The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 339 Russian Chains

March 1734, 3, on the Ural River, Yatsk Fortress (now the northwestern Kazakh city of Uralsk).

A dozen Torghut cavalrymen rushed out of the city gate at lightning speed, leaving a string of messy horse hoof prints on the thin snow, extending deep into the grassland.

Several musketeers guarding the city gate complained as they put up a few barricades at the intersection again. Then they put their hands behind their backs and went back to the city gate to avoid the still biting cold wind.

"Why did Little Taiji Khurele take his men out of the city so early in the morning?" A soldier took the musket off his shoulder, propped it against the wall, then squeezed next to the charcoal brazier and stretched out his hand to feel the warmth of the charcoal fire.

“Hehehe…” A bearded soldier laughed frivolously, “Little Khurele Taiji has fallen for the woman of the leader of the Bart tribe. He brought people out of the city so early in the morning. He must be in a hurry to get that beautiful woman!”

'How did you know? '

"My brother is the guard of Khurele Taiji, and he saw it with his own eyes in the tent!" The soldier's eyes lit up. "Once, my brother was in a hurry to find Taiji, and when he broke into the tent, he saw Taiji and that woman rolling naked on the carpet. The woman had white flesh, swollen breasts, and a big butt. It made people drool when they saw her."

"Really?" Upon hearing this, the soldiers sitting around showed obscene and yearning expressions on their faces, "Then...your brother disturbed their good deeds, but didn't he anger the little Taiji?"

"Of course not! After the little Taiji was done, he severely whipped my brother twice."

"If I could just take one look at it, I'd be willing to take two lashes!"

"I can't beat you to death!... What's the point of just looking at you? We have to go and grab one back ourselves, no matter what you do to me!"

"That's right. When the ice and snow melt and the weather warms up, we will go deep into the Kazakh steppes and we will definitely be able to rob a lot of women!"

"That's right, that's right. ... These poor Kazakhs are much easier to deal with than those Russians!"

"But the Qi people said that when the spring comes, we must turn northwest and attack the Russians."

"Oh, to fight the Russians! ... That's not easy."

Three years ago, after careful consideration, the Torghut tribe finally severed its dependence on the Russian Empire and turned to Qi and Persia, which became their protectorates.

Afterwards, the State of Qi "donated" nearly 10,000 cold and hot weapons seized in the Caucasus Campaign to the Torghut tribe "free of charge", and helped them establish the so-called Astrakhan Khanate, formally established its own rules and regulations, and became a local force that could not be ignored in the Caspian Sea region.

Subsequently, the State of Qi, together with the Safavid Empire of Persia, provided the new Mongol Khanate with a package of support plans covering many aspects including politics, economy, and military.

At the suggestion of the Qi State Advisory Group, the once ancient and backward Zargu Conference (similar to the Qing Dynasty's Council of Princes and Ministers) was replaced by the cabinet participation system (but it still absorbed a large number of tribal leaders such as jasaks, beys, and taijis).

In order to gradually realize centralization, Great Khan Chelingduandub, with the help of the people of Qi, formed a Khan Guard of 1,500 people equipped with all firearms. He also paid the soldiers a certain amount of military pay and handed them over to Qi's military instructors for guidance and training.

In this regard, the Beys held a negative attitude towards the Khan's practice of hiring and forming musketeers.

According to the nobles, the Khan "began to gather around him from all sides ruffians, hungry people, and impoverished herdsmen and recruit them as musketeers, which would lead to the destruction of the Khanate and bring in many troublemakers and swindlers."

The reasons for this attitude were clear - by creating his own standing army, the Khan would reduce his dependence on tribal leaders and karachi (nomadic peoples) and give him the basis for exerting strong pressure on the tribal nobles.

However, the leaders of the tribes and the taijis were powerless to stop it, because the Khan could afford the standing army and he had the unanimous support of Qi and Persia. The two countries provided the new kingdom with two long-term low-interest loans totaling up to 300,000 yuan, and the Khan, as the lord of the kingdom, had the right to use the money for the most urgent needs of the kingdom.

What is the most pressing task for the Kingdom?
Naturally, we must first build up a strong military to guard against the invasion of the Russian Empire.

With the mediation of France, the war between Sweden and Russia ended in June 1731, freeing up the Russians to deal with military threats in their southern border areas.

Faced with the double-pronged attack from the Crimean Khanate and the Astrakhan Khanate established by the Torghut people, the Terek River defense line established by the Russian Empire had completely collapsed, and it was forced to withdraw all its troops to the Don River line to keep the "Tatar" forces south of the river.

In order to prevent the Tatars on the west bank of the Volga River (the Torghut tribe) from joining forces with the Tatars on the east bank and taking the opportunity to start a rebellion, the Russians took forced relocation action against them, preparing to send them all to Siberia to strengthen the manpower in the border areas.

During the migration, the Russians used extremely cruel means. They set fire to all the houses where the Tatars lived, confiscated all the cattle, sheep and horses, and then forced them to leave their homes. Each person was only allowed to carry a small amount of personal belongings, and all gold, silver, jewelry, and iron knives were also confiscated.

The Russian soldiers and Cossack cavalry who were carrying out the migration openly robbed the Tatars of their property, and also committed atrocities such as spearing, abuse, and massacre.

After hearing the news, the Torghut people sent envoys to the west bank of the Volga River, asking the Russians to allow their fellow tribesmen to cross the river and enter the territory under their control.

But this move was flatly rejected by the Russians.

Are you kidding me? Sending these Tatars across the Volga River will actively help you increase your strength and further threaten the security of the empire's southern border?
Seeing tens of thousands of their fellow tribesmen on the west bank of the Volga being expelled and killed by the Russians, the Torghut tribe could no longer bear it. Despite the strenuous dissuasion of the Qi State Advisory Group, they began to clamor and prepared to go to war with the Russians.

On November 1731, 11, the Astrakhan Khanate took advantage of the freezing of the river and dispatched more than 5 troops across the Volga River to besiege the Tsaritsyn Fortress (now Stalingrad).

However, the Torghuts attacked Tsaritsyn for more than a month but failed to capture it. Due to the cold weather and unfavorable siege conditions, they suffered continuous casualties, with more than 1,600 casualties. Finally, they had to withdraw. However, during the siege of Tsaritsyn, the Torghuts successfully brought more than 6,000 tribesmen scattered on the west bank back to their control area.

After this battle, the Torghut people remained quiet for a long time, believing that with their current strength, they could not conquer the strong fortress held by the Russians. Instead, they began to clean up the Kabardians, Avars, Darkins, Lezgins and Chechens in the North Caucasus region to consolidate the security and order in their ruling areas.

In July 1732, with the matchmaking of Qi State and the acquiescence of the Ottoman Empire, the Astrakhan Khanate and the Crimean Khanate formed a military offensive and defensive alliance, agreeing that if either side was attacked by the Russian Empire, the other side would provide unreserved military and economic assistance and would be obliged to send troops to launch an attack on Russia to ease the military pressure on the attacked ally.

In October of that year, the Kingdom of Kartli, the Kingdom of Kakheti and the Ghazgumk Khanate, which were supported by Qi State and the Persian Safavid Empire, also joined the alliance treaty in succession to jointly deal with the military threat from the Russian Empire.

When the Russian Empire heard the news, it immediately felt that the situation was not good.

From the Caspian Sea, to the Caucasus Mountains, to the Don River Basin, then straight to the Sea of ​​Azov, and finally ending at the lower reaches of the Dnieper River, a huge military blockade line appeared, which seemed to block the Russian Empire inland.

If this military alliance is allowed to exist, it will undoubtedly pose the greatest threat to the Russian Empire. Not to mention that the grand strategy formulated by Peter the Great to go south to gain access to the sea cannot be realized, the entire southern border area will be in great crisis and may be attacked by the enemy at any time.

The Crimean Khanate alone was a headache for the Russian Empire. In order to prevent the invasion of the Tatar Kingdom, the Empire spent decades building a land defense line of more than 1,800 kilometers, which could be called the Russian version of the "Great Wall". Even so, facing the swift Tatar cavalry, this long imperial defense line was still unable to stop their invasion, resulting in the capture of thousands of people in the empire and the plunder of countless wealth.

What is even more embarrassing is that the empire's capital, Moscow, was once conquered by the Tatar Kingdom, and then burned to the ground. On the way back, more than 100,000 civilians were massacred and looted. This was the greatest shame of the empire in hundreds of years.

Now, the Crimean Tatars have actually united with the Kalmyks in the lower reaches of the Volga River, and some "scattered" small countries in the Caucasus have also joined this military alliance against the Russian Empire. This means that the situation in the south of the empire has fallen into an uncontrollable danger.

Therefore, in August 1732, the Russian Empire prepared to send troops to attack the Crimean Khanate on the grounds that the Crimean Khanate attacked its territory. However, the Russian army was slow to act and did not set out until mid-October. As a result, the Russian army encountered severe cold and snowstorms shortly after setting out, and due to insufficient food and grass, it had to choose to withdraw halfway.

In May 1733, just as the Russian Empire was preparing to continue its invasion of the Crimean Khanate, the Polish succession crisis broke out. The Russian army, which was ready to go, immediately turned around and assembled towards the Polish border.

In early September, Stanisław I Leczynski was elected King of Poland with an absolute majority of votes. More than 9 Russian troops on standby at the Russian-Polish border immediately entered Poland and headed towards Warsaw.

In response, more than 6,000 Swedish troops assembled in Courland also entered Poland and quickly advanced towards Warsaw, preparing to support Stanisław I with force.

Stanisław I was enthroned as King of Poland by Sweden during the Great Northern War, but lost his title after the Swedish army suffered a series of defeats on the battlefield.

Now that Sweden is regaining its strength and has the support of France and Spain, how could it allow the Russians to once again depose the Polish king they supported and then manipulate Manuel, who is pro-Russian and anti-Swedish, to be the new Polish king?

Putting aside the messy succession to the throne in Poland, when the Crimean Khanate and the Astrakhan Khanate heard that Russia was preparing to invade the Crimean Peninsula, they both carried out full mobilization in their respective countries in accordance with the provisions of the alliance to deal with the massive Russian invasion.

Unexpectedly, the Russian army fired a feint and turned around to head towards Poland, which made the two countries shocked at first and then overjoyed.

The Russians are involved in Polish affairs, so they will inevitably have no time to take care of the military defense in the south. In this case, why be polite and mobilize the troops to attack.

Take advantage of his illness and kill him!
As a result, the Crimean Khanate and the Astrakhan Khanate invaded the Russian Empire from the east and west respectively, abducting people, looting property, and burning and destroying Russian villages and towns.

However, in early October, the two countries suffered major defeats in Poltava and Volgodonsk respectively. After failing to capture the cities, they were met with strong counterattacks from the Russian army, each losing more than thousands of soldiers, forcing them to retreat for repairs.

The Astrakhan Khanate was even more unbearable. It suffered heavy losses in its second siege of the Tsaritsyn Fortress and still failed to capture it, losing more than a thousand soldiers.

Seeing that they could not gain any advantage from the Russian Empire, the Torghut people turned their attention to the Kazakhs in the east, thinking about making up for their losses from them.

With the support of Qi and Persia, the Torghuts controlled both sides of the Ural River a year ago, drove out the Russian forces, and then bordered Kazakhstan, which was in chaos.

The Torghut people, who were blessed with a certain amount of military power, could not do anything to the Russians, but they killed a lot of weak Kazakhs. They conquered more than ten Kazakh tribes and took over more than 4,000 tribesmen, which slightly compensated for the losses they suffered from the Russians.

However, the Torghut people's transfer of troops to the east caused great dissatisfaction among their ally, the Crimean Khanate, which sent envoys to the royal city of Astrakhan several times, demanding that Khan Chelingduandub exert greater military pressure on the Russian army on the west bank of the Volga River in accordance with the agreement between the two parties.

Because according to the intelligence provided by the Qi people, the Russians were under military attack from external enemies in multiple directions. Not to mention the Kingdom of Sweden's attack on the Russians over the Polish succession crisis, even the distant Siberia region encountered great difficulties and was beaten back by the Bohai Kingdom which continued to advance westward. The situation was precarious.

It is said that the Bohai Kingdom took advantage of the freezing of the Yenisei River in winter and sent thousands of elite troops across the river. They ignored the New Kachinsky Fort (now Krasnoyarsk City) in front of them and directly captured Kiro Fort (now the Soviet District of Krasnoyarsk City) behind it, gaining a solid support point on the west bank of the Yenisei River.

It can be predicted that when the weather warms up, the Bohai Navy will launch a fierce attack on the New Kachinsky Fort under the cover of heavy artillery. If the city is lost, the entire Yenisei Military District and even the entire Western Siberia region will fall into a huge disaster. There will be no more strategic points to defend, and they can only retreat to the Ob River and hold on.

Under such a favorable situation, aren't you Torghuts too petty, only thinking of taking advantage of the weak Kazakhs, but not considering severely weakening the Russians while they are in trouble? Do you want to wait for them to catch their breath and then turn around and defeat you?

Although the Russian national situation has fluctuated repeatedly since Peter the Great came to power, the overall trend has been upward.

Such a big country with a population of tens of millions, and with unimaginable obsession and greed for territory, if it is allowed to recover, it will definitely be a disaster for all the surrounding countries.

So, according to the people of Qi, that is to immediately "interrupt its rising space" and "curb its rapid development process" before it rises.

(End of this chapter)