Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 405 Negotiations between Beihai Town and Tsarist Russia

In mid-February 1789, the special negotiating envoy of Tsarist Russia, Kirill Vladimirovich Count Mujin, arrived at the salt town of Ussorye, 2 kilometers north of Irkutsk, and demanded that he and the local The top military chief of the Northern Navy started negotiations.

Usoriya is a salt industry town located on the left bank of the Angara River. The salt produced by the local salt spring supplies the entire East Siberia. The purpose of the Northern Navy’s occupation here is self-evident.

Unlike the Qing Dynasty, under the Tsarist Russia, the power to cook salt was controlled by merchants or monasteries.After the Northern Navy captured Ussoriye, in order to ease local conflicts, it did not take back the privileges of the priests at first.After Zhang Jingxuan took office, his first solution was to negotiate with the local religious forces, and half-forcibly completed the unified purchase and sales of salt at a middle price.

On the fourth day after Earl Mujin arrived, Zhang Jingxuan and Liu Sheng, the newly appointed governors of the Beihai Special Region, came from Irkutsk to meet the favorite of the Russian Empress.Earl Mujin was deeply surprised that the two men came so quickly, which reminded him of the speed of the North Navy's troop deployment.At the same time, he was quite surprised by the youth of Liu and Zhang.

After a little pleasantries, the two sides quickly entered the negotiation stage.

Basically, all the invaders in history followed the robber logic of "beating back and forth". Earl Mujin didn't mention Tsarist Russia's long-planned aggression at all, but expressed strong protest against Beihai Town's aggressive attack on Novosibirsk, accusing this The behavior destroyed the long-established mutual trust and economic and trade cooperation between Qing and Russia.

Faced with such shameless shame, Liu Sheng finally couldn't help but slapped the table and jumped up, pointing at Earl Mujin's nose. I don't know how to translate.But Mu Jin, who is an aristocrat, disapproved of Liu Sheng's irascibility. He thought it was a sign of the other party's lack of education.

In the subsequent negotiations between the two parties, the Earl of Mother Gold made the following request to the Northern Navy on behalf of Empress Catherine II:
[-]. Release the soldiers of the Russian army who were captured in the battles of Aigun City and Yak City;

[-]. The Northern Navy retreated to the east of the Ergun River and restored the original border between Qing and Russia;
[-]. In view of the fact that the Northern Navy has become the actual ruler of the upper reaches of the Amur River, Russia is willing to sign a bilateral treaty with Beihai Town, like the Qing Dynasty, to regulate the exchanges of border residents, criminal punishment and extradition clauses, and to resume economic and trade exchanges in Nerchinsk;
[-]. The North Navy handed over the four sailing ships captured on Bitter Leaf Island and released all captured crew members.

Zhang Jingxuan suppressed his indignation and listened to the missionary's translation, and then ordered his subordinates to read the conditions of Beihai Town in northern Mandarin:
50. The Tsarist Russian Empire compensates Beihai Town with 670 taels of gold, which is equivalent to [-] million silver rubles, to compensate for all personnel and property losses caused by the Russian army’s invasion of the middle and upper reaches of Heilongjiang;
[-]. As a representative of the new Chinese forces that will replace the Manchu Qing in the future, Beihai Town demanded that the Russian side retreat to the west of the Yenisei River and demolish the Russian fortresses set up on the upper reaches of the Angara River and the Yenisei River;
[-]. After the Russian side agrees to the above terms, the two sides will start to discuss the prisoners of war and economic and trade issues.

Of course the mother gold earl would not agree, and he had no right to agree.He asked to meet the captured Russian Eastern Front Commander Suvorov and other generals above the colonel level.

After that, the two sides started wrangling for several days around their respective conditions.

During this period, Earl Mujin threatened the existing 60 army of the Tsarist Russian Empire, bluntly saying that if the Northern Navy did not retreat, the Russian army would retake the occupied territory with an unprecedentedly powerful offensive.

Zhang Jingxuan, who had learned about the current situation in Russia through Zhao Xin before, responded, unless you don't want Crimea and the Black Sea coast, and you have to turn your back on your ally Austria.

As soon as this remark came out, Earl Mujin was greatly surprised. He did not expect that these remote "Tatars" knew about the ongoing war in Crimea.

On December 12 last year, after six months of siege, the Ekaterina Army under the command of Duke Potemkin captured Vochia at the mouth of the Dnieper River, and the situation was very good.If a large number of troops on the western front were transferred back to the east and the "Greek plan" was abandoned, not to mention the ally Austria, even Potemkin would not agree.

The so-called "Greek plan" is also called "Byzantine Restoration Plan".Its purpose was to extend the southwestern territory of the Russian Empire to the Dniester River and establish a capital in Constantinople, echoing St. Petersburg to the north and south.Constantine, the grandson of the empress, ruled the new empire including northern Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Thrace and Bulgaria.The Duke of Potemkin will serve as king of the "Kingdom of Dacia" consisting of Bessarabia, Wallachia and Moldova.The plan also agreed to assign Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria in order to obtain Austrian support for the plan.

Before leaving, the queen told Earl Jin that considering Siberia's climate and traffic factors, the maximum number of troops on the eastern front could be maintained at 5; and for this offensive, the government must issue huge national debts and print more banknotes. used to maintain huge military expenditures.

Not counting waterways, there is only a 6000-mile-long post road from Moscow to Siberia, which is muddy in spring, waterlogged in summer, and potholed in winter.According to Rumyantsev's estimate, it will take more than a year to mobilize a huge army and logistics team from Europe to complete the combat deployment.

Since the outbreak of the Fifth Russo-Turkish War in 1769, the Queen has found an effective means to improve her financial situation, which is to print banknotes.As of 1788, Catherine II had issued banknotes totaling more than 800 million rubles, behind which was an annual fiscal revenue of 5000 million rubles and a national debt of [-] million rubles.

In this era, apart from the United Kingdom, there is no such thing as a "gold standard" in Europe. The country's issuance of banknotes relies entirely on the power of the government.

Beihai Town wants Tsarist Russia to pay 14% of its annual fiscal revenue as compensation, unless the old lady is crazy.

Time entered March, and Earl Mujin gave up the negotiation, knowing that this battle was inevitable.However, he really wanted to go to war. Only a large amount of military expenditure and a large number of material purchases could make the nobles make a fortune.

After that, Earl Mujin and the Orthodox bishop who came together, accompanied by a company of the Northern Navy, crossed the cold and windy Lake Baikal on an ice sledge, all the way east to Yaksa, and visited the captured Russian officers and soldiers .

For more than half a year, Yaksa's Russian army has been "repairing the earth" under the gunpoint of the North Navy, withstood mosquito bites and biting cold.Specifically, they are engaged in road foundation construction from Yakesa to Heilongjiang City in preparation for future railway construction.

When Earl Mujin arrived in Yaxa, he immediately protested strongly when he saw that the hungry prisoners were driven out to work before dawn every day.

It is said that in the history of another time and space, Tsarist Russia recruited hundreds of thousands of Chinese from Shandong, Henan, and Northeast China to build the Trans-Siberian Railway, and they completed most of the construction.Like the famous "Western Railway", the entire Trans-Siberian Railway was built on the bones of Chinese workers.

They endured the exploitation of the Russians and moved forward at an average rate of 587 versts per year. However, when the railway was opened to traffic, many Chinese workers had no food or clothing, and ended up wandering along the railway line, begging for a living.

History serves as a mirror, and Wu Siyu, the commander in chief of the Russian prisoner-of-war management department of the Yaksa Army, has no sympathy for these seemingly pitiful prisoners.He has repeatedly told the officers of his troops that these Rakshasa are "fearing power and not fearing morality", and they must be dealt with severely.

come on!Each person has a pickaxe and a shovel, the hard frozen soil is waiting for you!Those who dare to escape and resist will be shot, and the strong wind and ice and snow will help to bury them.For those who want to reduce the progress of the project, the food will be suspended for two days!
The prisoners in the prisoner-of-war camp lived in sheds made of logs and birch bark. The beds were on two floors, and each person had a space only 0.5 meters wide.This kind of house must not be rainproof, but it is enough to keep out the cold. Just put an iron pot on the fire before going to bed at night and it will be solved.

The staple food of the captives was black bread and boiled potatoes dipped in salted water, and the well-behaved construction team would eat canned meat from the North Navy once a week.

In addition, it is not so harsh to wear the Beihai Navy. After all, what Zhao Xin wants is to work, and no one will repair the roadbed if he freezes to death.For this reason, he specially purchased a large number of winter clothes and cheap thermal underwear before winter, which made the Cossack captives very grateful.

On the second day after Earl Mujin arrived in Yaksa, Zhao Xin quietly arrived in Yaksa City and met a selected Cossack prisoner.

"Know Pugachev?"

"I know, my lord, that is a traitor. The mother of the country took him to Moscow and hanged him."

Sitting opposite Zhao Xin was a Cossack from the Don River. His name was Krutogorov, and he was less than 30 years old this year.At this moment, he shrank back on the stool timidly, with a flattering smile on his face.

"Yeah." Zhao Xin nodded, and the words he said almost caused the other party to fall out of the chair.He said slowly: "From today onwards, you are Pugachev's son"

"What?!" Krutogorov slammed his jaw on his feet, completely speechless in surprise.

Zhao Xin continued: "Look, at the beginning Pugachev said he was Peter III, so you are the son of Peter III."

Krutogorov stammered and said: "Big, big, my lord, he is a fake, a fake!"

"I said you are real, and you are real." Zhao Xin said with a smile and squinted eyes: "Inherit Pugachev's behest, from the east of the Ural Mountains to the west of the Yenisei River, build a land without serfs, Cossack Utopia with no population tax."

Krutogorov was dumbfounded after hearing this. He was a tenant farmer from the banks of the Don River. He did not expect that the Chinese lord in front of him would actually support him to rebel.

For Zhao Xin, Tsarist Russia is too big.With the current strength of the Northern Navy, even if he could cross the Ural Mountains to teach the old lady the queen, he would not be able to hold such a large territory right now.Before the outer Northeast and North Sea Special Zones were firmly locked by railways, the demarcation requirement to use the Yenisei River as the boundary was simply a castle in the air.

"Everyone cheats, the priest cheats the people, the servant cheats the lord, and the nobles always try to cheat the tsar... This is the status quo in Russia. And your old lady wrote to Voltaire, saying that if the peasant wants to eat chicken, he can Eat whatever you want, you know the truth better than me."

Zhao Xin couldn't tell the difference and finally said: "Krutogorov, go back and think about it carefully, and reply to me in a few days."

Who is Voltaire?Krutogorov said to himself how could the Virgin have said that?As a bankrupt farmer, before joining the army, his family didn't even eat chicken, he couldn't even eat eggs!
On the other side, Earl Jin finally met Suvorov who was in jail.However, to his surprise, there was no Beihai Navy surveillance in the reception room.

This made him very puzzled, and he didn't understand what Bei Haijun was thinking, so that they could meet alone.

However, what neither of them noticed was that on the ceiling at the four corners of the reception room, a few "gadgets" hidden in the wooden boards were closely monitoring their every move, and even every word they said could be read. Hear it clearly.

In fact, Suvorov has been enjoying this kind of treatment ever since he was captured. He had planned several resistance actions against the Northern Navy, but they were all easily disintegrated in the end.This made Suvorov deeply suspicious of several of his subordinates, thinking that there must be traitors among them.

When Suvorov heard Earl Mujin say that the Russian army had won victory in Vochia, he couldn't help but sighed deeply.

If Yakesa hadn't lost, if Aihui City hadn't been lost, and even if there wasn't that strange Zhao Xin, he should be galloping on the western battlefield now, right?

"The mother of the country is very concerned about your safety. When she got the news, she immediately recalled the governor of Little Russia."

Suvorov asked in surprise, "Has the Marshal returned to St. Petersburg?"

Mu Jin spread his hands and said: "There is no way, there was a conflict between His Excellency the Duke and the Marshal in the direction of attack."

Suvorov thought for a while and asked, "Is Suvorovchka all right?"

Suvorovchka was his daughter, and after Suvorov finally divorced his wife in 1784, his only emotional sustenance remained.Since parting from his daughter, Suvorov has felt extremely painful. He is counting the days day by day, waiting for the reunion with his daughter.

However, Suvorov actually has a young son, but because of his cheating wife, the general did not recognize him as his own flesh and blood for a long time.

To make a digression, this year is the real "era of lewdness" in Europe, and Catherine II is wrong in this respect.Many "cuckold" husbands would rather pretend to be ignorant of their wives' capriciousness, so as not to annoy the Queen and her favorites.Regardless of Catherine II's repeated mediation, Suvorov resolutely and publicly broke with his cheating wife. This shows that he has both a strong character and a strong will, and it is also an indirect reprimand of the old lady's own conduct. .

Earl Jin took out a letter from his pocket, handed it to the other party, and said, "Before I left, I went to see Natasha at Smolny Girls' High School. This is a letter she wrote to you."

On the other hand, Zhao Xin got the content of the conversation between Suvorov and Earl Mujin after the meeting.He looked at the record and asked the officer in charge of monitoring, "Can you confirm that this is a letter from his daughter?"

"It should be possible." The officer replied, "He read the letter while weeping."

Zhao Xin nodded, and after reading the record, he said: "When the mother-in-law Earl returns, bring Suvorov with him."

Wu Siyu who was drinking tea at the side asked curiously: "What are your plans?"

Zhao Xin said: "There is no plan. Since he misses his daughter so much, I will use the cannons of the Beihai Navy to completely extinguish the Admiral's fire of revenge."

Wu Siyu said: "You don't want to take any more prisoners? Right now, there are not enough people to repair the railway."

Zhao Xin rolled his eyes and said, "Brother, don't you need money for bullets and cannonballs?! If the problem can be solved with ten shells, why should I use a hundred?"

Wu Siyu: "."

After meeting with Suvorov, Count Mu Jin asked Wu Siyu who met him what price he would have to pay to release the admiral.Wu Siyu said with a straight face: "10 poods of gold, I think your Excellency is worth this amount."

According to the measurement unit of Tsarist Russia at the end of the 18th century, 10 poods equaled 40 Russian pounds, equal to 163 kilograms, which was about twice the weight of Suvorov.

Earl Mujin let out a long breath after hearing this, and said to himself that these people are really a group of misers who want money, and they have no gentleman's demeanor at all!

　In history, in 1799, 15-year-old Arkady Suvorov became a major general and served as his father's adjutant.

　　Unfortunately, when he was a division commander in 1811, he drowned to save a private. He was only 25 years old at the time.The place where Arkady drowned was the Remnik River where his father, Generalissimo Suvorov, had beaten the Turks out of their wits.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)