After blood was drained and medicine was administered, Catherine II woke up, but she did not open her eyes and could not speak.
In fact, bloodletting therapy is not ineffective, otherwise Europeans would not have used it from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, but it depends on the disease and the amount of bloodletting. If you meet a quack like Washington, it would be strange if you don't get tricked to death.
There is also bloodletting therapy in traditional Chinese medicine. Three-edged needles or other thick needles are used to cut the superficial veins of specific acupuncture points and release a small amount of blood to release the internal heat and poison. Wang Qingren, who now works in Beihai Town, was a famous master of promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis in the history of another time and space. The therapy he pioneered has been used until modern times.
Back to business. At this time, the ministers who were standing around saw that the Queen was awake, and they unanimously agreed to send someone to find Archduke Paul immediately. In fact, there was no need to discuss it at all. Someone had already sent someone to notify him in advance. The seventeen-year-old grandson Alexander - Alexander I, who would later fight with Napoleon, asked Count Rostopchin with tears in his eyes to formally inform his father of the situation. Alexander's move was to convince his father, Paul, that no one was trying to seize the throne, least of all himself.
At almost four o'clock in the afternoon, the first wave of envoys arrived at the Gatchina Palace, 24 kilometers southwest of St. Petersburg. This place was originally built by the Queen for her old lover, Count Grigory Orlov, who helped her launch a coup and killed Peter III with his own hands. After the count's death, Catherine II gave Gatchina Palace to her son.
Paul ordered the carriage to be prepared and immediately set off with Maria for St. Petersburg. At a post station halfway, they met Count Rostopchin.
It was already dark. Archduke Paul stepped out of the carriage. After listening to the count's report, he looked up at the stars. The moon shuttles through the clouds, and its bright light shines on the earth, illuminating the dark wilderness and making people feel peaceful and peaceful.
At this moment, Paul was looking straight at the moon, his eyes full of tears, running down his cheeks, his thoughts in his heart were like waves, and he could use a sentence from later generations: MMP, it's finally my turn!
Like those princes in Chinese history, the relationship between the queen and her son was not good. After launching the coup that year, Catherine had declared Paul her heir. If nothing else happened, she should allow him to ascend the throne as a co-ruler when Paul came of age; just like the Queen of Austria, she and her son would govern together. Government, thus cultivating his son's ability to govern.
The problem is that Tsarist Russia has always wanted to be European, but at their core they are still Mongolian, and many of the Mongolian things were learned from the Central Plains Dynasty.
During the years Catherine II was in power, she never gave her son any chance to touch power. After Archduke Paul came of age, mother and son could not see each other more than a few times a year. Apart from taking his wife to attend official celebrations as a mascot, they did not even hold an official position in the government.
In order to make her son insignificant in the political arena, the old lady kept finding faults just like Kangxi did; sometimes she said he was too naive, sometimes she said he was not independent enough and indecisive. One minute she was scolding him for not caring enough about national affairs, and the next she was complaining that he was too involved in affairs. In the end, I simply abandoned it, gave it to a palace, and moved away.
When her eldest grandson, Alexander, was still young, Catherine II began to consider the possibility of depriving Grand Duke Paul of his inheritance rights and planned to pass the throne directly to his talented and handsome grandson.
At 8:30 pm, Paul and his wife finally arrived at Tsarskoe Selo. When the Grand Duke saw his mother lying on the feather cushion with her eyes closed, he knelt down and kissed his mother's hand. The old lady had no reaction. After that, Paul and his wife sat beside her all night.
That night, every corner of Tsarskoye Selo was filled with sympathy and calculations for the old lady. Can she ever recover? Or can she still open her eyes and regain her sanity? Faced with the queen's preferred grandson and the legal grand duke, who should you swear allegiance to? It’s so difficult!
The busiest among them was Archduke Paul, who searched for his mother's will in the drawers of his bedroom, study and dressing room. He was well aware that his mother intended to disinherit him and pass the throne to Alexander, and there had been rumors that the empress had drawn up the document. He's been in a nightmare since the day he learned the news, and now has to make sure the will doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
Finally, he found the document in an inconspicuous box in his bedroom. It begins with the words: "I leave the throne to my grandson Alexander, who witnesses and signs this document." At the end of the document is the signature of his son Alexander.
Damn it! After waiting for forty-two years, this is the result.
Archduke Paul's face instantly became ferocious and twisted. He suppressed his anger and hatred, turned around and came to his mother, knelt on the ground and whispered into her ear: "Why are you doing this? Why?! Where am I? I'm sorry for you at all?!"
Catherine II showed no reaction, as if she had anticipated her son's complaints but dismissed them.
In a letter she wrote to a friend last spring, the old lady mentioned the bloody riots during the French Revolution and the Chinese robbery from the Temple Tower, and then expressed her worries. She foresaw that one day the young man from the East would The monarch will invade Europe, and with Archduke Paul's character and ability, he may not be able to deal with it.
"Go and find Alexander." Paul said to his wife Maria.
A few minutes later, a confused Alexander walked in. As soon as the door closed, Paul showed the will, glared and asked, "She forced Qian to sign it, right?"
Alexander didn't speak. He knew what his father was asking. He nodded silently and turned his eyes to his grandmother on the ground. Archduke Paul crumpled the will into a ball in anger, and then tore it into pieces.
It was precisely because of this serious disagreement between mother and son that the Romanov dynasty restored the primogeniture system. In the history of another time and space, until the demise of the Tsarist Empire, the Russian throne was inherited by the eldest son of the deceased monarch; if the deceased monarch left no sons, the inheritance rights would be transferred to the eldest male in the immediate family. No successor ever experienced what Paul experienced, and no female monarch ever again emerged.
At dawn, the palace doctor told Paul that Her Majesty had suffered a serious stroke and there was no hope. Paul thought for a moment and asked for cabinet secretary Bezborodko to draft his own declaration of succession to the throne.
At noon, Catherine II was dying, and the court doctor told Paul that the queen's death was approaching. Archbishop Gavillier, who had been waiting for a long time, presided over the last prayer and performed the anointing ceremony for the old lady. He applied holy oil on her forehead, cheeks, lips, chest and hands.
After that, everyone was waiting quietly for that moment to arrive. Hour after hour passed. At 7:20 that night, ten hours after she suffered a stroke and fell into a coma, Ekaterina II had been lying on the floor. The world passed away.
When the death was confirmed by the doctor, everyone present knelt down on one knee to salute Paul and pay homage to the new emperor. When he saw his son Alexander following the crowd and saluting him, Paul's heart finally fell. At this moment, his eyes were filled with tears.
Two days later, the new tsar, Paul I, the thirteenth tsar of the Romanov dynasty, who had just ascended the throne, came to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, where his father Peter III was buried. Although more than thirty years have turned the former Tsar into a skeleton, this time the body will be rewrapped and then sent to the Peter and Paul Cathedral for burial together with Catherine II.
For the Russian Empire, a period of history was over.
In 1743, Sophia Augustus Frederica, who was only fourteen years old, left her hometown of Zerbst in a carriage with her mother. After that, she traveled through the vast snowfields to Russia. This journey lasted fifty years. . No one imagined that this journey would be so long, including herself.
Due to the arrival of the national mourning day, the Russian military's military operations in Tobolsk came to a standstill. For Suvorov, whether this battle can be fought will still have to wait for the approval of the new tsar, and even if it can be fought, it will probably have to wait until the national mourning is over. Siberian winter is coming, so we can only postpone it until next spring. The most important thing on the battlefield is timing. Who knows what will happen next year? Facing an opponent with powerful force and endless methods, it is impossible to overestimate.
The news of Catherine II's death also relieved the Cossack Emirate, which was preparing for war. Krutogorov had previously sent a letter of request for help to the Northern Navy in Pinshi City (Yenisesk), and the Northern Navy Staff also agreed to send two battalions from Pinshi City and Chiyan City to form a reinforced group.
Now everyone feels at ease, at least this long winter is over. The only one who was dissatisfied was Monk Zhou. He was transferred to this inhospitable place by Zhao Xinyi's order. He was quite happy to hope that there would be a war. Unexpectedly, he worked for a long time in vain. He was so angry that he cursed in the regiment headquarters, saying That old witch died at the wrong time.
Zhao Xin received a telegram from Yang Zhongming from Pingshi City in late September, informing him of the death of Catherine II. When he saw the telegram, he was a little stunned, wondering why the old lady died so early? A full two years ahead of schedule! But then he thought about it, even Qianlong didn't make it to sixty years, so naturally the Empress of Tsarist Russia was not a big deal.
He signed the telegram receipt form and returned the message paper to Chai Rugui, the chief of guard. After the other party saluted and left, he said to Mrs. Elizabeth sitting on the sofa: "I have a shocking news for you."
"What?" Elizabeth spoke lazily, as if she was not interested in anything.
Since entering the second month of pregnancy, she often felt dizzy and weak, and she also vomited violently in the morning. But it's no wonder, let alone the eighteenth century, in another time and space she would have been considered an advanced maternal age. After Zhao Xin learned the news a month ago, he did not dare to tell Director Liu Da. Instead, he secretly asked A Miao to arrange for three nurses to take care of him 24 hours a day in three shifts.
When she learned from Zhao Xin that the empress who had ruled the Russian Empire for more than thirty years was dead, Elizabeth seemed a little unbelievable. She got up and walked to the next bedroom, praying to the cross on the wall for more than ten minutes before coming out.
"That Archduke Paul, what do you think?"
"I actually met him."
"Have you seen it? Great! Tell me about it."
Elizabeth knew that Zhao Xin must ask this question. Thirteen years ago, in 1781, Catherine II arranged for Grand Duke Paul and his wife Maria Feodorovna to visit various European countries, one of which was Paris.
"Let me think about it, it has been more than ten years." Elizabeth recalled as she began to narrate intermittently: "They did not go to the Palace of Versailles that year, but went on a disguised visit, so the meeting place was arranged at the Condé Manor. Well, this man is very well-educated. I heard that his teacher was Count Panin, who was once the head of the Russian Foreign Affairs Commission. The Grand Duke learned French quite well. As you know, I am a woman, so men talk Things can't be moved forward. I remember Prince Condé said later that this person would often appear very anxious and impatient. By the way, that Duke was particularly interested in chivalry."
After listening to Elizabeth's story, Zhao Xin roughly sketched the character of Paul I in his mind. Impatient, impatient, eager for quick results, polite, respectful of hierarchy, and pedantic. It is like this when you are young, but it is also a virtue when you are older, and it is difficult to change. What this kind of people like to do most is gambling. They often start gambling as soon as they get excited and never make preparations in advance. They feel elated when they win and become exhausted immediately when they lose.
Based on the above analysis, Zhao Xin feels that the battle in Tobolsk may not be fought, and even if it is fought, it will not be a big fight. What Tsarist Russia needs most now is internal reforms to improve the living environment of serfs and improve the lives of farmers. Furthermore, in terms of foreign policy, the situation in Europe is obviously more important. Without the military support of Tsarist Russia, the anti-French alliance may not last long.
If you want to implement the above policies, you have to have no money. Therefore, the east-west trade that has been interrupted for several years is what Tsarist Russia wants to restore most. Zhao Xin felt that Pingshi City might soon see an envoy from Tsarist Russia.
After talking for a long time, Elizabeth was already tired, so she let Zhao Xin help her back to the bedroom to rest. Being pregnant at the age of thirty, Elizabeth felt that this was a gift from God to her. Of course, the man next to her also contributed a lot. Elizabeth hadn't seen Zhao Xin for some days, and of course she missed that thing, but the doctor had warned her before, so she could only hold Zhao Xin's hand and not let him go.
Zhao Xin didn't gently take his hand out until the other party fell asleep, and then came to the yard to smoke a cigarette. Unexpectedly, before I had time to order it when I took it out, I felt someone next to me out of the corner of my eye. I turned around and saw that it was Louischard, my cheap nephew, hiding behind the pillar under the porch and looking at him.
"Come here." Zhao Xin put away his cigarette and waved to the other party with a smile. After two years of nursing care, Louis and his sister have completely recovered from tuberculosis.
"I-I have a question."
"Tell me." Zhao Xin sat on the stool between the pillars.
"Are you going to send me and my sister away?"
At the beginning of last month, the envoy sent by Leclerc, the governor-general of French India, followed Ding Guofeng back to Beihai Town. When he met with Princess Elizabeth, he proposed that the crown prince be invited to govern the area. Although Louis Charles was not present at the time, he had been hiding under the window and eavesdropping.
The child was only nine years old. His experiences during the French Revolution had dealt a heavy blow to his young mind. Although Elizabeth had been teaching her the responsibilities of being a crown prince, for Louis Charles, there was no place like Beihai Town, and there was no need to look at people's faces. Not to mention the humiliation, there are also a large group of children as playmates here.
(End of chapter)
