Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 758 The Queen's Last Hours ([-])
After bloodletting and medicine, Catherine II really woke up, but she didn't open her eyes and couldn't speak.

In fact, bloodletting therapy is not ineffective, or Europeans would not have used it from the Middle Ages to the [-]th century, but it depends on the disease and how much it is.If you meet a quack doctor like Washington, it's no wonder you don't get played to death.

There is also bloodletting therapy in Chinese medicine, using a three-edged needle or other thick needles to cut the superficial veins of specific acupoints, release a small amount of blood, and release the internal heat and poison.Wang Qingren, who is currently working in Beihai Town, was a well-known expert in promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis in another time and space. The therapy he created has been used until modern times.

Closer to home.Seeing that the queen had woken up, the ministers who were standing around agreed to send someone to find Grand Duke Paul immediately.In fact, there is no need to discuss it at all, someone has already sent someone to notify in advance. The 17-year-old emperor's grandson Alexander—that is, Alexander I, who would later fight Napoleon to death, asked Count Rostopchin to formally inform his father about the situation with tears in his face.Alexander wanted to convince his father, Paul, that no one, least of all himself, was trying to grab the throne.

At around four in the afternoon, the first wave of envoys arrived at Gatchina Palace, 24 kilometers southwest of St. Petersburg.It was originally built by the Empress for her old lover, Count Gregory Orlov, who helped her launch a coup and killed Peter III himself.After the count's death, Catherine II gave the Gatchina Palace to her son.

Paul ordered the carriage to be ready, and immediately set off for St. Petersburg with Maria.At a post on the way they met Count Rostopchin.

It was already dark, and Grand Duke Paul got out of the carriage. After listening to the earl's report, he looked up at the starry sky.The moon shuttles through the clouds, and the bright light shines on the earth, illuminating the dark field, making people feel peaceful and peaceful.

At this moment, Paul is staring straight at the moon, his eyes are full of tears, running down his cheeks, his thoughts are like waves ups and downs, a thousand words to paraphrase 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 is not good.After the coup d'état that year, Ekaterina declared Paul as her heir. If nothing else, she should allow Paul to take the throne as a joint ruler when he becomes an adult; just like the Queen of Austria, she and her son jointly rule government, so as to cultivate his son's ability to govern.

The problem is that Tsarist Russia has always wanted to be a European, but they still have the Mongols in their bones, and many things the Mongols learned from the Central Plains dynasty.

During the years that Catherine II was in power, she never gave her son any chance to touch power.After Archduke Paul became an adult, the mother and son did not see each other several times a year, and apart from taking his wife to attend official ceremonies as a mascot, they did not even hold official positions in the government.

In order to make her son insignificant in the political arena, the old lady, just like Kangxi back then, kept finding faults and finding faults; sometimes she said that he was too naive in handling things, and sometimes she said he was not independent enough and indecisive.One minute she blamed him for not caring enough about state affairs, and the next minute she complained about his meddling too much.In the end, he simply discarded it and gave it to a palace, so he rolled away.

When the eldest grandson Alexander was still young, Catherine II began to consider the possibility of depriving Grand Duke Paul of the right to inherit, planning to pass the throne directly to her gifted and handsome grandson.

At 8:[-] in the evening, Paul and his wife finally arrived at Tsarist Village.When the Grand Duke saw his mother lying on the feather cushion with her eyes closed, he knelt down and kissed her hand. The old lady didn't respond, and then the Pauls sat beside her for a whole night.

That night, every corner of Tsarist Village was full of sympathy and calculations for the old lady.Will she ever recover?Or can she still open her eyes and regain her sanity?Facing the queen's favorite grandson and the statutory grand duke, who should I swear allegiance to?It's so embarrassing!
The busiest of these was Archduke Paul, who searched for his mother's will in the drawers of the bedroom, study and dressing room.He was well aware that his mother intended to disinherit him and pass the throne to Alexander, and there were persistent rumors that the empress had drawn up the papers.He's been in a nightmare since the day he got the news, and now he has to make sure the will doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

Eventually, he found the document in an unassuming box in his bedroom.It begins with the words: "I will leave the throne to my grandson Alexander, who has witnessed and signed this document." At the end of the document, is the signature of his son Alexander.

I rely on it!After waiting for 42 years, this is the result.

Grand Duke Paul's face became ferocious and distorted in an instant. He suppressed his anger and hatred, turned around and came to his mother, knelt on the ground and approached her mother in a low voice, "Why did you do this? Why?! Where did I A little sorry for you?!"

Catherine II did not respond, as if she had anticipated her son's complaints, but dismissed them.

In a letter to a friend last spring, the old lady mentioned the bloody riots in the French Revolution and the robbery of the Chinese from the Temple Tower. The monarch will come to Europe, but with the character and ability of Grand Duke Paul, he may not be able to deal with it.

"Go and find Alexander." Paul said to his wife Maria.

A few minutes later, Alexander walked in with a blank face.As soon as the door closed, Paul showed the will, staring and asked, "She forced you to sign it, didn't she?"

Alexander didn't speak. He knew what his father was asking, nodded silently, and turned his eyes to his grandmother on the ground.Archduke Paul crumpled the will into a ball in a fit of rage, and then tore it to pieces.

It is precisely because of this serious disagreement between mother and child that the Romanov dynasty has since restored the primogeniture system.In the history of another time and space, until the demise of the Tsarist Russian 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 oldest male in the immediate family.There will never be another heir to what Paul did, and there will never be a female monarch again.

At dawn, the court doctor told Paul that Her Majesty was seriously ill from a stroke and there was no hope.Paul thought for a moment, and asked someone to invite the cabinet secretary, Bezborodko, and ordered him to draft his statement of succession to the throne.

At noon, Catherine II was dying, and the court doctor told Paul that the queen's time was approaching.Archbishop Gavelier, who had been waiting for a long time, presided over the last prayer and anointed the old lady, anointing her forehead, cheeks, lips, chest and hands with holy oil.

Afterwards everyone waited quietly for that moment, hour after hour passed, at 7:20 that night, ten hours after suffering a stroke and falling into a coma, Ekaterina II, who had been lying on the floor, The world has passed away.

When the death was confirmed by the doctor, all the people present knelt down on one knee and saluted Paul to meet the new emperor.When he saw his son Alexander followed the crowd to salute him, the big stone in Paul's heart finally fell to the ground.At this moment, tears filled his eyes.

Two days later, the new tsar who had just ascended the throne—that is, the No.13 tsar Paul I of the Romanov dynasty, came to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, where his father Peter III was buried.Although more than 30 years have turned the former tsar into a dead bone, this time the body will be repacked and sent to Peter and Paul Cathedral for burial together with Catherine II.

For the Tsarist Empire, a period of history is over.

In 1743, Sophia Augustus Frederica, who was only 14 years old, left her hometown of Zerbst in a carriage with her mother, and then she traveled across the vast snowfields to Russia. This journey lasted 50 years.No one imagined that this journey would be so long, including herself.

Due to the arrival of the national mourning day, the Russian army's military operations in Tobolsk came to a standstill.For Suvorov, whether this battle can be fought still has to wait for the approval of the new tsar, and even if it can be fought, it may have to wait until the end of the national mourning.Winter in Siberia is coming, so it can only be postponed until next spring.The most important thing on the battlefield is timing, who knows what will happen next year?Facing that opponent with powerful force and endless methods, it is hard to overestimate.

The news of Catherine II's death made the Cossack Emirate who was preparing for the war a sigh of relief.Krutogorov had already sent someone to send a request for help to the North Navy in Pinshi City (Yenisesk), and the North Navy Staff also agreed to send two battalions from Pinshi City and Chiyan City to form a reinforcement group.

Now everyone is at ease, at least this long winter is safe.The only one who was dissatisfied was Monk Zhou. He was ordered by Zhao Xinyi to be transferred to this place where nothing shit happened. He was very happy to hope that there would be a war. That old hag died at a bad time.

Zhao Xin received a telegram from Yang Zhongming from Pingshi City in late September informing him of the death of Catherine II.He was a little stunned when he saw the telegram, thinking why did the old lady die so early?A full two years ahead of schedule!But he thought about it again, even Qianlong didn't survive to 9 years, so the Queen of Tsarist Russia is naturally not a problem.

He signed the telegram receipt, and returned the paper to the head of the guard, Chai Rugui. After the other party left with a salute, he said to Mrs. Elizabeth who was sitting on the sofa: "I tell you shocking news."

"What?" Elizabeth spoke lazily, as if she was not interested in anything.

Since entering the second month of pregnancy, she often feels dizzy and weak, and she also vomits very badly in the morning.But it's no wonder, let alone the 24th century, in another time and space, she would be considered a proper elderly mother.After Zhao Xin learned the news a month ago, he didn't dare to tell Director Liu, but secretly asked A Miao to arrange three nurses to work in three shifts [-] hours a day.

When she learned from Zhao Xin that the empress who ruled the Russian Empire for more than 30 years had died, 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 she came out.

"That Archduke Paul, what do you think?"

"I actually met him."

"See? Great! Tell me about it."

Elizabeth knew that Zhao Xin must have this question. Thirteen years ago, in 13, Catherine II arranged for Grand Duke Paul and his wife Maria Feodorovna to visit European countries, one of which was Paris.

"Let me think about it, it's been more than ten years." Elizabeth recalled and began to narrate intermittently: "They didn't go to the Palace of Versailles that year, but visited in disguise, so the meeting place was arranged at the Condé Manor. Well, this man is very educated. I heard that his teacher is Count Panin, who used to be the head of the Russian Foreign Affairs Committee. The Grand Duke can learn French quite well. You know, I am a woman, so men talk about Things can’t be moved forward. I remember Prince Condé said later that this person would often show agitation and lack of patience. By the way, the duke is particularly interested in chivalry.”

After listening to Elizabeth's narration, Zhao Xin roughly outlined the character of Paul I in his mind.Impatience, impatience, eagerness for success, demeanor, respect for hierarchy, pedantry.It is like this when you are young, but it is also a virtue when you grow up, and it is difficult to change.What this kind of person likes to do the most is to gamble, and they often start doing it as soon as their brains get hot, and they never make good preparations;

Based on the above analysis, Zhao Xin felt that the battle of Tobolsk might not be able to be fought, even if it was fought, it would not be a big one.What Tsarist Russia needs most at present is internal reform to improve the living environment of serfs and the lives of farmers.Furthermore, from the perspective 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.

In order to implement the above policies, it is impossible to have no money in hand, so the East-West trade that has been interrupted for several years is what Tsarist Russia most wants to restore.Zhao Xin felt that there might be an envoy from Tsarist Russia in Pingshi City soon.

After talking for a long time, Elizabeth was already tired, so she asked Zhao Xin to help her back to the bedroom to rest. Pregnant at the age of 30, Elizabeth felt that this was a gift from God to her. Of course, the man next to her did a lot of credit.Elizabeth hasn't seen Zhao Xin for a few days, and of course she misses that very much, but the doctor told her before, so she could only hold Zhao Xin's hand and not let him go.

Zhao Xin didn't pull out his hand until the other party fell asleep, and then came to the yard to smoke a cigarette.Unexpectedly, before he took it out, he felt someone beside him from the corner of his eye. Turning his head, it was the cheap nephew Louis Charles, who was looking at him from behind the pillars under the porch.

"Come here." Zhao Xin put away his cigarette, and waved at the other party with a smile.After two years of recuperation, Louis-Charle and his sister have fully recovered from tuberculosis.

"I, I have a question."

"Let's talk." 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 envoys sent by the Governor of French India, Leclerc, followed Ding Guofeng back to Beihai Town. When meeting with Princess Elizabeth, he proposed to ask the crown prince to go to the local government.Although Louis Charles was not there at the time, he had been hiding under the window and eavesdropping.

This child is only nine years old, and what happened during the French Revolution dealt a heavy blow to his young heart. Although Elizabeth has always taught him the responsibility of being the crown prince, for Louisshire, there is no place as good as Beihai Town, and he doesn't need to look at people's faces. Not to mention making excuses, there are still a large group of children as playmates here.

(End of this chapter)