Chapter 283 Giant’s Heel
Poland was not the only hidden danger within Russia. What caused the Tsar more headaches were the mountain people living in the Caucasus, Siberian tribes and Cossacks.
The Cossacks had been dependent on Tsarist Russia since 1654. "Cossack" comes from the Turkic language, meaning "free man" or "plunderer". It was originally worshiped and revered by the Russians.
Although they were of humble origin, they longed for freedom and were unwilling to surrender.
The rise of the Cossacks was a huge threat to southern Russia. At that time, Alexey I adopted a soft policy. Using religion and money to corrupt its top brass and make them work for their own advantage, this trick really worked.
However, the Cossacks played little role in frontal large-scale battlefields, and did not reflect their talent for doing evil.
At the same time, these herdsmen are a double-edged sword with a big tail. The Cossacks only obeyed the leaders of their own tribes, and they often had disputes because of disobedience to Russian commands, even going so far as to kill the messenger.
Capriciousness is also their main characteristic. Afterwards, successive tsars took measures to strengthen their control over the Cossack tribes, such as canceling the democratic voting rights of the Ataman (chief), prohibiting them from accepting free people to join, and forcibly moving some Cossacks to other places.
The most important method used was to maintain a delicate balance between dispersing and consuming its power in order to allow it to participate in the conquest of Siberia.
Compared with frontal battlefields, hunting and looting were what the Cossacks were best at. In the following hundreds of years, the indigenous people of Siberia suffered terrible annihilation.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Cossack regiment began to have a formal establishment. There was no way around this. After all, Russia was already at a disadvantage at the time and had to mobilize all available forces.
But the Cossacks are still different from the Russian army and are still based on tribal communities. It was not until Nicholas I came to power that the Cossacks were forcibly organized into military districts.
In the second year of Nicholas I's reign, he invited the Cossack chiefs around the Don River to St. Petersburg to receive rewards. This is a Russian tradition, and every tsar who has just ascended the throne will use this method to win over the Cossacks.
However, about one-third of the Cossack leaders were not present. In fact, everyone had already tacitly understood this.
Those who were not present were the leaders of some powerful tribes. The largest tribe had 5,000 soldiers alone.
These tribes, with a combined number of more than 100,000, are definitely a force that cannot be underestimated on the southern Russian prairie. Even if the Tsar is angry again, he can only change this situation by persuading him and increasing the rewards for all Cossack tribes.
Every tsar wanted to weaken the Cossacks, and naturally this group of freedom-loving people could not be allowed to be slaughtered by them. So they came up with this method to embarrass the Tsar while not ignoring their existence.
But what they were waiting for was not an envoy with gifts, but the cavalry of Nicholas I's cavalry. The Russian army attacked the most powerful Cossack tribe in the Don River Basin with a strong force of 40,000 people.
Cossacks are also known as "cannibals" in Siberia. However, in front of real war machines, they are as pitiful and helpless as the indigenous people they massacred.
The slaughtered tribe quickly disappeared in the long river of history, and the heads of the chief and his male heir were sent to St. Petersburg.
The massacre did not stop. After the first tribe was wiped out, the Tsar's Guards Cavalry rushed towards the second tribe non-stop.
After the reforms of Peter I, Russia no longer allowed cutting off ears and heads to record merit. If the "leaders" of the Guards Cavalry want to show off their achievements, they can only do so by building landscapes.
As a result, a large number of corpses were piled together to create various landscapes. But now it is just a prototype. Only when the wild wolves and goshawks eat up the flesh and blood on the corpse can the true face of the "work" be seen.
As more and more heads of Cossack tribal leaders were sent to St. Petersburg for exhibition, a Cossack leader named "Migo" jumped out to accuse the Tsar of the brutal rule. He called on all Cossacks to unite to fight against this evil. tyrant.
However, no one responded to Migo's call. The young Cossack leader was quickly arrested and sent to Nicholas I.
Facing Nicholas I, who was 2.05 meters tall and strong, even the unruly goshawks on the grassland showed fear.
The Tsar drew Migo's scimitar and broke it with his bare hands before him.
(Nicholas I is said to be very strong, and one of his biggest hobbies is to break people with a sword. As for why he doesn’t wear a sword? Because he basically dealt with Cossacks and Tatars.)
"Your Majesty, the Great Tsar, I am willing to kiss your boots and be your most loyal servant." Migo knew that he could not defeat the man in front of him. Although Nicholas I had just become Tsar, he was under great pressure. How many times have I heard this kind of oath?
Nicholas I did not speak, he just patted Migo on the shoulder, then picked up the broken knife from the ground, and used the knife to cut off the opponent's head bit by bit.
The surrounding Russian military attachés and Cossack leaders watched quietly, with only the sounds of knives cutting flesh and blood splattering.
Similar things happened every year after that, and the Cossacks at that time had a song.
Over the Volga, over the Kama,
The free Cossacks live forever.
The great chiefs whispered to their companions,
The indomitable Cossacks, my compatriots,
When summer passes and winter comes, where will our shelter be?
Huddled in the Volga, hiding from the light of day like a thief?
Or raid Kazan and challenge the Tsar?
But the Tsar sent 40,000 troops, how could we resist them?
We need to find another way out, find another way out,
Come with me, brothers,
Let us advance towards Siberia.
However, the Tsar did not stop at the southern Russian steppes, but gradually strengthened his control over the Cossacks. Any tribe that dared to resist would be wiped out.
The Ataman system was finally abolished under the strong hand of Nicholas I. After that, Russia divided the Cossacks into military districts. By 1837, ten Cossack military districts had been established in Russia. This marked a new height for St. Petersburg's control of the Cossacks. .
At that time, Nicholas I believed that "the Cossacks are a group of hungry wolves and have no so-called loyalty. Once Russia is weak, they will probably be the first to rise up and join the rebels."
So Russia needs to stay strong, and so does the rebellion in the Caucasus.
The Chechens, Georgians, Dagestanis and Ingush people in the Caucasus Mountains are not easy to conquer. Historically, they continued to resist from the early 19th century until the giant Russia fell in Crete. Mia, the two sides only temporarily compromised.
The successive governors of the Caucasus were all ruthless characters. Starting from the first governor Alexei Yermolov, they established the combat principle of killing without mercy and showing no mercy: enemies and rebels could be killed on the spot without trial. They will be executed; the enemy's family members will also be killed together, leaving no survivors; local women can be kidnapped at will or used as trophies.
In later generations of British and American propaganda, Yermolov was an out-and-out executioner, even burning millions of acres of forest in order to eliminate local guerrillas.
he said in a letter to Tsar Nicholas I.
"I just want my orders to be more feared by the locals than the call of death... In the eyes of Asians, kindness is cowardice. Don't say I am inhumane, what I do is truly humane: every execution of Caucasians This means that hundreds of Russians are spared from death, and it also means that thousands of barbarians dare not rebel...
I am a Russian soldier, and being humane to the Russians is true humanity. "
Although Nicholas I later dismissed him and recalled him to St. Petersburg, Yermolov's successors continued his policies.
Until a governor named Yuskinov Petrovich took office, the situation in the Caucasus had tended to ease. Then he took the opposite measures from his predecessors. He ordered the soldiers to treat them like family members. local people.
The governor planned to build hospitals, schools, churches, and a cannery to solve local employment problems.
Then the most serious rebellion in history broke out in the Caucasus, and the Chechens gave back to the Russians exactly what the Russians had done.
They strangled hostages, massacred the old, weak, women and children, and razed villages to the ground.
The naive governor and his family were beaten for a week and then cut into thousands of pieces for human consumption.
Compared with the tough peoples in the Cossacks and Caucasus, the demands of the Siberian indigenous people are very mild. They do not want revenge and just want to get their land back.
Others, such as the Decembrists and the Apostles, were not scabies. In Franz's eyes, Russia's most terrifying enemy, Nicholas I, did not realize that it was the pro-British faction within Russia.
These people are short-sighted and try to please Britain at the expense of Russia's interests, so as to achieve the goal of hegemony, which is the so-called co-hegemony of the world. This is simply whimsical.
Historically, it was this group of people who ruined Russia's centuries-old advantages and momentum after the Napoleonic Wars, and caused the country to develop in another direction during the Crimean War.
Although Austria and Russia have many conflicts and even often plot against each other, with the latter standing in the way, the former can have a lot more development time, which is crucial for Austria.
(A lot of dialogue has been deleted. To prevent you from saying that I am short on word count, there are still two poems written in the words of the writer. In addition, these words are not counted, so I deliberately counted them.)
Thanks to book friend Lu Jiechuan, Dimension’s Strongest Kindergarten Small Class, Joint Command, glll, Tang Monk’s Hair Wash Rejoice 00, and Zodiac’s End for their rewards.
It is stated that this book has nothing to do with the real universe and is a parallel universe. The views expressed in the book do not represent personal views, so please do not take them personally.
"Captives of the Caucasus" Pushkin
When the eagle of Russia,
Flying over the top of the Caucasus;
As Russia's war drum,
beat bloody drums;
Can I sing for this glorious moment?
Sing for you, my respected hero,
Your footprints are in every corner of the tribe...
You are the proud son of Gao Jiashi,
In front of you, Russia's butcher's knife is also bent.
In the light of swords and shadows, you become more brave as you fight,
But the armor shines like the sun and moon,
A mount galloping on the battlefield,
The mountains that gave birth to you and raised you,
And your beloved freedom,
Neither can escape from the hand of death,
Take you back.
"Chechen Folk Song"
Wake up, my warrior,
Wake up your family, wake up your wife,
Finish your morning prayers quickly,
The village has been heavily surrounded.
A cold forest of guns,
A shining net of knives,
A wall of bloody corpses,
The executioner ordered,
No old, weak, women or children were left behind.
Suddenly,
Dead bodies piled on top of each other, the sun and moon eclipsed,
Open the "XX Sutra\
,"Sing a death prayer,
My warrior, at this moment,
Your soul will ascend to heaven.
The heathen will never again be able to keep up with you,
XX will hold you in my arms,
Eternally free from suffering...
Every blade of grass, every stone,
All remember the suffering and violence in this land,
Your blood dyes the enemy's sword red,
It also dyed this land red,
I can’t see the child with tears in his eyes,
In front of my mother's body,
Weeping sadly,
Consider yourself lucky.