lose something, you may gain a lot.

Her Majesty the Queen! The war has reached this point, and we no longer have the troops to continue fighting the coalition forces. Instead of sending Mother Russia’s outstanding children, batch after batch, into the flesh and blood mill to be ground into pulp.

It's better to save our strength so that we can have a chance to make a comeback in the future.

If the fight continues like this, the Russian nation may never, ever be able to prosper again in the future."

"Surrender! Do you want me to be a sinner of the Russian nation?" Yekaterina said fiercely.

"Dear Her Majesty the Queen! You are still young. From now on, you will lead the rejuvenation of the Russian nation.

And I! Brauchitsch! I am seventy years old this year, and I have only a few days to live. For the sake of Russia’s future, I am willing to bear the name of a traitor.

Even after I die, there is no way my coffin will be buried under the Kremlin wall. And I don’t care!

I just want that the Russian nation will one day be rejuvenated. It will be as powerful as the Ming Dynasty today, Her Majesty the Queen! Please allow me to discuss surrender matters!"

Brauchitsch's eyes were filled with tears, and the turbid old tears finally broke through his eyes. They fell along his cheeks like old pine bark and fell on his beard.

Yekaterina was stunned. After what she just said, she already knew that Brauchitsch did not really want to betray Russia. This was a truly mature person who wanted to seek the country!

Compared with those young nobles who shout and kill all day long, he is the person the empire needs.

"If Russia surrenders, it will definitely be broken up like India. This is a routine used by the Ming Dynasty. Whichever country is strong, they will break it apart.

Then the big countries turned into small countries, and finally there was no big country in the world comparable to the Ming Dynasty.

It's not that I haven't thought about what you said, but once it surrenders, Russia may no longer have a future."

"Hahaha! My Majesty the Queen, have you read the history of the Ming Dynasty? There is a sentence in their history book: the general trend of the world, if it unites for a long time, it will divide, and if it divides for a long time, it will unite!

This means that if it is unified for a long time, it will be divided, and if it is divided for a long time, it will be integrated into a country.

The Russian Empire has its current territory, and some of it was conquered with the blood of imperial soldiers. But some of them saw the power of Russia and willingly surrendered.

As long as we preserve our strength, who can say that you will not repeat the achievements of our ancestors, the Tsar, in driving away the Mongols in the future?

This sentence of the Ming Dynasty is correct for them. Because the history of the Ming Dynasty is like this. Every three hundred years, the world will be in chaos, and then the national power will be severely weakened.

After decades of turmoil, the country will be reunited by a strong man. Then it will become strong again, and then about three hundred years later, the country will fall apart again.

The history of the Ming Dynasty cycled like this.

In other words, this is the nightmare of that country. It is God’s curse on them!

The Ming Dynasty has gone through two hundred and ninety-one years since the founding of the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang." Brauchitsch's other identity is that of a famous Russian scholar.

Moreover, he was one of the few people in the Russian Empire who knew Chinese characters and could read Ming Dynasty books.

Not to mention in Russia, even in the whole of Europe, Brauchitsch, who had stayed in the Ming Dynasty for ten years, was not very familiar with the Ming Dynasty.

"You mean, maybe there will be chaos within the Ming Dynasty first?" Queen Catherine widened her eyes and looked at Brauchitsch. This news is really exciting!
To be continued...