Russia land for the Russians
When he came to throne in 1816 at the end of his Regency Micheal II had a vision of the Russia that he wanted to create and it had nothing to do with the Knightly orders that had been his father Paul I’s vision. Micheal freely admitted that his father was an idiot. No Micheal’s vision of Russia’s future was of an industrialized Empire of free Russians ruled by the Czar as the Father of the Nation and with Russian Orthodox Church providing the moral guidance that every free Russian Citizen would need. In the 1820’s Russia had joined the British Coalition in the Great Opium war that destroyed the old order in China and had annexed much of Manchuria afterwards giving them an ice free port in the Pacific at Port Arthur. Russia had also gain strong influence in the Joseon Kingdom (Korea). Which under Russian supervision would be transformed into the Korean Empire in March of 1834 as it began to adopt western industry and weaponry and military tactics.
By the beginning of the 1830’s Czar Michael II had been on the Throne for fourteen years and his vision of a new Russia started to take shape. The freed serfs had been granted lands if they wanted it but many were encouraged to move to the cities were the developing factories needed labor. Under the Ministry of Industrial Production and Development factories offered good steady wages even during the cold Russian winters in which no farm work could be done, adding to this in 1837, Russia became the first country in the Industrialized world to have a state mandated 90 hour work week. 1837 would also see the competing of the Moscow and Black Sea Railway which had begun construction in 1825, after importing six steam engines from Britain, gauged to Russia’s extra wide gauge track at five ft, nine inches wide. The Rail line was 1,026 miles long and had been built in two sections one running south from Moscow to Kiev and the other running north from Sevastopol to Kiev. The St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway would also be completed in 1839 having started later as would the Moscow and Minsk Railway. Russia had also established its first locomotive works in 1834 The Imperial Locomotive Factory with locations in Moscow, Kiev and St. Petersburg. Micheal would also encourage the Russian Textile and Iron/Steal working industries.
Then in 1839 Micheal II issued an edict to the Ministry of Railroad Development in which he called for a Railroad to be built to connect Moscow with Port Author and Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. Isidor Koshkin the head of the Ministry of Railroad Development would spend the next 5 years darning up the Trans Siberian Railway Program. When it was issued in 1844 It would establish no less than four state owned or partially state owned Railroads that would have the task to make the Czar's Dream a reality. with the Rail line not being completed until 1873 in the last years of Micheal's Reign.
Micheal II also saw the need to reform the Russian Imperial Army. Micheal’s primary reason for doing this was to build the moral of the average soldier, create a professional officer corps, and to use the army as a means to take the Russian peasants out of their traditional village farms and create the educated manpower base that the budding Russian Industries needed. To achieve this he cut the number of years that each conscript had to serve from 10 years of active service to 4 years of active service and an addition 3 as an active reservist. During the years as an active reservist soldiers alternate weeks of training and drilling with weeks of technical classes training them for industrial jobs Micheal would open a slew of regional officer academies based upon the military academies in Prussia, France, and Britain. He also mandated that every senior officer attend one tactical and strategic class every two years. No new officer commissions would be awarded to anyone without a diploma from on of the Imperial Military academies starting in 1834 the year the first classes would graduate. The Imperial Army would also begin converting their rifles and muskets to cap lock models and the rifles would be rebored to fire the .58 caliber wolfshot bullet. However for the most part the average Russian soldier was armed with smooth bore muskets. The navy would see the Imperial fleet expanded and the Pacific Fleet created in 1831 and then expanded greatly in 1836 when gold was discovered in the Yukon River valley. This super strong gold rush would bring the Russian Treasury much needed gold reserves after Micheal's reform programs had nearly exhausted it.
In an era where the old order was falling in line with the march of Constitutionalism Michael II and his reforms would fall well short of the bar. Micheal would create and implement a Constitution on March 27, 1838. This constitution created and a unicameral elected legislature known as the Imperial Council. The Imperial Council at 800 seats; of these seats 400 were directly elected by all Russian males and had served in the military, or owned at least two acres land. The remaining 400 were appointed by the Czar. Under the Constitution the Imperial Council could pass any law it wanted to but nothing became a law without the Czar's approval. Second the Czar could issue Imperial Edicts whenever he wanted, there was legally no difference between a law created in the Imperial Council and approved by the Czar's and an Imperial Edict. The Czar also named the Premier the head of the Imperial Council. The first election held in September of 1839 would see the Constitutional Democrat Party and the Orthodox Peasants Party as the two big winners the CDP carrying many of the cities and the OPD carrying the countryside districts. Czar Micheal II would use most of his seats for the Imperial Unity Party which supported the Czar Position and of which Micheal was the head. He would award a larger number of seats to the winner of the election the Constitutional Democratic Party and give the last fifty seats he had to the runner up in the general election the Orthodox Peasants Party. In keeping with the will of the general election Micheal would appoint the leader of the CDP Dmitry Bychkov of St. Petersburg as the First Premier of the Russian Empire, even though the Imperial Unity Party had the most seats on the Imperial Council, according to Micheal as he was the head of the party it was not in the running form the Premiership.
Imperial Council 1839 election
Elected seats
Constitutional Democratic Party 175 seats
Orthodox Peasants Party 150 seats
Imperial Unity Party 50 seats
Ukrainian National Party 10 seats
Russian Jewish Democratic Party 10 seats
Russian Plebeian Party 5
Czar Appointed Seats
Imperial Unity Party 250 seats
Constitutional Democratic Party 100 seats
Orthodox Peasants Party: 50 seats
Totals
Imperial Unity Party 300 seats
Constitutional Democratic Party: 275 seats
Orthodox Peasants Party: 200 seats
Ukrainian National Party 10 seats
Russian Jewish Democratic Party 10 seats
Russian Plebeian Party 5
House of Romanov Russian Line
Michael (II) Pavlovich Romanov -m(1815)-Anastasia Andreyevna Gorchakov
-Tsarevich Ivan Mikhailovich of Russia (Born 11/21/1815)
-Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna of Russia (Born 5/15/1818)
-Grand Duchess Maria Mikhailovna of Russia (Born 7/4/1820)
-Grand Duke Paul Mikhailovich of Russia (Born 9/21/1822)
-Grand Duchess Elizabeta Mikhailovna of Russia (Born 12/25/1825)
-Grand Duchess Alexandra Mikhailovna of Russia (Born 6/16/1827)
-Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia (Born 12/13/1828)