It's snowing heavily, but it can't suppress the festive mood of the New Year. Red lanterns are hung high in the Hou Mansion today, and festive couplets are posted everywhere.
Wu Yi, the cabinet scholar, and his wife Yipingao ordered Zheng Guo's wife Shen to return home, and the young masters also came back from paying New Year's greetings.
"Dad, we just heard outside that the emperor declared war on Tsarist Russia and Yarkand. I know that Yarkand is in the south of Tianshan Mountain in the Western Region. Where is Tsarist Russia? How can I say that he invaded our Nurgan area in the Ming Dynasty, plundered and harmed us?
Sauron, Daur and other people?"
Wu Rui, Wu Yi's youngest son, asked as he greeted his father and took his cloak.
"You usually have time to read more books and newspapers, but you spend all your time riding horses, shooting arrows and playing with blunderbuss. Although Tsarist Russia is thousands of miles away, it has been mentioned in newspapers in recent years."
Wu Rui smiled and shook his father's arm, "How can I remember those barbarians who were thousands of miles away? Father, please tell me about them."
"The eldest brother said that Tsarist Russia was in the far west. Turgut, one of the four Mongolian tribes in Oirat, moved westward to the Volga River on the north bank of the Caspian Sea. And Tsarist Russia seemed to be just north of them, but the second brother also said that the Khalkha Desert was north
Mongolia is also at war with Tsarist Russia, which is to the north of them."
"Now the emperor also said that Tsarist Russia has come to Nurgan. Why are they moving here and there? Where are they?"
Wu Yi felt very sorry for his little son. He took him into the house and sat down, warming his hands on the stove, and then said, "Pour me a cup of hot tea first."
Mrs. Shen poured tea for her husband and sat down together without rushing back to the room.
"came back?"
Wu Chengxu, Wu Yi's father, came in wearing a mink fur gift given by the emperor. The old man was born in Juren and had never been an official. After the fall of Beijing, his son raised volunteers in Taihu Lake and followed the San family wealth to recruit soldiers on the water. Later, Zhu Yihai gave him a Jinshi background and an official position. He has always been
It was before he became the imperial concubine. Over the past few years, he has worked hard and achieved great results. Now he is a third-rank official and has the title of Earl of Loyalty and Righteousness for life.
"Well, after the meeting, His Majesty left his son to chat with the Cabinet, the Prime Minister's Office, etc."
The old man nodded and did not ask further questions. The two men were both important officials in the court, but they would never inquire about each other's duties.
"Grandpa, I am asking my father to tell me where the Russians are."
The old man smiled.
Wu Yi then asked his wife to serve tea to his father while he continued talking.
"Actually, Tsarist Russia, let's start with Kievan Rus. In the far west of the Western Region, there is a place called the Eastern European Plain. There is a group of East Slavs there. They are a nation that is good at mobility.
At first, they were scattered tribes. Later, the Varangians in the north established a country in the north called Rus. At that time, the various tribes of the East Slavs were constantly attacking each other. Rurik, the Rus, was
Invited by the Slavs, he came to the plains of Eastern Europe to resolve the civil strife among the Slavs. He led his troops to establish the Rus' Kingdom in Novgorod and ascended to the throne of the prince, the Rurik Dynasty.
At first, Rus' territory was only a small piece of territory in the north. Later, his successor unified the tribes in the south and moved the capital to Kiev in the south. Then the country was unified and became Kievan Rus."
"From Kievan Rus to the Principality of Moscow, their kings are all descendants of the Nordic Rurik, so they can all be called the Rurik dynasty. The last king was Ivan IV, and later generations were called Ivan the Terrible.
, his father III passed away when he was three years old, and his mother, IV, was ordered to act as regent and formed a regency council with seven nobles.
But she abolished the regent meeting and poisoned the three younger brothers of the third generation. When the fourth generation was eight years old, she was also poisoned to death. After her death, her brother defeated his opponent and continued to control the government."
"Dad, how do you know so much?"
"Read more newspapers and books."
The boss, Wu Chang, laughed and said, "I don't believe it can be written so clearly in the newspaper. It must be the information collected by the factory guards."
Wu Yi smiled and said, "Ivan IV is not a simple man. He was the founder of the Rurik dynasty, but he was also the first tsar of Russia.
He lost his father when he was three years old and his mother when he was eight years old. He was very cruel since he was a child.
When he was thirteen years old, he ordered his guards to arrest his uncles who were in power, then set dogs to bite them to death, and then exposed their corpses to the palace gate.
Four years later, the 17-year-old Ivan IV held a grand coronation ceremony in Moscow and upgraded the title of Grand Duke to Caesar."
"Dad, what does Caesar mean?" Wu Rui asked.
Wu Chang said on the side, "I heard that His Majesty once said to the people of Jesus Christ, return to God what is God, and return to Caesar what is Caesar's. Is this Caesar?"
"Caesar, that was a country that existed in the West at the same time as our Han Dynasty. Caesar was once an outstanding military commander of the Roman Republic. Later, his power became more and more powerful and he became a military dictatorship. This caused dissatisfaction among many old nobles, and they assassinated him.
.After his death, his adopted son founded the Roman Empire and became the first imperial emperor.
Caesar is also considered the founder of the Roman Empire, so he is regarded as the uncrowned king of Rome and is known as Caesar the Great.
So later, a Roman monarch used his name as Caesar as the title of emperor.
Ivan IV used Caesar, Russian tsar, as his new title, which also transformed him from a grand duke to an emperor.
More than 400 years ago, Mongolian Batu conquered the west and destroyed the Rus' Principality, which was hegemonic for a while. Some Rus' people fled to live in the Moscow area and later established the Moscow Principality. Shortly after its establishment, they surrendered to the Mongolian Golden Horde.
The Khanate also collected taxes for them, and became very wealthy by collecting taxes from the Mongols.
It was not until two hundred years later, when Grand Duke Ivan III of Muscovy defeated the already collapsed Mongols, that it truly became independent.
Ivan IV transformed himself from the Grand Duke of Moscow into the Russian Tsar and began his reign of terror.
Brutal killings were carried out against disobedient nobles and dissenters. In just seven years, more than 4,000 noble nobles were killed, and countless civilians were killed.
"The terrifying Ivan makes people frightened."
After hearing this, the young masters of the Wu family couldn't help but exclaim, "How can there be such a terrifying person in the world? It's so cruel."
Wu Yi nodded, "Ivan is a lunatic. He has married eight wives, but almost all of them died happily. They were either executed, deposed and forced to become a monk. Some even died on their wedding night.
Later, he was even dissatisfied with his daughter-in-law's dress and beat her violently, causing her to have an abortion. The prince came to argue with him, but the furious Ivan beat the prince to death with a scepter."
Everyone in the Wu family was stunned.
"Because he beat the prince to death, Ivan became even more crazy. He died of madness three years later. The throne fell into the hands of his mentally retarded second son, but the government was controlled by powerful ministers.
After the death of the Mad King, the Stupid King served as a puppet emperor for many years. He died childless and the dynasty was extinct.
The powerful officials took the opportunity to usurp the throne, and nearby Poland supported a false prince and sent troops to Tsarist Russia.
The usurper died of illness a few years later, and his son's stepfather was poisoned not long after.
Poland's puppet king even invaded Moscow. The nobles united to repel Poland and killed the puppet king. The leader of the coalition proclaimed himself emperor, but soon Poland's puppet king came back and killed the new tsar.
Later, the coalition forces defeated the Poles again, but no one wanted to be czar. At this time, Tsarist Russia could only control the surrounding areas of Moscow.
They held a meeting of the gentry and finally elected a sixteen-year-old boy, Mikhail Romanov, to be the tsar.
He is the son of Archbishop Ferdo of Filaret, the head of the Romanov family, and the grandnephew of Empress Ivan IV Anastasia Romanov.
The young masters of the Wu family were bewildered after hearing this.
"Why do you want to find an unrelated young man to be the new emperor? Isn't it normal for the leader of the aristocratic coalition that drove away the Poles to be the new emperor?"
"Because the last great nobleman who led the coalition forces to defeat the Poles and then ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor was killed by a Polish counterattack within a few years of being emperor.
Russia can only effectively rule a small area around Moscow.
The Ukrainian Cossacks even proclaimed the son of Pseudo Dimitri II as tsar.
There is no money in the treasury, bandits are everywhere, and tigers and wolves are around. At this time, no nobleman is willing to be the emperor.
Since the Romanovs were relatives of the emperor, and his father was the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, when no one wanted to become Tsarist Russia, everyone elected this sixteen-year-old boy.
However, when the representatives ran to ask him to take the throne, he and his mother refused to take the throne.
In such chaos, there is only one tsar who rules in Moscow, and even a sixteen-year-old boy refuses to become a tsar.
In the end, he was forced to put the duck on the shelf, cooked the rice, and forced him to the position of czar.
The young tsar had his ducks in a row, and the government was controlled by the great nobles. Later, his father, the elder Filaret, was welcomed back from Poland and served as regent behind the scenes.
Mikhail was frail and sickly, but he reigned for forty-nine years until his death five years ago.
Although Mikhail was just a puppet tsar for a long time, such a tsar was not entirely bad for Russia at that time. It was much better than the mad king, at least not messing around.
The nobles spared no effort to unite to quell the civil strife.
The Supreme Emperor ruled Tsarist Russia with an iron fist. He gradually excluded the great nobles from the decision-making level and gradually stabilized the turbulent Russia.
He strengthened taxation and enriched the treasury. It was also during his time that Tsarist Russia turned east after being trapped in the west, and went all-out eastward to open up Siberia, accelerating its conquest of vast Siberia. Siberia's fur and wood provided one-third of Tsarist Russia's supply. A lot of financial revenue.
Later, the great emperor died of illness, and the great nobles came back, but the tsar was willing to give up power and did not let tsarist Russia regain turmoil.
On his deathbed five years ago, he issued an edict to establish Prince Alexei as Tsar, with the nobles as auxiliary ministers.
During the era of this weak tsar, Russia not only ended the civil strife in the past fifty years, but even sent troops to Poland several times, regained many territories, built the Great Wall of Crimea, and conquered large tracts of Siberian land, greatly enriching
National finance.
However, during the Mikhail era, Tsarist Russia was still beset by crises. It was still occupied by Sweden and Poland, and it especially lost a large area of land on the shores of the Baltic Sea and an important channel to Europe. In this case, Russia could only
It was able to turn its head and develop towards the east, not only invading Torgut and Kazakhstan, but also seizing territory from the Oirat and Khalkha Mongols in an attempt to conquer them, and also expanding deeply into the Far East of Siberia.
In the past few years since the new emperor took office, due to lack of money, the auxiliary ministers revised the new salt tax law, which greatly increased the salt tax. This resulted in a riot among salt merchants, but in turn increased Tsarist Russia's dependence on the Far East and increased its reliance on Siberia.
Development efforts.
The tsar even dared to ask the Eastern Ming Emperor to monopolize the Heilongjiang Basin, and threatened the Ming Dynasty not to interfere in the affairs of the Mongols, Kazakhs and Tsarist Russia.
Wu Yi was a Jinshi in the 16th year of Chongzhen's reign. His knowledge was very good. Although he was only in his early forties, in the past few years, from the governor of water transportation to the governor of a local government and then to the bachelor of the cabinet, he still had a unique perspective when looking at problems.
It was not surprising at all that the emperor directly declared war on Tsarist Russia at the Zhengdan meeting.
"It turns out that Tsarist Russia was just a little brother of the Mongols. A little kid who is still being beaten by Poland, Sweden, etc. actually dares to come to our city of Beijing and act recklessly!" Wu Chang is now studying in Hongwen Hall and is also a classmate of the prince.
, after hearing this, he couldn’t help it anymore, “Tomorrow I will go to the Honglu Temple Hotel and smash rotten eggs to these arrogant Tsarist Russians!”
"Romanov, just call Roman the Dynasty of Cowards," Wu Sheng shouted.
The old man Wu Chengxu was holding the tea cup and said, "We originally had distant relations and close wars, but this Tsarist Russian is so arrogant and dares to challenge our Ming Dynasty thousands of miles away. This cannot be tolerated. By the way, Tsarist Russia's fur business and taxation in Siberia are really bad in one year.
Can it account for one-third of its national finance?”
"Well, that's true. Moreover, they have now stepped up their expansion and conquest of the Far East. Now they want to occupy the Heilongjiang Basin. It is a good place for farming and development. It is stronger than the icy and snowy permafrost north of the Waixing'an Mountains.
Too many. After all, more and more people are coming to the Far East. Although hunting and trading make money, there are many people who need food. Without food, they cannot support too many people."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The old man nodded, "The emperor's vision is still very sharp. He can see the details clearly at a glance. Heilongjiang will never allow the Tsarist Russians to gain a foothold, not even the wandering ghosts north of Xing'an Mountains.
We cannot allow them to gain a foothold in the old land of the Yasha Kingdom. We must drive them away. This is not just a matter of face, the profits from the fur trade are indeed attractive."
"How can such a cornucopia be easily taken away by the Tsarist Russians? No matter how far away we are, we have to fight with them. No matter how far away, how can this Tsarist Russian come so far?"
Wu Yi also supports his father's idea.
"And I think this matter is not just that simple," the old man said after sipping his tea, "Now the Jianlu are still fleeing north to the Horqin Mongols. The Jurchens, the wild people in the lower reaches of Heilongjiang, are not related to the Jianlu in the first place.
Too close, there are many tribes on the north bank of the upper reaches that have never surrendered to the Jianlu. Now they are invaded and plundered by Tsarist Russia, and they are asking for help from the Ming Dynasty. Isn't this a good opportunity to intervene?
Take advantage of this opportunity and send troops to intervene. When the time comes, we will drive away Tsarist Russia, destroy the Jianlu, and at the same time, ennoble these tribal leaders in the middle and upper reaches of Heilongjiang, the north bank, and even the north of the Outer Xing'an Mountains, and incorporate them into our celestial dynasty. Then they can still be there.
Alongside the establishment of fur purchasing stations, and even post stations and military fortresses, wouldn’t it be that these places and the tribal populations were directly included in the rule of the Ming Dynasty?”
"My father's sword is still young and his vision is sharp." Wu Yi could not have imagined that his father was not in his position, but he could guess the imperial strategy based on what he just said, and it was very accurate. This was exactly what the emperor had agreed with these ministers.
Decision-making on the future of Northeast China.
The old man took a sip of tea and looked calm.
"When I get off work at Sanya, I like to read books and newspapers. Besides, I've also been working in the imperial court for five years. I can still guess some of the saint's actions."
Wu Yi smiled, saying that it was disrespectful to speculate on the holy will. Of course, it was nothing for the whole family to chat behind closed doors.
"Wuchang, Wusheng, Wuxiang, and Wurui, you brothers will learn more from your grandfather when you have time in the future, and don't go out on horseback to shoot guns. In the Ming Dynasty, it is impossible to rely on horseback to cure the disease."
"Dad, I think there will be many opportunities for immediate meritorious service in the future. Isn't this Slave Gan and the Western Region still capable of fighting? I want to be an immediate admiral in the future!" Wu Rui said.
Wu Yi patted his son on the shoulder, but did not reprimand him. What his son said was correct.
"Okay, if you want to do it, you have to do something good and earn the title of Duke and Marquis immediately in the future!"
"Okay, I will make you a marquis immediately!" Wu Rui looked confident.