On September 2, 1788, Ivan Jacobi's messenger Yevgeny arrived in St. Petersburg.
When he just stepped out of the carriage, the Queen's bodyguard was already waiting for him. The guard saluted Yevgeny, who had messy hair and a full beard, and then asked: "Are you a messenger?"
Yevgeny immediately replied: "Yes, I am the special envoy of Governor Ivan Jacobi."
"Then let's go see His Royal Highness the Crown Prince now. He and the Palace Manager are waiting for the good news you bring."
Seeing that the guard was so impatient, Yevgeny hesitated a little. He looked at his tattered uniform and the soldier's coat with a big hole in it, thinking that this was too disheveled. So he said to the guard: "You must let me freshen up first, change clothes and go to see the Grand Duke, right?"
The guard smiled and said: "No, His Highness the Grand Duke prefers people like you who return from expeditions and bring news of victory."
victory? Yevgeny felt a little guilty. He didn't know if the Queen would be furious after hearing about the failure of Heilongjiang City.
So he sat on the luxurious carriage sent by the Minister of War with great anxiety, and went all the way to the Palace Village to meet the Crown Prince Paul and the Queen's Secretary Hrabovich.
However, when the future Paul I received Ivan Jacobi's letter and read that "the Chinese organized powerful force, which caused us to encounter a small setback in Heilongjiang City," the 34-year-old crown prince's face suddenly revealed out of deep worry. He frowned and said, "Do we need to be more cautious when we start a war with an Eastern Empire that is no smaller than Russia and has an extremely large population?"
Archduke Paul actually disapproved of Catherine II's foreign expansion policy, and he wanted Russia to be completely Prussianized. He once implicitly criticized his mother in a military reform paper and bluntly stated his insistence on non-interference in European affairs. The Queen accepted it casually. She felt from her son's article that he threatened her rights, and deepened her suspicion that Paul was plotting with the forces opposed to the Queen to abdicate.
Catherine II never considered ruling Russia with him, and when Paul's son Alexander was born, Catherine II seemed to have found a better heir than Paul. She single-handedly raised her eldest grandson Alexander, and she repeatedly planned to bypass Paul and let Alexander succeed directly. She even brought this plan to the Privy Council for discussion, but gave up after encountering opposition from most ministers.
There are no relatives in front of power. This is the same as King Yingzu of Kangxi and Li dynasties. Any monarch in history who has accumulated great power will instinctively resist anyone who can threaten his throne, but someone a generation away is much better.
The next morning, the queen's secretary Hrabovich led Yevgeny to meet with Catherine II. Also present was Besbroko, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee (de facto prime minister).
Yevgeny kissed the back of the empress' hand with fear, while Catherine II expressed her gratitude to the "distant heroes" who occupied Amur.
"Where there has been water, there will be water again. God will bless us and punish us so that we do not become complacent. As long as we keep moving forward, things will improve. I have no doubt that Suvorov will be at the gate of Yaksa Beat up those Chinese."
At this time, Besbroko asked what to do with Major General Alexandrov and others who were trapped in Heilongjiang City. Catherine II said without hesitation: "I will never treat someone who is loyal and does things for me." People will not save themselves until they die. Send someone to Irkutsk to discuss with Jacobi how to negotiate with the Chinese. If they don't agree, then we will set the whole Heilongjiang on fire with artillery fire."
As the monarch of a country, after the 59-year-old queen tasted the sweetness of victory in foreign wars, she couldn't stop moving forward with the rapids until she fell into a fanaticism for war and even became obsessed.
Historically, this woman created unparalleled glory for the Russian Empire and became famous all over the world. There were at least ten movies and TV series about her in later generations.
She plotted Poland, expanded Russia's territory south to Crimea, and even fantasized about occupying Greece and planting the double-headed eagle's flag into Constantinople.
Regarding the East, what she has never forgotten is the outlet of the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, opening up an ice-free port for Russia in the North Pacific, and realizing her super-imperial ambition across the Eurasian continent.
But she made almost no contribution to the lowest level of people in Tsarist Russia in this era. Although she tried to correct social injustice in the early years of her accession, her enthusiasm soon faded after the Pugachev uprising.
The Pugachev who called himself Peter III fifteen years ago was not a good bird either. On the one hand, he opposed the rule of Catherine II, but on the other hand, he copied this rule model in his own ranks, down to the smallest external details.
Speaking of the serfdom system in Russia, the common people lived worse than those living next door. Peasants who were recorded in the name of a landlord became serfs, and free people became slaves as long as they worked for others for more than six months. Since Catherine II's accession to the throne, Russian serfdom has reached its peak. She alone granted as many as 800,000 court peasants and state-owned peasants to the nobility. The landowners were fully responsible for their peasants in court and had the right to punish, sentence, sentence and even execute the peasants on their territory; the peasants were not allowed to denounce their masters unless the landlords committed acts of rebellion against the tsar or the state.
In fact, the Tsarist Empire was a Tatar regime clothed in white skin. The nomadic and customary cruel ruling methods of the Mongols had long been imprinted into the country's bones with the rule of the Golden Horde.
To describe the country of Tsarist Russia in one sentence, I was born a Tatar and wanted to be a Roman. Unexpectedly, Europe regarded them as barbarians.
After sending Yevgeny away, Catherine II suddenly felt some pain in her chest. She paused the next meeting, lay on the sofa, and said to her secretary Hrabovich: "Suvorov has defeated the Chinese, and Yaksa has won. Either today or tomorrow, I have a hunch."
As the Empress' secretary and palace steward, Hrabovich knew that the Empress was often deceived by premonitions and would fall ill when anxious, especially before war. But as soon as she learns that the battle has begun, her heart will return to peace. No matter what bad news comes next, she is not afraid.
So he comforted him: "Your Majesty, this is caused by the weather and has nothing to do with the premonition. I will call the doctor right away."
"No, you don't understand. This time my hunch is accurate." The old lady kept talking for a long time, and finally took the medicine prescribed by the doctor, and then fell asleep.
The ambitious old lady did not know that not only had Suvorov become a prisoner of the Northern Navy, but the war had spread to Tsarist Russia...
"Boom! Boom!"
"Da da da!"
On the walls of Nerchinsk Fortress, the whizzing cannonballs were like birds swooping down to the ground, seemingly never stopping. Within ten minutes, several mortars from the Northern Navy had thrown dozens of shells at the wall next to the south gate of the castle. At this time, except for the corpses on the wall, no one dared to stand up and shoot.
"God, who are these people?! Why are they attacking us!"
"Sir, those few soldiers who were lucky enough to come back didn't even see clearly what they looked like. Their weapons are too powerful, and it's hard for us to deal with them."
More than an hour ago, a huge fleet of boats came down the Nercha River. Those strange boat shapes attracted many people to the river bank to watch. The locals thought this was a trade fleet coming from upriver. Who knew that when the other party approached the dock, the two large black ships at the head of the fleet suddenly opened fire, killing several Russian soldiers on the dock who were about to board the ship for inspection. Beaten to pieces.
At this time, there were more than 2,500 permanent residents in and around Nerchinsk (the population census from 1780 to 1792 was 2,503.) These included Cossack families who were exiled here, priests who opposed the empress’ confiscation of church estates, and several One hundred Buryats and a dozen Swedish exiles; and in the mountains about three hundred kilometers southeast of the local area, there are hundreds of miners composed of farmers, recruits and a few exiles.
The defenders of Nerchinsk Castle rushed to fight. They first sent a team of fifty people, but they were beaten to pieces. In the end, less than ten people escaped. This frightened the local chief executive. He ordered people to close the two open city gates regardless of the situation.
The sudden battle had been going on for more than an hour, and the defenders in Nerchinsk Fortress still didn't know who the enemy was. Although some people saw that the enemies outside the city all had Oriental faces, the local defenders were confused by the different dress of the Northern Navy from other armies...
The gunfire woke up the peaceful town. Many residents living outside the city had no time to escape into the castle, so they either ran to the Assumption Cathedral outside the castle, or hid in their homes and shivered.
Amidst the billowing smoke, a soldier from the Northern Navy rushed to the south gate of the fortress with an explosive bag tied to a wooden frame. He pressed the explosive bag against the heavy city gate and then pulled the fuse on the fuse. .
Different from what is shown in movies and TV shows, a real pull-type fuse has a pull-type fuse installed on it. This thing is made of brass and contains a wire and powder. When the fuse covered with glass powder is pulled, it will rotate and rub in the fuse, causing the fuse to catch fire and then ignite the fuse.
"boom!!!"
With a loud bang, a large hole was blown open in the south gate of the Nerchinsk Fortress. As soon as the Russian soldiers hiding behind the fortifications near the city got up from the ground and prepared to raise their guns to shoot, a hail of bullets came through the gap in the city gate. Immediately afterwards, several North Navy wooden-handled grenades were thrown in through the gap, and the continuous explosions blew up the flesh and blood of more than a dozen Russian soldiers who had no time to escape.
"Quick! Block the door, they are going to rush in!"
The person who spoke was a warrant officer. Following his order, the people in the castle hurriedly pushed several cargo carriages to the city gate, while others were busy piling everything they could find around them on the carriages. At this time, gunshots like exploding beans rang out from the gap in the city gate, and the soldiers and prisoners who were pushing carts to move things were knocked down one after another, causing heavy casualties.
"Kill!"
A platoon of North Marines rushed in, followed by more North Marines. As gunshots like exploding beans rang out rapidly in the city, more than 20 minutes later, the defenders in the city finally gave up their resistance, and this once largest "prison fortress" in the upper reaches of Heilongjiang fell.
It was past noon, when those who were hiding from the fighting in the church noticed that the gunfire outside had subsided, so someone climbed up the bell tower of the church to check. On the riverside dock not far away, black smoke pillars rose into the sky. Under the smoke pillars were dozens of burning fishing boats, and the crackling sound of burning wood could be clearly heard. In the fortress to the north, whether it was the tall wooden tower or other buildings, there was billowing smoke.
On the pier at the northeast corner of the castle fortress, a company commander of the Northern Navy reported to Liu Shenghui: "Commander-in-Chief, we have found more than 30 single-masted boats, but no large ships."
"Burn them all! Leave nothing behind!" After Liu Sheng finished speaking, he turned to the guards and communications soldiers beside him and said: "Notify all troops to board the ship and set off in two hours!"
Nerchinsk's fortress fell, further alarming the residents outside the city. In this era, the fall of a town often meant the beginning of the plunder of civilians.
Even in later generations, except for one army in the world, almost all armies expropriated food from civilians in occupied areas. Although every army boasts that it will pay civilians or issue receipts, during the war, any receipt is just a piece of paper, and civilians are unwilling to share their stored food with the army, whether it is the enemy or their own country. . Even if the armies of various countries try their best to maintain military discipline, as the war deepens, maintaining military discipline often becomes an empty talk.
Fourteen-year-old Polya and her aunt hid in the cellar under the floor of their house since explosions were heard one after another in the castle. They didn't know what happened, and Aunt Natalia wondered if the prisoners in the prison had rioted.
Natalia gently patted the child in her arms while looking uneasily towards the cellar entrance; the huge explosion from the fortress scared the two-year-old child into tears.
Sitting under them were two grain bags filled with rye, as well as a bag of potatoes and half a bag of sugar beets. These were their rations to survive this winter. Uncle Igor left with the 1st Transbaikal Infantry Regiment, and there has been no news of his return for more than two months. A family without a strong laborer and only supported by two women, one older and one younger, is living a very difficult life. This little food is simply not enough for the three people to survive this winter.
"Natalia! Polya! My dear, are you at home?"
Hearing a familiar man's voice above their heads, Polya and her aunt's eyes suddenly widened. They covered their mouths in disbelief, and tears flowed down uncontrollably.
Polya stood up and walked towards the entrance of the cellar, shouting loudly: "Uncle, is it you?"
The wooden planks pressing down on the cellar were removed, and Igor's head was exposed. He looked at Polya with tears on his face and said eagerly: "I'm back! Thank God, are you all okay? I I just went to the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption to look for you, where is our little Ivan?"
After the two women came out of the cellar, and the family was filled with joy and sorrow, Polya, who was standing aside, noticed that the clothes on her uncle were no longer the green military uniform with red cuffs, but a change of clothes. She was wearing clothes with spots and strange styles, and her feet were no longer the original riding boots, but instead turned into a pair of black and shiny short boots with tight cuffs.
"Uncle, why have your clothes changed?"
Natalia also looked at Igor and asked, "Dear, have you been promoted?"
Igor wiped the tears on his face with his big hands and said with mixed feelings: "No, I am helping the Chinese now. The good news is that we no longer have to starve, and maybe there will be fifty acres of land in the future... ..."
"Chinese?" The two women were stunned for a moment and didn't even listen to what they said next.
At this time, someone's voice suddenly came from outside the Ilgo family's cabin, but neither Natalia nor Polya could understand it.
"Igor, how are you? Have you found your family?"
Igor hurriedly turned around and opened the door, speaking in a strange and jerky accent to the people outside the room: "Yes! Огромноеспасибо, dear Fan!"
"Then hurry up and pack your things, we are about to board the ship and leave."
Looking for the voice, Polya looked outside the house and saw a fat man with a Tatar face and fair skin standing outside his yard. Behind him were several others in the same clothes. The person carrying the "musket".
"Blonde girl?" Fan Tong's smile grew wider when he saw Polya, who had red lips and white teeth, and wore a headscarf to reveal a few strands of hair.
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