The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 149 Returning East ()

On October 10, an icy freezing rain enveloped the ancient city of Moscow, making all pedestrians who wanted to go out feel the chill of early winter.

The day after arriving in this former Russian capital, the main officials of the Daqin delegation were invited by Count Gavril Ivanovich Golovkin, chairman of the Russian Foreign Affairs Council and member of the Supreme Privy Council, to attend A farewell party in their honor.

This king was a close minister of the previous Tsar Peter I. In 1689, he participated in the military coup that overthrew the regent Sophia. During Peter I's inspection visit to Western Europe from 1697 to 1698, he accompanied him all the way, serving the tsar's daily life in front of and behind the horse, thus establishing a profound friendship between the emperor and his ministers. In 1706, after the death of Count Golovin, who led and presided over Russia's foreign affairs, he was appointed by Peter I as the head of the diplomatic office and became one of the most important members of the empire's decision-making body. After the new Tsar Catherine I succeeded to the throne, her favor remained the same and she continued to control the empire's foreign affairs department.

He had taken the lead in the previous military and trade cooperation negotiations between Daqin and Russia, and ultimately signed and sealed the relevant cooperation agreements on behalf of the Tsar.

Perhaps because the empire is in a severe state of war, this farewell dinner was far less grand and grand than when the envoys arrived half a year ago. The nobles and officials present drank wine, sang and talked, with a hint of pride on their faces. Anxiety about the current situation and worries about the future prospects of the empire.

Because, in the past two months, the situation in the Russian Empire has been really bad. In addition to the Kingdom of Sweden's troops being divided into two groups, while the main army continued to besiege St. Petersburg, the Swedish partial division of less than 10,000 people who landed from Riga launched an extremely fierce offensive. , defeated several Russian army blockades in succession, swept across the east coast of the Baltic Sea, Latvia and Estonia fell one after another, and the troops reached the shores of Lake Chude, less than a hundred miles away from St. Petersburg.

After months of ravaging the southern Russian grasslands, the Crimean Khanate's cavalry suddenly turned around and gathered more than 8,000 troops more than 20 days ago to storm Russia's Azov Fortress not far from the mouth of the Don River. After five days of fierce fighting, the Tatars, who had never been good at attacking cities, miraculously captured this strong fortress, and all the more than 800 Russian garrison troops in the city were captured and killed.

Immediately, the Tatars continued up the Don River and rushed towards the Taganrog Fortress, as if they wanted to drill through Rostov Province in one go and cut off the retreat of the Russian Caucasus Army stranded in the Mozdok Fortress.

Alas, when did these barbaric and ignorant Tatars have such clever strategies and tactics!

Is it possible that the Ottoman Empire behind them, before the war with the Austrians has ended, is ready to take advantage of the unfavorable situation in which our Russian Empire has suffered multiple blows to start another round in Southern Russia?

Later, according to reports from some Russian officers who fled back, the reason why the Tatars had such strong attack capabilities was because they received direct military assistance and tactical guidance from Qi and relied on several siege gates provided by Qi. The heavy artillery broke the fortress defenses, allowing the Tatars, whose strength was several times their own, to swarm into the city of Azov.

When the generals of the Imperial Army Council heard the news, they suddenly panicked.

Why are the Qi people so unwilling to give up? In the Caucasus Mountains, they beat our tens of thousands of troops into a wolf-like situation, leaving them with almost no organization. For this reason, the empire had to send peace envoys to ask both sides to end the fighting.

We don’t want to fight anymore, and we don’t want Armenia and Azerbaijan either! We relented and quit the Caucasus!

But who would have thought that the Qi-Persian coalition forces did not pay attention to the envoys sent. Instead, they continued to reorganize their armaments and waited for the arrival of follow-up supplies. It seemed that they would launch a major attack on the Russian army in the northern foothills of the Caucasus before winter came. large-scale military strikes.

Now, they have made another unexpected move, inciting the Crimean Khanate to invade Rostov, intending to outflank both sides and annihilate the entire Caucasus Army.

Why are the people of Qi so unreasonable and unforgiving!

As a result, wouldn't the entire southern Russia region be in a state of corruption?

"Mr. Envoy, it is said that your Qin State and Qi State have always had good relations. Could you please take this opportunity to ask your mission to send important personnel to help our Russian Empire make peace and mediate some unpleasantness between us and Qi State? "

After a moment of greetings, Golovkin screened away all the irrelevant people, leaving only one interpreter. Then he held a separate meeting with Cui Zuyao, the head of the Qin mission, and proposed that the Qin people mediate the war between them and Qi.

"Your Excellency, I am the special envoy to Russia appointed by the Emperor of Qin to promote our military alliance against the Junggar Khanate." After listening to the interpreter's translation, Cui Zuyao pondered for a long time, and then said slowly: "As for the response, As requested by your country, I am going to Persia to mediate the unhappiness between you and Qi. I am very sorry, but I and the entire mission have not received the authorization due from His Majesty the Emperor of our country, and I am afraid that I cannot accept your commission."

"In that case, then..." Golovkin showed a look of disappointment on his face, sighed slightly, and then said: "Since your envoy has not been authorized, it is inconvenient to mediate on your behalf. So, can you please send your envoy Officials with important status took our peace envoys to Shirvan in the Caucasus (today's Shirvan City, Azerbaijan) to meet with the military generals of Qi. It may be that the misunderstanding between us is too deep and the people of Qi are unwilling to have anything to do with us. Any contact would lead to a war between the two countries and the lives of countless people. Therefore, we need a channel, a channel that can communicate with the people of Qi. Of course, we will not make it difficult for your mission officials to speak and mediate on your behalf. He only needs to introduce our envoy to the people of Qi."

After Cui Zuyao heard this, he suddenly looked embarrassed.

You and the Qi people are fighting to the death and fighting for territory in that Caucasus region. How come our mission is involved?

The people of Qi do not want to start peace talks with you. It is clear that they have the upper hand. However, they have not yet achieved the expected goal, so they are trying to obtain more results on the battlefield, and finally force you to sign a treaty that is beneficial to Qi. Armistice Agreement.

What will it look like if our mission to Russia gets involved?

If the people of Qi State are misunderstood that our Qin State is on the side of the Russians, and we want to get involved in this conflict with which our Qin State has nothing to do with us, wouldn't it be extraneous and cause trouble!

In addition, Cui Zuyao still had a strange thought in his heart, that is, he did not want the people of Qi to know that their Qin State traveled thousands of miles to seek help from the Russians in order to destroy the Junggar Khanate.

Claiming to be the ruler of the Eastern Continent and the lord of the Celestial Empire, our Great Qin could not completely defeat even a single steppe Tartar, which has been a joke to the people of Qi for many years.

If the Qi State were to learn that they, the Qin Dynasty, were once again looking for a barbaric and backward Western country like Russia to jointly deal with the Junggar Khanate, they would probably look down upon them even more.

Well, that’s a bit of a shame!

On the other hand, Qi State has launched one foreign war after another over the years, and it seems that it has never failed. It can defeat its opponents one by one in a very short period of time, and then trample others under its feet with great force.

Alas, look at our country, Great Qin. First it struggled with the Puppet Qing Dynasty for more than ten years, then it wiped out the remnants of the Tartars in Mobei, and then faced the rising Junggar. Why is it so difficult to deal with them one by one?
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On November 11, after more than half a month of long journey, the convoy of the Daqin Mission arrived in Nizhny Novgorod, the capital of Nizhgorod Province. Here, a sudden heavy snow blocked the envoy's next trip, and the Volga River had also frozen, making it impossible to transfer to merchant ships to go up the river.

Taking into account the long and cold winter in Russia, the mission decided to temporarily stop in the city and wait until the weather warms up next year before returning eastward. Nizhgorod Province can be regarded as the core province of Russia. This province, together with the nearby provinces of Vladimir, Ryazan, Tula, Perm, Kaluga, Tver, Yaroslav, and the former capital Moscow, has always been the core of Russia. It has a large population, a developed economy (well, compared to remote border provinces), and many industrial facilities. It is also the main grain-producing area in Russia and can be regarded as their "Central Plains" zone.

However, in the eyes of Cui Zuyao and other members of the mission, this place still seems sparsely populated. Not only is it not as good as the Jiangnan region of Daqin, it is also far behind the northern regions such as Hebei and Shandong.

On second thought, Russia's population is only over 10 million, which is less than the size of Henan Province. Spread over such a vast territory, it naturally looks sparsely populated.

It is the beginning of winter, and the temperature has dropped to more than ten degrees below zero, but there are still countless groups of civilians on the roads from Nizhny Novgorod, driving carriages and heading west in the wind and snow.

The carriages were loaded with a large amount of grain, potatoes, oats and other grains. Except for part of these supplies for the Russian army on the Western Front, most of them were transported to Moscow, and then transported to Baltic ports and sold to Dutch merchants. In exchange for much needed gold and silver.

As the least developed country in Europe, Russia has almost nothing decent to sell to foreigners. In addition to grain, wood, furs and livestock, only some precious commodities such as tea and silk from the East can be exchanged for corresponding gold, silver and other hard goods. Currency, the annual trade volume is only a pitiful three to four million rubles (one tael of silver is approximately equivalent to 1 rubles).

The Russians' largest trading partner has gradually shifted from the United Provincial Republic to England, which accounts for Russia's largest trade share.

Therefore, after the war between Qi and Britain broke out, apart from the Portuguese, the most injured were the Russians. The Qi Expeditionary Fleet wreaked havoc in the North Sea, frequently attacking English warships and merchant ships, which caused a sharp decline in British-Russian trade. The trade volume shrank from more than 1.2 million rubles before the war to less than 100,000 rubles, causing heavy losses to the Russians.

Now, the Kingdom of Sweden has launched a massive attack, not only blocking St. Petersburg, but also successively capturing Estonia and Latvia. This has made Russia's foreign trade even worse, with imports and exports almost at a standstill.

Fortunately, the Swedes only focused on besieging St. Petersburg and had not yet occupied the Principality of Courland under Russian control, leaving a small window for Russia's foreign trade.

Therefore, in order to raise funds for the war, the Russian government actively organized the transportation of grain, timber and furs from the hinterland to Courland, hoping to exchange for urgently needed combat supplies.

It is reported that the Qi expedition fleet has gathered in the North Sea and the English Channel and began to blockade and block the English's foreign trade in order to force them to submit.

The Dutch merchants, who were good at doing business, immediately filled the vacancy of the English. A large number of merchant ships sailed into the Baltic Sea, transporting all kinds of urgently needed supplies to the two warring countries, Sweden and Russia, and making a lot of war fortune.

You must know that as early as the period of Peter I, in order to get rid of the control of Dutch commercial capital and build St. Petersburg's status as a shipping center and economic center, Peter I began to transfer the center of Russia's foreign trade from Arkhangelsk on the White Sea to St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea has also formulated a more preferential tariff policy for this purpose.

Dutch merchants were very dissatisfied with Russia's policy of forcing the trade center to be transferred to St. Petersburg, and therefore refused to trade in St. Petersburg. Peter I then took coercive measures to transfer foreign trade to the St. Petersburg area. In 1710, regulations were made to prohibit the export of grain through Arkhangelsk. In 1713, it was also stipulated that leather was prohibited from being shipped to Arkhangelsk and could only be shipped to St. Petersburg. This was later extended to caviar, resin, shipbuilding timber and other commodities. .

This coercive measure has caused dissatisfaction among many foreign businessmen, especially Dutch businessmen who have long established a monopoly in Arkhangelsk. They stick to Arkhangelsk and are reluctant to go to St. Petersburg for trade, trying to use Its superior commercial position forced the Russians to change their minds.

The English, constrained by Sweden's harsh trade restrictions, turned their attention to Russia. As a result, English merchants very wisely shifted their trade to the St. Petersburg area, thereby steadily developing Russian-British trade and gradually excluding the Dutch commercial power from the Russian market. In 1710, 12 British ships arrived in St. Petersburg, and in 1718 the number reached 31. Before the outbreak of the Sino-British War, more than 40 merchant ships visited St. Petersburg. From 1710 to 1725, Russia's export trade volume to Britain increased from 12 pounds to 37 pounds, becoming Russia's largest trading partner.

Now, with the outbreak of war, Dutch businessmen have returned with a high profile, taking the opportunity to seize the Russian trade market. Of course, because it was during the war, the prices of various materials shipped by the Dutch were a little higher, and the prices of the grain, wood, and furs that the Russians needed to export were correspondingly lowered. A handful of Russian wool.

At this time, besides the Dutch, who else dared to sail freely to the Baltic Sea?

"The European countries have been in constant disputes, and the Qi State has intervened forcefully. In this way, the situation on the entire European continent is probably even more treacherous and difficult to figure out." Cui Zuyao was wearing a fox fur coat and wore Wearing a valuable mink felt hat, he stood by the dock, looking at the vast white Volga River, and sighed, "I don't know if the Rakshasa people will launch an attack on Junggar in the next year or so as promised."

"If we can instigate the Torgut tribe to rebel under the force of the Rakshasa people and stop political and military support for the Dzungar Khanate, it will be a great help." Bai Chengbin shrank his hands and exhaled a white breath. , obviously not used to the cold weather.

In exchange, the Russians promised to put pressure on the Torgut tribe in the Volga River Basin and prevent them from supporting the Dzungarian tribe. The Qin delegation sent two Honglu Temple officials to the Caucasus with the Russian envoy. Help them contact the local Qi people to promote a truce and peace talks between the two sides.

As for whether it can be accomplished, the Qin mission cannot guarantee it. After all, the Qi military generals there could directly refuse the Qin people's "interference" if they said, "I will not accept the orders of the foreign emperor."

Or, people just ignore you. Your Qin State has not even touched the Ural Mountains, so how can you be qualified to interfere in the affairs of the Caucasus!

Bai Chengbin shook his head, too lazy to think about these messy things anymore, and prepared to take a carriage back to the city. Well, hiding in a warm building, warming yourself over a charcoal fire, and drinking some wine is the best way to pass the time in winter. Instead of being like those miserable Rakshasa folk who work non-stop in this freezing cold weather.

Grandma, I heard that the winter here can freeze cattle and sheep to death. The climate is similar to that of Mobei and Liaodong, and it is really not a place for people to live. This poor place is still the sacred land of the Rakshasa people, the beautiful rivers and mountains!

In such a cold weather, the Rakshasa government and aristocratic landowners are still driving animals, and the people under their control clear the snow on the roads, transport supplies, cut wood, take care of the livestock, and repair the government warehouses.

Many people wore thin linen clothes or untreated animal skins, their hands, feet and faces were red from the cold, and their noses were runny. They worked hard under the whips and sticks of the overseers.

Perhaps, in this cold winter, many poor people will die silently at a construction site or a livestock shed.

"Grand Master, you said it would be great if it were so cold in Junggar this winter, or if there were a few heavy snowfalls, and those Mongolian Tatars froze to death on the grasslands!"

(End of this chapter)