Chapter 283 Giant's Heel

Poland was not the only hidden danger in Russia. What gave the Tsar a headache were the mountain people living in the Caucasus, the tribes in Siberia and the Cossacks.

The Cossacks had been attached to Tsarist Russia since 1654. "Cossack" comes from the Turkic language, meaning "free man" or "plunderer", and was initially worshipped and revered by the Russians.

Although they were of humble origins, 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 policy of appeasement. Using religion and money to corrupt their top leaders and use them for his own benefit really worked.

However, the Cossacks played a minimal role in the large-scale battlefields on the front, and did not reflect their talent for doing evil.

At the same time, these herdsmen were a double-edged sword that could not be cut off. The Cossacks only obeyed the leaders of their own tribes, and often quarreled because of disobeying the command of the Russians, and even killed messengers.

Inconsistency is also their main characteristic. After that, successive tsars took measures to strengthen their control over the Cossack tribes, such as abolishing the democratic election rights of the Ataman (leader), prohibiting them from accepting free people to join, and forcibly relocating some Cossacks to other places.

The most important means used was to maintain a delicate balance between dispersing and consuming their forces so that they could participate in the conquest of Siberia.

Compared to the front battlefield, hunting and looting were what the Cossacks were best at. In the following hundreds of years, the indigenous people of Siberia suffered a terrible disaster.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Cossack regiment began to have a regular organization. There was no other way. After all, Russia was already at a disadvantage at the time and had to mobilize all the forces that could be mobilized.

But the Cossacks were still different from the Russian army and were still based on tribal communities. It was not until Nicholas I came to power that the Cossacks were forcibly incorporated into military districts.

In the second year of Nicholas I's reign, he invited the Cossack leaders around the Don River to St. Petersburg to receive rewards. This is a Russian tradition. Every newly enthroned tsar would use this method to win over the Cossacks.

However, about one-third of the Cossack leaders did not show up, and everyone had known about this for a long time.

Those who did not show up were the leaders of some powerful tribes, the largest of which had 5,000 soldiers alone.

These tribes, with a total of more than 100,000 people, were definitely a force that could not be underestimated on the southern Russian steppes. Even if the Tsar was angry, he could only persuade them with kind words and increase the rewards for all Cossack tribes to change this situation.

Every Tsar wanted to weaken the Cossacks, and these people who loved freedom by nature naturally could not be slaughtered. So they came up with this method to embarrass the Tsar, and at the same time, they didn't want to ignore their existence.

But what they waited for was not the messenger with gifts, but the guards cavalry of Nicholas I. The Russian army attacked the most powerful Cossack tribe in the Don River Basin with a powerful force of 40,000.

The Cossacks were also called "cannibals" in Siberia, but in front of the real war machines, they were as pitiful and helpless as the indigenous people they slaughtered.

This slaughtered tribe quickly disappeared in the long river of history, and the heads of the chieftain and his male heir were sent to St. Petersburg.

The slaughter did not stop. After the first tribe was destroyed, the Tsar's guards cavalry rushed to the second tribe without stopping.

After the reforms of Peter I, Russia did not allow the way of cutting ears and heads to be used for merit. The "leaders" of the guards cavalry wanted to show off their merits, so they could only do it by building landscapes.

As a result, a large number of corpses were piled together to build various landscapes. Now it is just a prototype. Only when the wild wolves and hawks eat the flesh and blood on the corpses can we see the true face of the "work".

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 brutal rule. He called on all Cossacks to unite and fight against this evil tyrant.

However, no one responded to Migo's call. The young Cossack leader was soon arrested and sent to Nicholas I.

Even the unruly goshawks on the grassland showed fear in the face of Nicholas I, who was two meters tall and five meters strong.

The Tsar drew out Migo's scimitar and broke it with his bare hands in front of him.

(Nicholas I is said to be very strong, and one of his biggest hobbies is to break people's sabers. As for why not sabers? Because he basically beat 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 the Tsar, he had heard this oath countless times around Alexander I.

Nicholas I did not speak, but patted Migo's shoulder, then picked up the broken knife from the ground and cut off the other's head bit by bit with the knife.

The surrounding Russian military attachés and Cossack leaders watched quietly, with only the sound of knives cutting flesh and blood splashing.

Similar things would be repeated every year afterwards, and the Cossacks at that time had a song.

Across the Volga, across the Kama,

The free Cossacks live forever.

The great chieftains whisper 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's push on to 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 broken 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. In order 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

As 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 one should be spared, old, weak, women or children.

In an instant,

The corpses piled up, the sun and the moon lost their color,

Open the "XX Sutra",

Sing a death prayer,

My warrior, at this moment,

Your soul will ascend to heaven.

The pagans will never catch up with you,

XX will embrace you,

Forever away from suffering...

Every blade of grass, every stone,

Remember the suffering and violence on this land,

Your hot blood dyed the enemy's sword red,

Also dyed this land red,

You can't see the child with tears in his eyes,

In front of his mother's body,

Weeping,

It should be your luck.