No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)

[alexmilman]

So basically the Russian and their allies could own the territory north of the Great Wall, should they choose so?

But is there any serious reason to wish such a thing?

I mean its not like the Chinese have any power projection above it. Though to be fair, neither do the Russians, its a vast area with relatively low value until the coal and iron deposits become very useful.

Which is exactly the point.

But its great land and the Chinese dropped to Southern Manchuria around this time, so with a better off Russia with more sensible rulers that look east you might go to the Liao (which to me is much more realistic to hold than the Wall.

They already got the Dzungar Khanate and it will take a considerable time and effort to absorb it into the Russian Empire and the same goes for the Kazakh lands. Then there will be a move into the CA khanates with the same problems.

Ending up with a border on the Amur may make certain sense but even this is not a clear cut because flow of the river is quite complicated. Russia circa 1730s simply does not have resources to expand that much that far and there is no shortage of a good land and natural resources much closer to the capital (huge deposits of coal at Donetsk and iron near Kursk).

 

[dunHozzie]

They already got the Dzungar Khanate and it will take a considerable time and effort to absorb it into the Russian Empire and the same goes for the Kazakh lands. Then there will be a move into the CA khanates with the same problems.

Yeah I was thinking about that, you could have the Khanates responsible for the new territory with some Cossacks to buffer them. I would see soft proxy occupation happening, but not true ownership for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

Ending up with a border on the Amur may make certain sense but even this is not a clear cut because flow of the river is quite complicated. Russia circa 1730s simply does not have resources to expand that much that far and there is no shortage of a good land and natural resources much closer to the capital (huge deposits of coal at Donetsk and iron near Kursk).

Sure, but there is Gold on the Amur. Hence a Mongol/Cossack buffer state to keep the Chinese away from the Amur makes sense. The next defensible line is the Nen, but the relatively easy to mine Iron and Coal is on the Liao. Which would help with the trade empire in the east you were looking for a couple of updates back, since you need Iron, Coal, Foodstuff and Wood to supply a fleet there. The presence of Amur Gold would help fund it. And maybe some river galley's would be a viable mechanism to sustain trade over the rivers of North Manchuria, supporting the Mongol/Cossack buffer state with relatively cheap (as you clarified to me) Russian fortresses to give it strength/sustainability.

 

[alexmilman]

Yeah I was thinking about that, you could have the Khanates responsible for the new territory with some Cossacks to buffer them. I would see soft proxy occupation happening, but not true ownership for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

Couple things about the Cossacks because there are popular misunderstandings.

First, they were not growing on the trees and their numbers, especially East of the Ural, had been limited even with some local tribes included in their hosts.
Second, this is 1730s and relations between the Russian government and various Cossack hosts are complicated, to put it mildly. In OTL there were serious problems with those of the Ukraine, Don and, few decades later, Yaik. ITTL the Hetmanate and Sich are already liquidated ahead of the schedule. The state policy is strengthening control, not relaxing it and on the borders the Cossack “buffers” are kept under the Russian administrative control backed up by a meaningful military presence.


As far as the Khanates are involved, their conquest (as in OTL) is going to be done by the regular army with the Cossacks and various Asiatic “auxiliaries” playing secondary role and not being left in charge of anything. After the conquest the khanates may end up within the OTL framework of the vassal states but with the presence of the Russian administration backed up by the regular troops and the irregulars, as needed, and mostly in the policing functions: none of the irregulars has serious military quality advantage over the “natives” and can’t keep them subdued on their own.

At least as far as the Kazakh territories are involved, there is going to be a considerable influx of the settlers from European Russia in the Northern Kazakhstan (as did happen), allowing to provide a backing for the military and administrative presence but these newcomers are not the Cossacks: their majority are the “state peasants”.

Sure, but there is Gold on the Amur. Hence a Mongol/Cossack buffer state to keep the Chinese away from the Amur makes sense.

No, the Cossack buffer state is a non-starter because the idea goes against the general course of the Russian state policies. Plus, as was demonstrated by Albazin war, the Cossacks on their own can’t hold against the Manchu. There is not enough of them and they are not producing weaponry (or anything else) of their own. The Mongols are even less so.

I’m not sure if the gold on the unchartered (as per Nerchinsk and Kjakhta) territories was already found by the 1730s but IITL the gold in the Russian-held Altai territories and Siberia already was so this is not a critical factor

The next defensible line is the Nen, but the relatively easy to mine Iron and Coal is on the Liao.

And who is going to to the necessary work? The Russian presence in the region is minuscule and can’t increase greatly during the following decades simply because there are no people in the empire (by 1730’s it is well under 20,000,000 and this total population) and communications are very difficult.

Iron and coal are nice and there is already a growing metallurgy in the Eastern Siberia in Baykal region but who is going to create and maintain it in what you call “Liao” (modern Liaoning?). I can easily tell who will not work in the mines and industrial plants: the Cossacks, Manchu and Mongols. So this state needs to have a lot of other sedentary people a lot of which had been, in OTL, the Chinese sneaking in from China regardless the Qing prohibition. And the Russian Empire will have to deal with the resulting ethnic and political mess because, unlike the Dzungars, this is “traditional” Manchu territory conquered in the early-/mid-XVII century. Which means that instead of a reasonably sustainable peace Russia is getting a permanent conflict on a very far end of its logistics with the opponent (unlike the case of the Dzungars) having a much better logistics and, presumably, a support of a considerable part if the local population.

Which would help with the trade empire in the east you were looking for a couple of updates back, since you need Iron, Coal, Foodstuff and Wood to supply a fleet there.

Well, the discussion on this subject ended up with a rather pessimistic conclusion that the schema would make a very limited sense to all parties involved. 😢

The Pacific fleet is a separate issue. Russia needed some navy there mostly to supply its outposts further to the North, all the way to Kamchatka and, if the Russian footprint on Alaska is going to be established IITL, to Alaska as well. This is more conveniently done if communication down the Amur is established with a port on its mouth (like OTL Nikolaevsk-on-Amur) instead of the huge carts caravans going from Yakutsk to Okhotsk. An additional benefit would be an ability to create at least some agricultural base on a lower Amur to minimize dependencies upon food supplies from Eastern Siberia. On the way back these ships can carry the furs from the North to be sold in Kjakhta. Of course, it is possible to imagine a naval fur trade going to one of the ports in Northern China but, as was pointed out, this would probably require some agreements with Korea and/or Japan and a separate treaty with China (Canton not being too convenient in this schema). However, then what? How the Chinese goods will be brought back to Russia? There are only two options:
1. The Russian ships have to be sailing all the way to either the Baltic or Black Sea ports either across the Indian-Atlantic or Pacific-Atlantic oceans. After which these ships would have to sail all the way back with some cargo either directly to the port on Amur or stopping in Chinese port, doing some trade and bringing <whatever> to the Russian port. Not to mention the complexity of all schema, at the time in question Russia was many decades away from the circumnavigation travel.
2. The Russian furs from the North are unloaded at Amur port (instead of Okhotsk), loaded to the river boats and then are brought by the Amur upstream, unloaded and carried to Kjakhta to be exchanged for the Chinese goods which would be carried to Russia by the Siberian Tract.

Putting aside the difficulties with moving the loaded barges upstream of the Amur (which, judging by the XIX reports, could be quite problematic) and its general unreliability as a transportation route (it seems that from time to time it was getting too shallow), out of these two schemas the second looks much more realistic and for the OTL level of trade a limited number of the relatively small ships was quite adequate. Wood is not a problem without conquest of “Liao” and the rest of materials could be brought from the Eastern Siberia.

The presence of Amur Gold would help fund it. And maybe some river galley's would be a viable mechanism to sustain trade over the rivers of North Manchuria, supporting the Mongol/Cossack buffer state with relatively cheap (as you clarified to me) Russian fortresses to give it strength/sustainability.

Russia was already trading everything it wanted with China per Kjakhta Treaty and did not have too much of anything else to offer. As for the buffer state, see above. With the Cossack state out of question, an additional Russian vassal Mongolian state means a permanent conflict with the Manchu. Russian border fortresses are cheap but Albazin war and the following negotiations in Nerchinsk demonstrated (if somebody needed such a proof) that only a strong Russian military presence (as during Kjakhta talks) guarantees security of these territories.

 

[dunHozzie]

Second, this is 1730s and relations between the Russian government and various Cossack hosts are complicated, to put it mildly. In OTL there were serious problems with those of the Ukraine, Don and, few decades later, Yaik.

Hence the need to ship off a lot of them to a remote area - kill 2 birds with one stone.

The state policy is strengthening control, not relaxing it and on the borders the Cossack “buffers” are kept under the Russian administrative control backed up by a meaningful military presence.

Hence the fortresses and Russian presence on which the Cossacks and Mongols have to depend.

Plus, as was demonstrated by Albazin war, the Cossacks on their own can’t hold against the Manchu. There is not enough of them and they are not producing weaponry (or anything else) of their own. The Mongols are even less so.

Absolutely, which is perfect. They need Russia so can't get any ideas, but are perfect for policing duties.

And who is going to to the necessary work? The Russian presence in the region is minuscule and can’t increase greatly during the following decades simply because there are no people in the empire (by 1730’s it is well under 20,000,000 and this total population) and communications are very difficult.

Yeah these are the really big issues (not that I expect a forceful move of the Cossacks is trivial).

“Liao” (modern Liaoning?).

I meant the river Liao (as a border) and using the rivers (including e.g. the Nen) a way to have sustainable fortresses that can reinforce each other.

Ps, tell me when you get sick of discussing this with me, but every time we discuss this I learn new stuff, so I'm not giving up yet unless you're tired of it.

 

[TrickyApe]

2. The Russian furs from the North are unloaded at Amur port (instead of Okhotsk), loaded to the river boats and then are brought by the Amur upstream, unloaded and carried to Kjakhta to be exchanged for the Chinese goods which would be carried to Russia by the Siberian Tract.

If the furs are coming up the Amur it might be easier to sail them down the Argun to Tsurukhaitu, the other trade post agreed in the OTL 1727 treaty.

 

[alexmilman]

If the furs are coming up the Amur it might be easier to sail them down the Argun to Tsurukhaitu,

I did not get the idea. If the furs are coming from the Pacific coast port located at Amur’s mouth, how they could sailed down the Argun, which is an upper part of the Amur?

the other trade post agreed in the OTL 1727 treaty.

And after this to do what? You’d still have to transport the Chinese goods all the way to the destination points (Nizni Novgorod and Moscow) and Kjakhta is much closer to them. The Chinese goods are mostly either considerably heavier or more fragile than the furs so getting them up the river will be more problematic than by land from Kjakhta. The land road from Tsurukhaitu was over 650 miles longer than the Kyakhta route. The site was poor, firewood was over 25 miles distant and it was frequently flooded by the Argun River. “In 1733 the official caravan tried to return by Tsurukhaitu rather than Kyakhta. Goods were spoiled due to lack of covered storage at the fort, they had difficulty finding laborers and it took all summer to travel west to Irkutsk.”

 

[TrickyApe]

I did not get the idea. If the furs are coming from the Pacific coast port located at Amur’s mouth, how they could sailed down the Argun, which is an upper part of the Amur?

Yes, of course the proper terminology is up the Argun. The alternative is to continue to beat upriver to Chita and transship by land to Kjakhta. That's a lot of work just to end up at a trade post that's no closer to Beijing.

And after this to do what? You’d still have to transport the Chinese goods all the way to the destination points (Nizni Novgorod and Moscow) and Kjakhta is much closer to them. The Chinese goods are mostly either considerably heavier or more fragile than the furs so getting them up the river will be more problematic than by land from Kjakhta. The land road from Tsurukhaitu was over 650 miles longer than the Kyakhta route. The site was poor, firewood was over 25 miles distant and it was frequently flooded by the Argun River. “In 1733 the official caravan tried to return by Tsurukhaitu rather than Kyakhta. Goods were spoiled due to lack of covered storage at the fort, they had difficulty finding laborers and it took all summer to travel west to Irkutsk.”

The issue of the poorly chosen and occasionally flooded site is easily resolved by moving the trading post slightly, as was apparently done in 1756.

The return trip with Chinese goods is a more serious problem but might be resolved through the exchange of letters of credit with the Chinese for goods to be purchased at Kjakhta, rather than immediate exchange of products. This may sound a little farfetched for frontier trade but the Mongol tea trade was already being handled using commercial paper of this sort by the Da Sheng Kui merchant house as early as 1724.

 

[alexmilman]

Hence the need to ship off a lot of them to a remote area - kill 2 birds with one stone.

Easier said than done and most of them are where they are needed guarding the border areas from Kuban to Baykal and, in the case of the Cossacks of Don, also providing irregular cavalry for the potential European theater.

Hence the fortresses and Russian presence on which the Cossacks and Mongols have to depend.

But for these fortresses to be sustainable, there must be a backing them population and/or convenient supply route from such areas. Otherwise, as was happening more than once, the garrisons can be starved out (Buhgoltz expedition, forts on the Eastern Caspian shore, Albazin, etc.).

Absolutely, which is perfect. They need Russia so can't get any ideas, but are perfect for policing duties.

Yeah, sure. How would these policing duties work against the invading Manchu armies? 😪

Yeah these are the really big issues (not that I expect a forceful move of the Cossacks is trivial).

Let’s start with the basic misunderstanding. The “Cossacks” were not a single ethnic group. It was a social status, like the Austrian granichari. So, leaving aside an issue of the general impracticality, which specific “Cossacks” were you planning to uproot and by which reason?

I meant the river Liao (as a border) and using the rivers (including e.g. the Nen) a way to have sustainable fortresses that can reinforce each other.

As on the map above? You are excessively imperialistic (😂). Not going to happen because a conquest war needed os unrealistic and holding to the area is much less so. Too far, too big, too pointless.

Ps, tell me when you get sick of discussing this with me, but every time we discuss this I learn new stuff, so I'm not giving up yet unless you're tired of it.

Why should I get sick of it? It is quite stimulating and every time I’m learning something new (or understanding what exactly I’m talking about 😂).

An old joke about a professor:

- These students are so dumb. I explained them a subject and they did not get it. I explained it once more and they still did not get it. I explained it once more and finally understood the subject myself and they still did not get it. 😜

 

[alexmilman]

Yes, of course the proper terminology is up the Argun. The alternative is to continue to beat upriver to Chita and transship by land to Kjakhta. That's a lot of work just to end up at a trade post that's no closer to Beijing.



The issue of the poorly chosen and occasionally flooded site is easily resolved by moving the trading post slightly, as was apparently done in 1756.

And even after that the trade did not pick up. For the Russian side the important part was an ability to bring the goods to European Russia, which means that the site closest to it would be preferable.

The return trip with Chinese goods is a more serious problem but might be resolved through the exchange of letters of credit with the Chinese for goods to be purchased at Kjakhta, rather than immediate exchange of products.

Judging by what I read on the subject, this would not going to work. The trade on frontier was mostly a barter and done mostly by the private merchants who in general were not used to the advanced notions like the letters of credit. And this goes for the Russian side as well. Anyway, there will be different people/conpanies trading in these two sites so I’m not sure how such a schema could work out.

There can be something of the kind if we add to the schema the food and other supplies going down the Amur to be shipped to the Pacific ports/Alaska and then the furs from these ports going upriver but then, again, supply of the Pacific ports is a state business and the furs coming from these ports (but not Alaska) are also state-owned. However, most of the Kjakhta border trade IITL is private (and the furs coming from Siberia) so for the whole thing to work one have to figure out how these components are working together. To be honest, I’m not planning to got deep into the subject because on a serious level it will require a deep studying of the subject with the materials not easily available (and me not having enough interest for such a study 😉).

If, and I did not decide, yet, Russia is getting a border by the Amur then it is enough to say that communication with the Pacific coast is improved allowing for a faster than in OTL colonization.

This may sound a little farfetched for frontier trade but the Mongol tea trade was already being handled using commercial paper of this sort by the Da Sheng Kui merchant house as early as 1724.

 

[Hastings]

Yeah, trying to occupy the Manchurian heartland would not be a good idea. Reaching the Liao River with more than a few light cavalry would be nearly impossible. It is nearly 2,000kms from any major Russian bases and a third that distance from Peking. Russia cannot force China to give up anything it truly cares about. At the end of the day, the Qing have more manpower and are closer to their core. If the Russians get too greedy, they could experience what the OTL Great Northern War was like for Sweden. Win a lot of glorious victories, the enemy fixes things behind the scenes, and then decisive collapse a decade later. After all, thinking in reverse, everything worth having east of Omsk is within 2,000km of a major Chinese base. They need it to be a border brush gone wrong for the Qing, an embarrassing mess, but not something worth taking dramatic measures over.

Personally I am doubtful already about the current campaign. I question the practicability of Russia deploying 40,000 men that deep into territory that no Russian has gone before. They would be utterly dependent on the Dzungars for logistical support, directions, and not being backstabbed. Even ignoring the 'political' implications of that, the Russian army is a very different system than the Dzungars are used to and logistical support almost certainly will be inadequate. Alexmilman's goals seem to be for the Dzungars to become a very loose Russian vassal and some border adjustments in the north. I think that could be achieved with say ~10,000, rather than 40,000 Russians providing some backbone to the Dzungars. With some modern artillery and mounted infantry in support, the Dzungars could still inflict some defeats and drive the Chinese out of Outer Mongolia. True that isn't as grand a feat of Russian arms, but it also isn't necessary for the goal. This is essentially a border dispute gone wrong for the Qing. They do not control Dzungaria at all and have no meaningful control over the Amur regions.

 

[alexmilman]

Yeah, trying to occupy the Manchurian heartland would not be a good idea. Reaching the Liao River with more than a few light cavalry would be nearly impossible. It is nearly 2,000kms from any major Russian bases and a third that distance from Peking. Russia cannot force China to give up anything it truly cares about. At the end of the day, the Qing have more manpower and are closer to their core. If the Russians get too greedy, they could experience what the OTL Great Northern War was like for Sweden. Win a lot of glorious victories, the enemy fixes things behind the scenes, and then decisive collapse a decade later. After all, thinking in reverse, everything worth having east of Omsk is within 2,000km of a major Chinese base. They need it to be a border brush gone wrong for the Qing, an embarrassing mess, but not something worth taking dramatic measures over.

Exactly.

Personally I am doubtful already about the current campaign. I question the practicability of Russia deploying 40,000 men that deep into territory that no Russian has gone before.

Well, as you may notice, not all these 40,000 are operating deep in the Dzungaria but, to be completely honest, I wanted a clear overkill instead of the traditional “few Europeans vs. Asiatic hordes” scenario and their presence must be big enough to prevent the Dzungars from going their usual foolish way with the long range raids and excessive territorial ambitions. 😉

They would be utterly dependent on the Dzungars for logistical support, directions, and not being backstabbed.

That’s why a big force (part of which is on the other side of a border but nonetheless). Logistical support at that time is doable (unlike the OTL, Siberia already has its own production base) and while a small force is fully dependent upon the locals in its actions, a big one is not so much. The region can support 30-40,000 extras at least for a while and with the grain being brought from Russia. As for for the directions, the Dzungars are the interested side as well and they know that from the Qing they can expect only extermination.

Even ignoring the 'political' implications of that, the Russian army is a very different system than the Dzungars are used to and logistical support almost certainly will be inadequate.

Yes, the nomadic “logistic system” is different and a resulting mixed army is slower but the vital supplies (ammunition and grain) can be brought from Russia. As you may notice, Munnich is executing two short campaigns practically within the Dzungar borders, which means that the necessary supplies can be brought in and stored in a friendly territory. The final campaign is happening close to the Russian border

and these supplies could be brought to Urga.

Alexmilman's goals seem to be for the Dzungars to become a very loose Russian vassal

Initially. This is how it was done with almost everybody else. Then a prolonged process of a growing presence following and when situation is ripe a de facto administration is picked up by the Russians with the local nobility retaining some of their traditional rights.

and some border adjustments in the north. I think that could be achieved with say ~10,000, rather than 40,000 Russians providing some backbone to the Dzungars.

10,000 would not be able to maintain the vassal status (Dzungars could raise up to 80,000) and definitely would not be able to force Galdan Tseren to adopt the Russian strategy and tactics.

With some modern artillery and mounted infantry in support, the Dzungars could still inflict some defeats and drive the Chinese out of Outer Mongolia.

But they would not stop at their border and try to conquer (not just raid) Khalka, making peace with the Qing impossible.

True that isn't as grand a feat of Russian arms, but it also isn't necessary for the goal.

Well, the Russian generals of the XVIII XIX centuries had a well-developed gift of turning pretty much any encounter with the “Asiates” (including the Ottomans) into a grand and glorious feat. 😂

This is essentially a border dispute gone wrong for the Qing. They do not control Dzungaria at all and have no meaningful control over the Amur regions.

The goal for Russia is to make a point. Just to have the Dzungars as the loose vassals capable of conducting their own foreign policy and regularly getting Russia in trouble by having to defend them is a waste of effort. Both the Qing and Dzungars had to get an idea that Russia is a strong boss capable to keep its vassals under control and off the Chinese territories but also capable of protecting vassal against the Qing invasion. Otherwise, in a couple decades or even sooner the Qing will be invading Dzungaria (as happened in OTL).

 

[alexmilman]

92. Importance of being polite

“nothing is as cheap and valuable as courtesy”
A proverb
“Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.”
Bismarck
“It seems: having good manners is false, boring, unnecessary. A person by good manners can really cover up bad deeds.”
Author Unknown
“agreement is the product of non-resistance on both sides”
Aphorism
“If it is a trivial matter, do not just simply neglect the issue because it seems insignificant. If it is a complex matter, do not just simply conceal away the issue because it could become a challenge.”
Emperor Youngzheng
​

1732. The little victorious war had been coming to its logical conclusion, at least as far as Munnich had been concerned. Both the Dzungars and Qing had been given an impressive lesson regarding the Russian military strength and now it was a good time to wrap things up by making a formal peace with Qing. Preferably fast because staying forever in the East was not in Munnich’s plans and a prolonged resource-consuming conflict could actually damage his career: the first victories could be eventually forgotten and constant calls for more resources became annoying to the court. After all, while he was given extremely wide powers, his mission was not vague. He had to secure the Dzungar territory for Russia: the Dzungars had to take the Russian overlordship seriously and the Qing to accept that the Dzungar territory is a part of the Russian Empire and to resume the trade. The “extras” were optional, not very important, and should not negatively impact the negotiations and future relations. It was not spelled out but if the program above is implemented successfully (and fast), he could expect St. George First class and fieldmarshal’s baton plus some other awards immediately and in the future. But success and a reasonably fast return to Moscow were the keys: someone who stayed too long far away from the center of power could be losing him connections and risked that even his success could be used against him (as was the case with Prince Gagarin).

But to make a peace the Qing’s agreement was necessary and, taking into an account the Chinese imperial ambitions and superiority attitudes, there were seemingly two options:
1. To march all the way to Peking, take it and be ready to go and fight further into China finally forcing its emperor to acknowledge a defeat. Taking into an account the forces in Munnich's and Chinese disposal, distances, logistics, etc. this was a pure fantasy worthy of a drunken hussar lieutenant.
2. To allow Qing Emperor to save face by playing down scope of the whole war and lowering it to a level of a border incident caused by the over-enthusiastic Qing commanders. This option looked much more promising and while the Peter’s and then Alexey’s court in which Munnich was making his career could be not as sophisticated as one of the Qing Empire, one was not successfully climbing up to social ladder by being a simpleton.

The message sent to the Qing Emperor was a complaint on most probably unsanctioned activities of the Qing regional commanders who are either by confusion or by an ill-adviced enthusiasm had been invading the territory under protection of the Russian Emperor with a resulting need to repel them and a rather unfortunate need to pursue them to the territory of the vassals of his Majesty Emperor Yongzheng because the said vassals took an active part in the above-mentioned invasions. On which territory the Russian army is presently temporarily positioned awaiting arrival of the Qing representatives empowered to resolve the whole misunderstanding to the mutual satisfaction, etc.

Emperor Yongzheng was anything but an idiot. Actually, he was a very intelligent statesman. And he was currently busy conducting a fundamental administrative reform intended to get away from the old system of the monthly selection in which the candidates waiting for the promotion were assigned to different posts by drawing lots on a monthly basis [1] .
“In the new appointment system, local jurisdictions first were classified into two groups according to governance difficulties. More specifically, to prioritize local jurisdictions and allocate appointment power accordingly, the governability of each jurisdiction was decomposed into four elements, or four "characters": Chong, Fan, Pi, and Nan. "Chong" (thoroughfare) referred to places at busy highways and was designed to capture the characteristics of commercial potential or military significance. “Fan” (troublesome) stood for places with a great deal of onerous official business. “Pi” (wearisome) was the area having difficulty collecting taxes. “Nan” (difficult) referred to the places with crime-prone subjects and recurring violent engagement. Moreover, posts of jurisdictions containing all four elements would be ranked as very important positions and posts of places with three elements would be rated as important posts, whereas posts of places having less than two elements would be tagged as middle-level positions (two elements) or easy posts (one-zero element) respectively.
In this way, the post designation (Chong, Fan, Pi, and Nan) was linked to the importance rating system hand in hand. The appointment power then was allocated based on the importance rating system; posts marked as very important and important were subject to the discretionary appointment by the emperor or provincial leaders, whereas other less important posts still were assigned by drawing lots. As a result, the high-quality officials were matched to the important positions and in turn promoted local governance”. [2]

Obviously, the border nuisance, besides being costly, and while the treasury's income increased from 32,622,421 taels (1 tael = 50 grams of silver) in 1721 to about 60 million taels in 1730, the fighting increased military budget well above the intended 10 million taels a year depleted half the treasury, leaving 33.95 million taels. So the peace was needed but without a loss of face. A message from the Russian commander seemingly provided a convenient loophole, especially taking into an account that both unlucky army commanders and a deputy commander of the Southern Army already had been ordered to commit suicide and hardly could do any finger-pointing so, yes, they were at fault (of what exactly, it was absolutely immaterial) and already punished.

The delegation had been officially led by Yunti, formally known as Prince Xun of the Second Rank, a Manchu prince (the 14th son of the Kangxi Emperor) and a general whose army in 1720 captured Lhasa and installed pro-Qing Seventh Dalai Lama.

The Yongzheng Emperor perceived Yunti as a potential threat to his throne, so he stripped Yunti of his title in 1725 and placed him under house arrest at Shouhuang Palace.

Appointing him a figurehead of the diplomatic mission was something of an improvement of his situation but also a slap on the face taking into an account an official insignificance of the event. It was also made clear that, except for the purely ceremonial occasions, he is supposed to be either absent or at least to keep his mouth shut.

Ji Zengyun, Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent, Grand Secretary, and president of the Board of Civil Office (who was appointed to conduct the negotiations) [3] was appointed as a deputy head of a delegation, which was speedily dispatched to Urga, where Munnich established his headquarters.

On their entry to Urga they had been presented with a massive demonstration of a military might: 30,000 regular Russian troops (the force beefed up with the troops brought from the Russian side of a border for the purpose of making a point) had been lined on the plain with the big numbers of the Russian Cossacks and Dzungars prancing around to increase the effect. Huge herds of the horses and camels further on the plain had been indicating readiness for the further action.

Munnich was accompanied by Sava Raguzinsky, an experienced diplomat who negotiated the Kyakhta Treaty, and as Galdan Tseren’s representative, one of his commanders, Baghatur Sayin Bolek [4] - an official level of the discussion would be below the dignity of a head of state, even if this is a vassal state. His main function was to look dashing and ready to trample anyone with his cavalry.

Both sides had been extremely polite at the first meeting but then the head of the delegations left to Raguzinsky, Ji Zengyun and their secretaries to haggle about the most important thing, the agenda. This, seemingly straightforward, thing took two days to iron down after which the real discussions started. For a while the bargaining was along the lines:
- Why should we concede on this issue?
- Because it is our camp on your land and not other way around. [5]
However, soon enough the bickering ended and conversation became more productive. Within a week a consensus on all main items had been reached:
1. The Qing officially recognized Dzungar Khanate in its present borders as a vassal of the Russian Empire.
2. Kumul Khanate (Hama) is being transferred directly to the Russian Empire as a “gift” to compensate for the expenses and losses suffered due to the “incident”.
3. The Qing Empire is going to pay the Russian Empire 100,000 taels to be transferred to Galdan Tseren as a compensation for his losses. As soon as this sum is delivered at Urga, the Russian (and Dzungar) troops will start withdrawal from the Qing territory and should fully accomplish it within a month.
4. The prisoners of war are going to be exchanged without a ransom (unless they voluntarily express a wish to become, correspondingly, Russian or Qing subjects).
5. Barkol fortress should not be restored and no new fortresses on Qing-Dzungar border has to be built by either side within two days of a horse ride.
6. The members of the Russian religion mission in Peking are to be released and building of the mission restored with compensation for the lost property [6].
7. The merchants captured by both sides are to be released. All existing trade arrangements are confirmed.
8. Both sides are taking responsibility for preventing the Dzungar and Khalka raids across the border.
9. Both sides promise to return the rebels and criminals fleeing across the border.
10. Navigation on the Amur should be free for all its length to both sides.
11. Unchartered territory North of the lower Amur left out of the Nerchinsk and Kyakhta Treaties goes to the Russian Empire.
12. A bi-lateral commission will immediately start marking the Qing-Dzungar border.

The treaty was satisfactory for all sides involved:

• Qing gave away only a tiny Kumul Khanate (and even this as a free gift) and a territory on the lower Amur in which it did not have any foothold. Firmly established Dzungar border guaranteed the end of the Dzungar attempts to conquer Khalka and Tibet. One time payment of the 100,000 taels was a relatively small potato and nobody in Peking cared a bit about the Khalka’s herds captured by the Dzungars during the war. Freedom of navigation along Amur was not very important economically (most of the trade was through Kyakhta) but can be presented as a gain. Weakening of the Khalka Mongols allowed to increase the Qing control over their territory.
• Galdan Tseren got 5 tons of silver from the Qing, huge numbers of cattle from the Khalka Mongols and a considerable amount of all types of things, from weapons to the clothes, from the defeated Qing armies. Plus, a guaranteed security from the future Qing invasions.
• Russia - speedy completion of a war with an addition of a big vassal territory and a rich oasis as a direct possession, which would help to control the new vassals. Navigation on the Amur may prove to be useful in a near future. Not insignificant numbers of a captured livestock was welcomed in the Eastern Siberia. Logistical for the future advance into the CA khanate was almost complete and the new Dzungar vassals got an experience of the joined operations with the Russian troops. Munnich was recalled to Moscow to get the hero welcome, fieldmarshal’s baton, St. George First Class, estate near Moscow and a big “arenda”. Now, he was in the top tier of the Russian military and could expect to get on the very top taking into an account a failing health of Michael Golitsyn.
  • Edit: In a process of the joint operations the Russians started getting the Dzungars used to bread as a part of their rations. Which was, as had been already demonstrated by the Kazakhs, a very important tool for strengthening Dzungar’s link to Russia. Obviously, the nomads were not growing grain themselves and the bread consumption meant a need of the increasing trade with Russia and then even a permission to the Russian peasants (grain producers) to start settling on Dzungar lands.

__________
[1] An idea of a specialization (as in deep knowledge of some specific area) seemingly was not there, yet.
[2] Looks to me as a very complicated way to allow the emperor and the governors to appoint their personal proteges to the most “visible” positions while preserving some appearance of a fairness. ☺️
[3] Just picked up the high-ranking officials who were alive at that time. This being a “minor border incident”, presence of a Prince of the First Rank would not be warranted.
[4] Actually, this personage is from the next generation but I needed some Oirat name. Portrait is not his (and not necessary of any real person) but it’ll do as long as it is dashing enough. 😉
[5] Stolen from “Inquisitor”.
[6] The mission was spectacularly unsuccessful in its religious activities but it was providing a wealth of the useful information about China.

 

[alexmilman]

93. Series of the unfortunate events

“There's always a crook near a fool”
Balzac
“A fool always finds a bigger fool who surprises him.”
N. Boileau
​

1732 started badly.

A bridge, which fieldmarshal Michael Golitsyn was crossing in his carriage, collapsed burying under the debris the best and most popular Russian general [1].

Fieldmarshal’s funeral was not forgotten by Moscow for a long time, and some memoirists preserved their details. The regiment was walking with banners rolled up. Thirty court carriages, empty and filled, swayed from behind. That's what the emperor wanted. Orders were carried on pillows.
A wife followed a black heavy coffin, and she cried. When the procession passed by Alexey Petrovich, he slowly raised a naked sword.
- My best people are dying. [2]

Situation on the West kept getting more and more complicated. The Favorite Pet, August II, was seemingly loosing not just his health but his marbles as well. He started the secret (whom was he kidding?) negotiations with France. On October 2 (13) 1728 Augustus II concluded the Versailles Pact: in case of Louis XV's war with Emperor Charles, King Augustus promised to remain neutral and not to let Russian troops pass through the PLC to help the Austrians against the French, in response, France provided the king with the payment of subsidies. This was fine with Alexey because neither he nor his brother-in-law Charles had been planning to get involved into the Franco-Austrian confrontation and if August is trying to squeeze some money from the French for the services he is not going to grant, good luck to him. However, August did not stop there and tried to make an agreement with Prussia by which he offered Friedrich-Wilhelm Polish Prussia and part of Greater Poland, the rest of the lands would became the hereditary kingdom. This proposal went nowhere because Frederich-Wilhelm had a strong suspicion that its implementation would mean a war with Russia and Sweden, an experience which he did not want to repeat.

So far both Charles and Alexey had been pretty much neglecting the Polish affairs, each of them being busy with the domestic affairs. As a result, they were willing to overlook the seemingly minor problems. The weakness of the central power of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the sovereignty of the aristocracy and the arbitrariness of the petty nobility made this state a restless neighbor. Small bands of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility attacked border villages, took away peasants and stole cattle, burned fields and houses. The Polish Catholic majority persecuted the “dissidents”, both Orthodox and Lutheran and things had been getting worse. Not surprisingly, this became a problem for the Hapsburgs as well. The emperor was the guarantor of the rights of religious minorities in the empire, and the surges of Catholic fanaticism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth caused the activity of the Jesuits in Silesia and Hungary, where there were also many Lutherans. In addition, it caused démarches from the Protestant princes of the Empire, who were supported by England and Sweden. If initially the Hapsburgs had been in favor of a native Polish candidate, it was getting more and more clear that under such a candidate situation with the dissidents will deteriorate even further warranting a foreign intervention. As a result, Charles VI found it prudent to side with the Swedish and Russian candidate, Friedrich August of Saxony, providing he is willing to sign Pragmatic Sanction.

In July-August 1730, the Russian court informed Vienna that negotiations with the French were underway in Warsaw and Dresden. This did not mean a conclusion of a formal alliance between the Baltic League and the Hapsburgs but they were definitely getting closer.

In 1731, Polish-Lithuanian raids on the borders and persecution of Orthodox Christians intensified. These events prompted Russia to take active action. Lieutenant General Count Karl Löwenwolde went to Berlin with a task to coordinate actions on the Polish issue with King Frederick William I.

On December 14 (25) 1731, the imperial ambassador in Moscow count von Vratislav presented a draft treaty providing for the guarantee of the Polish "republic", the formation of the Prussian-Swedish-Russian-Austrian Council for Polish Affairs and the nomination of a candidate who "contained all Polish freedoms and would live in peace with all border countries." It was not a part of the draft but unofficially von Vratislav expressed Hapsburg’s willingness to accept the Saxon candidate. The draft had been viewed favorably in Moscow, Stockholm and Berlin but no immediate steps to formalize it had been taken. The things did not look bad enough to warrant an immediate action and at least Russia and Sweden did not want to get involved in the French-Austrian military confrontation which may be triggered by the succession issue. To minimize unnecessary complications, Frederich August was discretely recommended by Sweden and Russia to sign Pragmatic Sanction when his father will kick the bucket.

On the opposite side of the equation, France could not remain uninvolved because pro-French PLC would be helpful for the seemingly inevitable clash with Austria. Pacte de Famille was not yet formally concluded but work in this direction had been going on strengthening French position for war in Italy. The PLC may be a valuable addition on the North (French government had somewhat optimistic view regarding the Polish military might) and the Ottomans (who should be looking for revenge after defeat in a war of 1716-18) on the South and East. Taking into an account a practical impossibility to provide PLC with the French candidate, Cardinal Fleury found a suitable Polish magnate, Stanisław Leszczyński, voivode of Poznań Voivodeship. Well-educated, highly aristocratic, attractively looking, good speaker quite popular among the Polish nobility [2] , always out of money (aka, is going to be heavily dependent upon his French paymasters), a devout Catholic.

What was even more important, he was highly favored by count Theodor Andrzej Potocki, Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland and as such interrex in the case of August’s death.

The interrex would represent the country on the international scene and oversee the internal administration until a new king was elected. In special circumstances he could declare war and negotiate peace. He summoned and presided over the convocation sejm and the election sejm, the gathering of nobility that elected the king. He also announced the election of the king.

Theodor Andrzej Potocki. Born in Moscow in 1664. His father was Pavel Stefanovich Potocki, his mother - Elena Petrovna, née Saltykova - both enjoyed the great favor of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who himself volunteered to be the godfather of their son and ordered to perform the sacrament of baptism to Patriarch Nikon. After his parents moved to Poland, Fyodor Potocki began to attend Jesuit schools, then studied at German and Italian universities. In 1683, he was ordained to the priesthood and soon appointed a Krakow canon. Called to the royal court, Potocki won the sympathy of the royal family and took the post of chancellor of the wife of King's son James. With the election of Augustus II to the throne, Fyodor Potocki, on the proposal of Felix Potocki, received the Bishopric of Hill, although his confirmation as bishop took place only two years after his election: his birth from the Orthodox and baptism by the Orthodox Patriarch aroused intrigue against him. After that, Potocki was appointed senator and member of the State Council of the Kingdom of Poland.

He treated Russia's proposals in 1729 quite favorably , during negotiations between them and the envoy of Russia, Prince S. G. Dolgoruky on the approval of Arseny Berlo, elected bishop of Belarus: having achieved the promise of the Russian ambassador, that if any violence is done during the election of the king, Russia will be along with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Potocki began to express his sympathy for Russia and generally lean towards its interests. This mood, however, was short-lived and he opted for Leszczyński as a matter of principle: freedom of the election has to be of the primary importance. Due to his position he had an enormous influence among the Polish nobility and also was controlling the election process.

So France had a suitable candidate. The only problem was that it will be extremely difficult for France to back him up with a military force. To get to it by the sea, France would need a cooperation or at least friendly neutrality of Christian VI of Denmark. He was approached by the French but refused to get involved in any schema which was not going to be supported by his brothers-in-law, Charles and Alexey. An attempt to convince Charles to side with France on the succession issue was not productive either: Charles did not see any reason for letting France into what was an exclusive Russian-Swedish backyard and the same happened to the attempt to get Alexey on board.

Which left Prussia. But if FWI was unmoved by a proposal of August, who was “offering” him a big chunk of Poland, was even less inclined to get himself sucked into the French machinations which did not involve any realistic bonus but definitely meant a very unpleasant war with almost guaranteed negative outcome for him personally.

As a result, Fleury opted for a rather nasty schema (the moral principles in the politics? what a nonsense!).

France is going to support Leszczyński’s candidacy with the money and promise of a military support coming from the sea. The Poles will have to be assured that King Christian VI secretly agreed to allow the French fleet to pass through the Sound but can’t reveal this agreement until the last moment out of the fear of Sweden and Russia. The Poles, with their usual enthusiasm and optimism, will elect King Stanislaw and if Russia and Sweden and, what is more important, Emperor Charles VI, decide to oppose him militarily, this will further weaken the Hapsburg positions on the Rhine and Italy, which are already rather weak due to the unwillingness to spend money on the military. The Poles are numerous and bellicose and are going to held for a while in a hope for the French reinforcements allowing the French (hopefully with the Spanish help) to beat the Hapsburg forces elsewhere. Their main “strategic factor”, Prince Eugene is already old and ailing and can do little without an adequate army in his disposal.
If, OTOH, Sweden and Russia will accept the Polish choice peacefully, a new king, with the help of the French money, will be easily able to organize a series of the “unofficial” raids into Silesia forcing Austria to stretch its resources and perhaps triggering a negative reaction of the German Protestants. In both cases this will be a win-win situation for France.

With all these things and plans going on, the only component was missing: August II was still alive. But not for too long. Augustus II died on February 1, 1733 in Warsaw. His last words were: "My whole life was a single continuous sin."

In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, executive power passed into the hands of Primate, Archbishop Count Fyodor Potocki of Gniezno. By its first decrees, the primate expelled 1,200 Saxons from the country, disbanded two regiments of the Cavalry Guard and accepted Augustus II's favorite regiment, Grand Musketer, to the Polish service. The Russian ambassador to Warsaw, Count Friedrich Levenwolde, found out in conversations with the primate that he was a strong supporter of Leszczyński. For Russia, Leszczyński's support by the Potocki family did not bode well, as the Potocki controlled the border voivodeships with Russia and Count Józef Potocki was the Warden of Warsaw. The relatives of the Potocki were the Russian voivode August Czartoryski, Yablonovsky, the subscarbia Grand Crown Count František Ossolinsky, the crown regimentary Count Stanislav Poniatowski.

The support for Russia, Sweden and Austria was the Lithuanian nobility opposed to Leszczyński - the regimentary of Lithuanian Prince Mikhail Vishnevetsky, Prince Mikhail-Kazimir Radziwill. Voiovode Prince Fyodor Lubomirski and the castellan Prince Jan Vishnevetsky of Krakow were pre-Austrian. By February 12 (23), 1733, they had organized a confederation in Krakow and seized salt mines, but did not receive military assistance from Austria, the Confederates soon obeyed the primate.

On April 27, 1733, a convocational Sejm was opened, preceding the electoral Sejm, at which it was decided that only a natural Pole and a Catholic who does not have his own army or hereditary power and is married to a Catholic can be elected king. This decision explicitly excluded both the Saxon Elector and any other foreign prince from the list of candidates for the throne. However, when it was necessary to sign these articles, some electors refused to do so, after which they appealed to the Russian court for help.

The election Sejm began on August 25. His work was marked by quarrels. Already on August 29, the regimentary of Lithuanian Prince Vishnevetsky moved with his adherents in the amount of 3,000 people to the right bank of the Vistula to Prague, followed by the Krakow voivode Prince Lubomirski.

On September 11, when the primate was supposed to collect votes, the lords standing on the right bank of the Vistula sent a protest against Stanislav's candidacy, but the primate announced that only the protest made on the election field was considered legitimate. According to Stanislav's opponents, when collecting votes, Primate acted unfairly, quickly passing by suspicious banners, and his retinue shouted at the sound of trumpets and horns: "Long live Stanislav!" Nevertheless, by the evening, the majority clearly spoke in favor of Leszczynski, while the minority went to Prague at night.

On September 12, 1733, the primate proclaimed the election of Stanisław Leszczyński as Polish king. Meanwhile, the minority, having published a manifesto complaining about the destruction of the liberum veto, retreated to Hungary. On September 22, Leszczyński, accompanied by his main supporters, as well as French ambassador, went to Danzig, where he intended to wait for French help.

Even before the election happened, 20,000 Russian troops under the command of P. P. Lassi crossed the border on July 31, 1733 and appeared near Warsaw on September 20. Alexey was, generally, a mild man rather reluctant to use military force. But, after growing up with a dominating father, he really disliked when somebody openly disrespected him. And election of the New Favorite Pet contrary to his wishes strongly looked as a show of disrespect aggravated by an extreme stupidity, which was absolutely intolerable.

Immediately after the news of election reached Stockholm Charles ordered 3,000 Swedish troops to sail to Elblag. If needed, more will follow and the Swedish squadron should sail to start blockade of Danzig.

Frederick William conducted a major military review at Potsdam and ordered his generals to be ready to march at any moment (among other considerations, he expected that a military experience would do good to his loafer of a son). A Saxon corps of 1,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry was already marching to the Polish border.

Part of the nobility on September 24 (October 5) 1733, half a mile from Prague, in the Grochove tract, under the protection of Russian troops, elected Frederick Augustus to the throne. Four days later, Polish troops who supported Leszczynski left Warsaw without resistance and went to Krakow.


_______________
[1] In OTL, he died in 1730 and reports about his death are varying from “death from grief” to him being an unintended victim of a failed attempt on life of Empress Anne (carriage falling into a hidden hole on a road). The collapsed bridge is something in between and, taking into an account the general condition of the bridges in XVIII - XIX centuries Russia is seemingly more realistic. 😜
[2] Shamelessly stolen from «Подпоручик Киже» by Tynianov.
[3] During the LNW his tendency to make the long speeches about nothing (he was a member of the Polish delegation to Charles XII) was irritating Charles enormously but made him quite popular in the PLC where such “eloquence” had been valued well above the meaningful actions.

 

[alexmilman]

94. Misnamed war

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country”
George S. Patton [1]
“You never need to trust politicians”
an axiom
“gdy się panowie za łby biorą, to poddanym włosy trzeszczą“ [2]
Polish proverb

​

This was a start of what had been called “War of the Polish Succession” and which had very little to do with the name assigned to it because fight over the succession issue was just a minor and rather short episode of the whole war. Generally, the Polish component of the war consisted of two parts:
1. Siege of Danzig
2. Chasing disorganized groups of Stanislav’s supporters.

Siege of Danzig.

The French show of a military support amounted to sending a small naval squadron with a little hope that it will ever reach its intended destination. Leaving Brest on August 20 (31), 1733, the squadron under the command of Count César Antoine de la Luserne, consisting of 9 ships of the line, 3 frigates and a corvette on September 9 (20) arrived to the vicinity of Copenhagen. Of course, breaking through the Danish coastal defenses and much greater navy would be an absurd idea so Count de Luserne got engaged in a new round of talks with the Danish government to receive the same polite answer: Denmark is neutral in that war but can’t allow penetration into the Baltic Sea the warships which could be detremental to the interests of the Danish allies, Russia and Sweden. The French admiral and his officers are welcomed to visit Copenhagen and if the squadron needs to replenish its food and water supplies for the trip back home, purchase of these supplies can be arranged. But any warship trying to penetrate the Sound is going to be sunk or captured. No hard feelings, just business.

Even if the French commander was considering a mad dash through the Sound ignoring the shore batteries (which he did not and which would be contrary to his instructions), sight of 20 Danish ships of the line would make such an idea absolutely suicidal and even if some miracle happened, the French squadron did not have the pilots with knowledge of the Baltic waters and did not have the landing troops (which made the whole expedition pretty much absurd to start with). When the squadron stood on the raid in Copenhagen, it was visited by French ambassador to Denmark, Count Louis Robert Hippolyte de Brean de Plelot, who reported that Leszczyński had already been elected king. On September 27 (October 8), Lucerne was ordered to return to Brest and on October 22 (November 2), the squadron went back.

However, Fleury managed to sent considerable amounts of money, which reached Danzig and was used by Commandant Major General von Steinflicht, who was responsible for the defense of Danzig, to strengthen the defense of the city. Numerous supporters of Stanislav Leszczynski and local militia joined the soldiers of the permanent garrison stationed in the city. In total, there were 24,445 people in the garrison: 5 city regiments, 7,800 city policemen, 1,279 guards policemen, 2,150 mounted Polish guardsmen and 1,200 dragoons of Monti regiment. The city was well equipped with artillery, ammunition and food. The regiments blocked in the city were regular, the soldiers were well trained. The troops of the garrison could also count on the help of numerous detachments of Leszczynski's supporters in the area. For example, Chirsky's castellan in Stargard had 1,100 dragoons, 1,000 regular infantry and 6,000 gentry and "comrades".

Russian troops under the command of General-in-Chief Peter Lassi by the time it reached Danzig numbered 15,744 people in regular regiments (9 dragoon and 9 infantry), 91 Serbian hussars, 1,660 Cossacks and Kalmyks. Military Ministry allowed Lassi to give the troops a double salary by confiscating the property of opponents of Augustus III. The Swedish contingent of 3,000 landed in Elblag and marched to join Lassi. This force was adequate for establishing blockade of the city but for a proper siege it had been lacking a heavy artillery. The Saxon troops had been carrying the heavy cannons with them and more had been assembled in St. Petersburg to be sent by the sea.

The corps of General-General Peter Lassi moved to Danzig on November 29, 1733 and arrived in Neshava on January 3, 1734. On January 4, 800 Russian dragoons defeated 36 banners of the regimentar Sokolnitsky and occupied Thorn. On January 20, three days after the coronation of August To blockade the city, Lassi divided the corps into 5 detachments: the detachment of Lassi himself (4 regiments) stood from the village of Proust, the detachment of Major General Karl Biron (2 regiments) - from St. Albrecht, the detachment of Lieutenant General Prince Ivan Baryatinsky and Major General Artemy Volynsky (5 regiments) - from Oliva. The Swedes under general von Wrangel marched from Elblag and crossed the Vistula at Dworek-Kiezmark providing connection with the Lassi troops. From Elblag the Swedes brought 7 heavy fortress cannons.

General Lassi began the siege of the city on February 22, 1734, but winter conditions and lack of forces did not allow him to take active action. His task was complicated by constant sorties of Leszczyński's detachments. Russian detachments in the field successfully waged this "small war", defeating the "Stanislavchiks" formations. Thus, on February 28, 400 Cossacks under the command of Major General Johann Luberas defeated the Miromirsky and Lubomyrsky dragoon regiments.

Meanwhile, meetings of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Generalitat were held in Moscow in the presence of Emperor Alexey, at which Field Marshal Burchard Minnich, “hero of Dzungaria”, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Siege Army. The Emperor pointed out to the Field Marshal: "You can announce to this city that it has done unworthy of our answer by many obvious enemy actions, and that, however, to get rid of its extreme destruction, the method itself has in its hands, that is, the speedy submission to the righteous legitimate king Augustus and expelled our obvious enemies and his enemies. And if it doesn't do it, you'll act with the enemy in the city without any regret and you won't leave all the ways to force it, which are necessary according to military custom." [3]

On March 5, 1734, Field Marshal Minich arrived at the siege army and took command. On March 7-9, Munnich’s army built redoubts and batteries on Mount Tsygankenberg, and on the night of March 10, a team of the regiments of Major General Biron (Trinitskaya, Narva, Tobolsk, Archangelgorod and Ladoga Guards Companies) captured the suburb of Scotland. In a 6-hour battle, the Russians captured 4 guns and 24 prisoners. On March 11, the Jesuit Monastery and the Danzig Haupt redoubt were taken, but the besieged continued to surpass the besieger army in artillery. Until March 23, the Russian-Swedish army fired 67 half-pood bombs and 668 cannonballs at the city, and the garrison of the city hit the besieging army with 807 bombs and 1,055 cannonballs.

In early April, detachments of "Stanislavchiks" tried to lift the blockade from the city. The largest detachment that tried to rescue the besieged was the corps under the command of Count Tarlo of Lubel and Chirsky's castellan. The corps consisted of about 8,000 people: 48 hussar banners, 400 dragoons, infantry regiments of Bukovsky and Frenek. They crossed the Vistula and moved to Danzig. A detachment of Lieutenant General Zagryazhsky and Major General Biron with two thousand dragoons and a thousand Cossacks was first sent to intercept this corps. This detachment met Chirsky's corps (2,000 infantry, 3,000 horsemen) near the city of Shvets, and was shelled by Poles. Then on April 6 (17), a detachment under the command of Peter Lassi (2300 dragoons and 600 Cossacks) was sent. At dusk on April 9 (20), a 2-hour battle took place near the village of Vyshchechy, a mile from the Prussian border. The Poles repulsed the Cossack attack, but the dragoons broke their formation. As a result of the battle, Polish units retreated, losing 354 people killed, including Colonel Bukovsky. The winner got 30 prisoners, 2 banners and 4 pairs of litavres. Losses of Lassi's detachment were 1 killed and 14 wounded.

The besieged city had a connection with the sea at the sleeve of the Vistula (Dead Vistula), where Fort Weichselmünde was at the confluence of the river into the sea. To cut the city supply by the sea the Swedish troops crossed Vistula and laid siege on this fort while Munnich ordered attack on Sommer-Schanz redoubt located half way between Danzig and Weichselmünde. The redoubt had been taken on April 26 (May 7) but much stronger fort kept holding.

On May 10 additional 2,000 Swedish troops with 10 mortars landed at Elblag and marched to join the besiegers of Weichselmünde.

On May 20 to Danzing finally arrived the Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Thomas Gordon.It brought an additional siege park. Gordon delivered 40 heavy guns, 14 five- and nine-pound mortars and 20 six-pound mortars, 20,321 cannonballs, 1,018 grapeshot charges, 4,600 bombs and 20,865 grenades to the army. The ships of the line had a draft of 5 meters, and the depths near the shore were 2-4 meters, which forced the squadron to stay at a distance. The ships of the line had a draft of 5 meters, and the depths near the shore were 2-4 meters, which forced the squadron to stay at a distance but the fleet included 2 bomber ships which could be effectively used.

From the end of May, having received artillery, Field Marshal Munnich began to carry out intensive bombardments of the city while the Russian and Swedish ships started intensive bombardment of the Fort Weichselmünde. On June 5 (16), as a result of the bombing, there were explosions of gunpowder magazines in Danzig and Weichselmünde.

On June 9 (20), the bomber ships were preparing to resume bombing, but at 6 o'clock a drummer arrived from Weichselmünde, who asked not to open fire, as the garrison began negotiations. On June 10 (21), Gordon's squadron returned to the Danzig harbor. Fearing that small enemy ships could leave the fortress, Gordon sent the shnyava "Favorite" and the packagebot "Courier" with soldiers with the assignment of "no ships, both from the Vistula and from the canal to pass". On June 12 (23), Commandant Weichselmünde sent officers to negotiate surrender and on June 13, the garrison raised a white flag. Even before this happened Leszczyński escaped the city and made his way to France.

On June 26 (July 7), 1734, the unconditional surrender of Danzig was signed, two days later the garrison opened the gate. The townspeople issued Minich French agents, Primate Count Fyodor Potocki and Count Stanislav Poniatowski. An indemnity of 2 million thalers was imposed on the city.

“Cleaning up” The main task of the Polish campaign was fulfilled - Leszczyński was expelled from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The new goal was the elimination of detachments of "Stanislav agents" in Lithuania and the south-eastern voivodeships and the reconciliation of warring parties on the basis of the recognition of Augustus III.

This part of an operation presented the “loyal” Polish magnates with the convenient opportunity to deal with their opponents which they performed with a great enthusiasm. One of the most active figures was Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł Rybeńko.

After the death of King Augustus II, Michael Casimir opposed Stanisław Leszczyński, one of the organizers of the Krakow Confederation and one of the authors of the "Declaration of Goodwill" - an appeal to the Russian government for "protection of liberties and the constitution", which became an official reason for interference in the affairs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the war for the Polish Succession, he fought with Russian troops and commanded a corps consisting of the Ivangorod Dragoon Regiment and 3,000 Don Cossacks. As a reward, he was made in 1735 Hetman polny litewski (a deputy commander of the Lithuanian army).

Now, both August III and Alexey had to settle some scores with Potocki family. Quite predictably, Alexey ordered confiscation of all family estates on the Russian territory.

Primas Potocki was extradited to the Saxon Elector (oops, King August III and the new Favorite Pet) and detained, but continued to persist, did not succumb to bribery until his seven-month imprisonment undermined his senile forces. Liberated, he came to Warsaw in July 1735 and introduced himself to the king, whom he asked to withdraw at least part of the foreign troops, that ravaged the state, from Poland and give this mercy to the exhausted inhabitants of the kingdom. The king answered the primate with assurances of his unchanging mercy and disposition, but Potocki wrote a letter to the Russian Emperor with deep "adoration", in which he thanked for the mercy shown to the "sad and unhappy old man", who would use the rest of his life to pray for long-term and "prosperous statehood and will be obedient to his commands in everything." The Russian envoy, Count Keyserling, wrote that he would try to keep the primate in such good sentiments and advised the Emperor to send a diamond cross to the primate. Indeed, he managed to maintain good relations with Potocki and persuade him to the side of Russia.

Potocki received an annual pension of 3,166 rubles from the Russian government and not only stopped being an active opponent of Russian intentions, but even kept his relative, Hetman Józef Potocki, from doing so. Sympathy for Russia did not prevent him, however, from remaining hostile to the Saxon court and King Augustus for the rest of his life.

Count Potocki died on November 12, 1738, at the age of 75.

The misnamed war kept going all the way to 1735 in Italy and on the Rhine far away from Poland and for the purposes which had very little to do with Poland except that by the final peace Leszczyński renounced the Polish throne, but retained the title of king and lifelong possession of Lorraine, which after his death was to be ceded to France. Instead of Lorraine, the Duke of Lorraine received Tuscany with the title of Grand Duke (and a big pension); Charles III was recognized as king of both Sicilies; Parma and Piacenza remained with Austria; the Sardinian king received western Lombardy, and France fully recognized the Pragmatic Sanction.


_________
[1] There is a certain controversy regarding precise text and it seems that in 1883 “The United Service: A Monthly Review of Military and Naval Affairs” printed a passage that shared some points of similarity with the words ascribed to Patton: “It is always glorious for the other man to die for his country,—at least the survivor says so”.
[2] when the rulers fight the subjects are suffering.
[3] From OTL instruction to Munnich by Empress Anne.

 

[alexmilman]

95. Things imperial

“The state is a reasonable non-freedom that Poles will never accept... “
Alexander II
“Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc” [1]
Addams family
“I wonder what the poor people are doing…”
Al Bundy
“I look at human life as a service, as everyone must serve.”
Nicholas I

​

Polish Affair. Strictly speaking, neither Alexey nor Charles had been excited about the candidacy of Frederick August and, as far as Alexey personally was involved, putting him on the PLC throne was a waste of time and effort. However, for the Baltic League this was a matter of prestige. On a personal level, for Charles this was a matter of a given promise (and even in his fifties Charles stuck to the principles of a personal honor and honesty, which most of the European monarchs would consider either obsolete or plain ridiculous) and for Alexey this was a part of his father’s legacy which could not be easily abandoned. So, both of them started with the very low expectations and August III not just lived to these expectations but almost immediately proved that they were quite optimistic. One of his most meaningful acts in the PLC was ordering a new set of the Polish Royal Regalia.

To be fair, he also supported financially an orphanage in Warsaw founded in 1732 by a French priest. In his personal life, Augustus was a devoted husband to Maria Josepha, with whom he had sixteen children. Unlike his father who was a notorious womanizer, he was never unfaithful and enjoyed spending time with his spouse. [3]

After the Pacification Sejm in 1736 de facto confirmed Augustus III as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania he made it his purpose to spend as little time in the PLC as was practically possible and while he was forced to be there to spend as much time hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha [2] as he could. To be fair, while in Saxony he was also mostly focusing on hunting, the opera, and the collection of artwork at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. Affairs of the Commonwealth had been delegated to Heinrich von Brühl, who served in effect as the viceroy of Poland. Brühl in turn left the politics in Poland to the most powerful magnates and nobles, which resulted in widespread corruption. Political feuding between the House of Czartoryski and the Potocki paralyzed the Sejm (Liberum veto), fostering internal political anarchy and weakening the Commonwealth

Brühl was a skillful diplomat and strategist; Augustus could only be reached through him if an important political feud arose. He was also the head of the Saxon court in Dresden and was fond of collectibles, such as gadgets, jewellery and Meissen porcelain, the most famous being the Swan Service composed of 2,200 individual pieces made between 1737 and 1741. It has been described as possibly "the finest table service ever produced". He also owned the largest collections of watches, vests, wigs and hats in Europe, though this cannot be accurately assessed. Brühl was depicted by his rivals as a nouveau-riche materialist, who used his wealth to gain support. His lavish spending was immortalized by Augustus' reported question to the viceroy "Brühl, do I have money?"

Under their join leadership, the Saxon army kept deteriorating due to a permanent shortage of the funds and its size dwindled to less than 18,000 of a dubious quality. Saxony’s usefulness as anything besides being a major supplier of a fine porcelain had been speedily dwindling.

Consequences of such a (mis)rule spread beyond the PLC borders. While Sweden was pretty much isolated due to the short and easily controlled border, Russia was in a much worse situation because the bands pf the Polish szlachta had been regularly crossing the border. Usually, not by a political reason and not even necessarily for the loot but as a show of some drunken bravery or to settle the family feuds with the neighbors who after the LNW ended on the other side of a border. Of course, there were also the cases of a revenge for the estates lost in that war. These were, of course, the pinpricks and the Russian troops felt themselves totally free to cross the border for the punishing expeditions, but this was a permanent annoyance economically damaging the border regions. The voices at the imperial court demanding the drastic measures were not, yet, loud but they were heard.
On a balance, Charles’ reluctance to commit what he considered an “unjust act” and Alexey’s hesitance to disturb the regional situation to a degree which could impede his plans for Asia had been winning the day. For a while.

On the East. In October 1735 Yongzheng Emperor died suddenly at the age of 56.
It is generally accepted that he died while reading court documents, and it is likely that his death was the result of elixir poisoning from an overdose of the elixir of immortality he was consuming in the belief that it would prolong his life. According to Zhang Tingyu, Yongzheng on his deathbed exhibited symptoms of poisoning, and in the wake of his death, his successor the Qianlong emperor evicted all Taoist priests from the palace, possibly as punishment for this incident. The Yongzheng Emperor was interred in the Western Qing tombs 120 kilometres (75 mi) southwest of Beijing, in the Tai (泰) mausoleum complex (known in Manchu as the Elhe Munggan).

To prevent a succession crisis like he had faced, the Yongzheng Emperor was said to have ordered his third son Hongshi (an ally of Yinsi) to commit suicide. His fourth son Hongli, then still known as "Prince Bao (of the First Rank)", succeeded him as the Qianlong Emperor.

Upon the accession Qianlong faced the weakening of the immediate support of the dynasty - the military class of the "bannered" Manchus. The gradual landlessness and devastation of soldiers and junior officers of the "banner" troops continued. The latter mostly did not have the opportunity or did not want to acquire from the treasury its former lands that it had bought from private owners since 1729. In an effort to restore the former economic situation of the "banners" class, Qianlong decided to create new agricultural "banner" settlements in Southern Manchuria for ruined soldiers and officers, relocating several thousand Manchu families there from Beijing. The program required money and the treasury was already short of them due to the military expenses of the previous reign so the “obvious” solution was to raise taxes.

Arbitrary overstatement of tax rates caused the Miao uprising in 1735 in eastern Guizhou. The rebels captured a number of districts and counties. Troops from Sichuan, Yunnan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces were thrown against them, but all of them were defeated. The non-resisting part of the miao was subjected to repress. Among those executed, there were more than thirty foremen who showed submission. However, this not only did not intimidate the miao, but also increased their resistance. [4] In 1736, the suppression of the uprising was entrusted to the extraordinary commissioner of these provinces Zhang Guangsi. With promises and threats, he inclined some of the rebels to submission, and threw punitive troops against the rest. In eight directions, they moved to the mountains, putting everything to fire and sword. The government troops killed 10,000 people, more than 400 thousand died from hunger and cold in the mountains. Then Zhang Guangxi ordered to deal with those who had previously succumbed to his persuasion and stopped the fight. In this action, up to 16,000 people were executed and 1,224 villages were burned. Nevertheless, the Miao continued to fight. They retreated to the western regions of Hunan and resisted until 1739. A new Miao uprising broke out in 1740 in the border areas of Hunan and Guangxi provinces. Here they were joined by the Yao and Dong peoples. Zhang Guangsi, at the head of a 13,000-strong army, drowned the main hotbeds of resistance in blood. The rest was completed by detachments of rural militia and "volunteers" recruited by local officials, landlords and shenshi [5] from among Chinese paupers and lumpen. Fearing to provoke Miao again to fight, the Qing authorities exempted them from taxes and restored traditional legal proceedings in Guizhou.

Which was, indeed, an interesting way to raise the state revenues and it told a lot about modus operandi of the new emperor. It was seemingly a matter of time when he is going to try to “review” the terms of Urga Treaty, at least regarding the Dzungar lands, so the Russian position there has to be upgraded both by channeling more resources into Siberia and by strengthening the Dzungar ties to the Russian Empire.

On a positive side, the events in Guizhou proved to be quite “educational” for Galdan Tseren and he did not waver in his cooperation with the Russian authorities. On a negative side, conquest of the CA khanates had to be postponed until the Russian control over the Kazakh and Dzungar territories is strengthened to a degree which excludes a serious opposition and the military presence (with a necessary “economic backup”) increased to a degree allowing to conduct a new conquest while having a reserve adequate for repelling a potential Qing attack.

It was also unclear how things are going to turn on the South where Nader just won a war against the Ottomans, kicking them out of the Iranian Caucasus and, while he was willing to stick to the Russian-Persian Treaty of Resht (which defined border by the Kura River), it was anything but clear what would be his next ambition and Russia had to be ready for any eventuality.

Which meant that dealing with the Polish “issue” has to be postponed until unidentified future.

Back at home. When Peter “upgraded” Russian status by proclaiming it an empire, he had neither time nor inclination to deal with the “imperial trappings” of his court. Partially because Peter himself disliked the official ceremonies and had rather simple (to put it mildly) tastes or because he considered epatage as being an useful part of his own image, or because he just did not give a damn, the Russian imperial court was a rather bizarre mixture of the western and Russian features with the Russian component tending to gravitate toward the “bottom of the hill” cultural level and the western one being a confusing combination of the upper-class dress code and luxury items with the low-middle class habits and entertainment.

While being heir to the throne, Alexey, just as his father, more than once travelled to the West but thanks to his lower status he did not have to spend most of his time on the military and diplomatic issues and, thanks to the better education (and personal inclinations), he was more than his father interested in the “social” subjects.

On the top of all of the above, a proper organization of a major royal/imperial court was a complicated task requiring a meticulous attention to the details, something that Peter openly hated.

Now Alexey was on his own and backed both by his wife and the widowed empress in his idea to make things right and to have a court which is going to be treated by the rest of Europe with a respect rather than curiosity. The main principles had to be borrowed from France with the useful ideas, especially regarding nomenclature of the court positions, picked from Austria, Prussia and elsewhere. The jesters and dwarfs had been gone but the court “araps” (the black servants) had been retained and gained an official position of “Arap of the Imperial Court”.

The first step had to be organization of a proper financing. Peter had quite relaxed attitude toward the finance issues considering treasury a single pool of money from which he could take whatever he needed for whichever purpose he had in mind. This attitude had to go. From now on the imperial court was going to have its own budget composed out of the income from the personal lands of imperial family and a certain amount of money allocated from the general state budget.

Newly-established Ministry of the Imperial Court had to take care of supporting all aspects of the court’s functioning. The Ministry united all parts of the court outside the control of the Senate or any other higher institution. It was headed by the Minister of the Court, who was under the direct jurisdiction of the sovereign. The Minister of the Imperial Court received all orders directly from the sovereign and in cases requiring the highest permission, he also had the right to enter with the report directly to the sovereign. This position of the Ministry of the Imperial Court was explained by the fact that the subjects of its activities were not of a national nature, but concerned exclusively the imperial house.

The most important part was the Hofmarshal part, which was in the management of palaces, contentment and organization of ceremonies. It was also fully engaged in servicing the imperial table, and other tables of three classes. First class: Hofmarshal (or cavaliers) table for officials on duty and guests of the court, table of Ober-Hofmeisterine for court ladies, table of the chiefs of Guards companies. Second grade: tables for guard officers on duty, adjutants on duty, pages, etc. The third grade was intended for senior servants of the court.

The second part was the Stallmeister, which was in control of stables and palace crews.

The emperor also had yachts listed under the naval department.

The Royal Hunt was in charge of the Ober-Jägermeister Office.

In addition, there were also palace offices in major cities of the empire (e.g., the Moscow Palace Office, which was in charge of the palaces and museums of the Kremlin, the St. Petersburg Palace office, which was in charge of the imperial residencies on the Baltic coast, etc. ), the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty (which managed the personal property of the emperor) and the Department of Estates.

Court ranks make up a separate section in Peter's Table of Ranks. The bulk of court ranks were in I-III classes, equated to general ranks, and were appointed directly by the emperor. The main way to reach these ranks was other careers of the Table of Ranks - civil or military. A distinct privilege of the court officials, even those assigned to the lower classes of the Table of Ranks, was the right to be admitted to the court.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the pages held at court, which could be the sons and grandchildren of the people having ranks of the first three classes of the Table of Ranks. They studied in the privileged Page Corps, and the best received the ranks of chamber pages, and were distributed for duty under the emperor and ladies of the royal family.

A separate system of ranks (also related to the Table of Ranks) was intended for women who served at court (ober-Hofmeisterina, Hofmeisterina, State lady, chamber lady and lady-in-waiting).

Below this group (comprised exclusively from the nobility) there were numerous servants of the court who also were divided into the lower and upper ranks.

As a result, while a total number of the courtiers during the reign of Peter I amounted to few dozen, it immediately jumped to over two hundred and, because many of the court positions were the purely honorific ones not bearing any real functions and not requiring a permanent presence at the court (but giving a right to be present at court events), this number was doomed to grow.

The court ceremonies evolved into the elaborate affairs with the strict ceremonial, rules of precedence and dress code.

As a very prestigious carrot, merchants who constantly supplied goods to the court received the right to be called "Supplier of the Court of His Imperial Majesty". To obtain such a title, which in itself meant serious advertising, it was necessary to comply with a number of conditions: conscientious supply to the yard "at relatively low prices" of goods or works of its own production for 8-10 years, absence of complaints from consumers, etc. The title of Court Supplier was awarded not to the enterprise, but to the owner personally, in case of change of ownership, the new owner or heir was required to receive the title again.

The Guards had been renamed into the Life Guard with the addition of the Cavalry Life-Guards regiment

and Cavalerguards regiment.

To sum it up, until it becomes a major nuisance, the PLC could keep going its own way.

_________________
[1] “We gladly feast on those who would subdue us” The Addams Family's motto.
[2] A huge forest in the Belorussian part of the PLC (Brest-Grodno area) with a lot of a wild life including a large population of European bison.
[3] Needless to say that both Louis XVI and Nicholas II also were the devoted family men, which did not make them good monarchs.
[4] I’m obviously missing something fundamental in the logic of Chinese statesmanship of that period. Execution of the loyalists to scare the disloyal subjects… Perhaps, somebody can write TL about the American Revolution in which the Brits are implementing such an idea? 😂
[5] Families whose heads or offspring passed state exams and thus received state (community) positions.
[6] “Drunken Synod”, cruel practical pranks, court jesters and dwarfs, etc.

 

[alexmilman]

96. Alexey goes East

“There are many misunderstandings between Russia and China: Mongolia..”
Unknown Author
“I love Asia very much and the Asian principle: you can't be offended by God.”
Jean Reno
“Who really knows people well will not finally rely on anyone, but will not refuse anyone either.”
Eötvös von Vásárosnamény József
v​

1736. Just for change, “Europe” was (as far as Russia and the Baltic League in general were involved) reasonably quiet so everybody could attend to their own business.
Denmark.

• Enthusiastic Lutheran missionary, Hans Egede, was trying to convert the Inuits of Greenland into Christianity and in 1733 the German missionaries had been permitted to establish their own settlement there so, at least spiritually, Greenland was on its way to be civilized. 😉
• Vestindisk kompagni was busily engaged in the triangular trade with St. Croix being added to its possessions in 1733 and making Denmark a noticeable player in a sugar market.

• Asiatisk Kompagni (re)established in 1730 opened trade with Qing China at Canton and continued trade with Ondia through Tranquebar.

Sweden. Svenska Ostindiska Companiet (SOIC) was founded in 1731 and started sending its ships to the East. The first ship was seized by the Dutch and the second was destroyed by the British and the French. This fueled the opposition against the trade in Sweden and the SOIC started a massive PR-campaign about the benefits of trading with the East Indies. They also agreed to make certain concessions about what goods to import from China. To avoid confrontations with the other trading countries, the company refrained from seeking trade with India and focused on China instead. The first vessel arrived safely in Canton (now known as Guangzhou), the trading port for foreigners in China at that time, in September 1732. Various spices were the primary commodity along with tea, silk and miscellaneous luxury items, but on later voyages, porcelain and tea made up the bulk of the trade to meet the demand for such goods back in Europe. The vessel returned to Gothenburg on 27 August 1733. The expedition was a huge economic success, the auction bringing in some 900,000 Swedish riksdaler. The dividend paid was 75% of the capital invested. According to the ledgers of the Gothenburg Main Customs Cambers for Sea Trade in 1733 to 1734, goods for 518,972 riksdaler were exported; the rest stayed in Sweden.

Grand Duchy of Gottorp was adjusting itself to leaving in peace while its Grand Duke had been busily trying to figure out how to put under his control the numerous semi-independent landowners (inherited from the land swap with Denmark) without causing too much of the international and domestic problems [1].

Duchy of Mecklenburg. Except for a newly-created mini-army there was nothing worthy of mentioning. The Duke enjoyed the military parades and (through his wife) was regularly asking for the small subsidies from the Russian court. With its estates subdued, the Duchy remained a peaceful quiet backwater.

Prussia. FWI “was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life” [2]. In his never-ending care about well-being of his subjects he personally dictated the manual of Regulations for State Officials, containing 35 chapters and 297 paragraphs in which every public servant in Prussia could find his duties precisely set out. As a result, the Prussian state had no alternative to flourishing both economically and militarily. (😉) However, his eldest surviving son, Frederick, was a major disappointment.

Frederick William ordered Fritz to undergo a minimal education, live a simple Protestant lifestyle, and focus on the Army and statesmanship as he had. However, the intellectual Fritz was more interested in music, books and French culture, which were forbidden by his father as decadent and unmanly. [3] After the prince attempted to flee to England, he was imprisoned in the Fortress of Küstrin from 2 September to 19 November 1731 and exiled from court until February 1732, during which time he was rigorously schooled in matters of state. After Frederick’s marriage FWI grudgingly allowed him to indulge in his musical and literary interests again. He also gifted him a stud farm in East Prussia, and Rheinsberg Palace.

Russian Empire.

With no immediate troubles in Europe and at home [4], Alexey and his government could concentrate on strengthening Russian position in Dzungaria. With the military and state adventures of a new Qing emperor still going on and probably more following in a near future triggered both by his administrative and expansionist ideas, there were probably years and, perhaps, even couple decades before he starts getting ideas regarding Dzungaria and that time must be spent efficiently.

Now, how the situation looked geographically? Roughly speaking, the Dzungar Khanate at that time consisted of two parts separated by the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range.

The Western part (map below), with the Khanate capital Gulja on the River Ili, was stretching to the Balkhash Lake on the West and Irtysh River and Uus Nuur Lake on the North and predominantly Muslim Kashgar and Khotan on the South.

It was separated from the Eastern part by the Dzungarian Gate, the windswept valley of the Dzungarian Gate, 6 mi (10 km) wide at its narrowest, located between Lake Alakol to the northwest and Ebinur Lake to the southeast. At its lowest, the floor of the valley lies at about 1,500 feet (450m) elevation, while the surrounding peaks of the Dzungarian Alatau range reach about 10,000 feet (3,000m) to the northeast and 15,000 feet (4,500m) to the southwest.

“The Dzungarian Gate is a defile about six miles wide at its narrowest point, and forty-six miles long, connecting Southern Siberia with Dzungaria. It forms a natural pathway from the plateau of Mongolia to the great plain of North-western Asia, and is the one and only gateway in the mountain-wall which stretches from Manchuria to Afghanistan, over a distance of three thousand miles. On the west, the Ala-tau drops suddenly from peaks above snow-line to the level of the floor of the depression, 700 feet above the level of the ocean,—the lowest altitude in the inland basins of Central Asia, with the exception of the Turfan depression, which is actually below sea-level.”

The Eastern part (map below), Dzungarian valley, is mostly a desert (actually, three deserts) and only on the Southern and South-Western edges it is suitable for the agriculture and there are strategically important points at Urumtchi and Usi. Even if it contains big deposits of iron, coal and gold, their extraction and transportation are not practical even now, not to mention the XVIII century.

In other words, the most (and only) strategically important thing for all conquerors always had been the Dzungarian Gate, which opens the way to the territories all the way to Balkhash Lake and beyond, to the Kazakh territories while also cutting an access to the Western (the most important) part of the Khanate from the North.

Additionally, there was a need to strengthen defenses of the former Kumul Khanate, which now became “Kumul gubernia” [5] of the Russian Empire. This would require to secure the Usi - Urumtchi - Hami line in the Eastern part of the Khanate. Possible approach from the South (used by the Southern Army in the previous war) also has to be prevented.

To get to the Dzungarian Gate, a potential invader could use a Northern route along the Urungu River then turning South-West at the Lake Ulungur, going to Karamay and reaching the Gate by going North of the Ebinur lake. But this route would be short of grass for the horses and food for the people making a Southern route along the slopes of the Tienschan not only shorter but easier in the terms of logistics.

Intercepting enemy on the Eastern side of the deserts was simply impractical and neither was building fortifications there. But building reasonably modern fortifications around the major cities on a Southern route was quite realistic and the same goes for fortifying Karamay on the Northern route.

However, the consensus was that a purely defensive strategy is of a limited value because, with enough dedication, the enemy will either take or bypass the fortresses on his way. So the key would be to have a strong mobile force capable to react fast and encounter the enemy on either route, pretty much as had been done during the last war. An additional element of that strategy was to have a strong military presence near Baikal Lake (in Irkutsk gubernia) to be able to invade the Khalka territory and, depending upon the circumstances, either attack enemy at Urga preventing his further actions or to cut his communications and cause a general devastation of the Khalka territory, which would inevitably cause mass desertions among Khalka troops.

All of the above meant that there is a need for increased Russian presence both in the Eastern Siberia and in Dzungaria. To sweeten a potential pill, the usual tools had been deployed. Galdan Tseren had been given a rank of the “Svetleishy Knyaz” (a highest possible rank for someone not of the imperial blood) and Order of St.Andrew with the diamonds [6]. The lesser personages also got various ranks of the Russian nobility and corresponding levels of the awards. For the time being, activities of the Russian merchants had been kept under the tight control preventing them from the excessive looting of the locals. Construction of the modern fortifications (to be garrisoned by the Russian troops) started and general Eropkin, who acted as a military “advisor” of the Khan and commander of the Russian troops in the Khanate, was allowed to recruit and train the Dzungarian volunteers as a regular force paid by the Russian government and led by the Russian officers.

In Kashgar region, which was formally a part of the Khanate but in a reality was pretty much independent Muslim area ruled by a somewhat confusing combination of the local aristocrats and religious authorities, situation was much more familiar (but not necessarily simple). For the starters, the main cities got the Russian garrisons with the Russian governor in Kashgar being established as a top regional secular (and military) authority. The local rulers, secular and religious, were, for a while, left with most of their rights but they were required to provide work force and materials for the new fortifications and food supplies for the garrisons. Their own military bands were not, so far, touched but this was just a matter if time: there was no need in alienating the local rulers with a pending danger of the Qing attack.

After being reminded about his father’s wish, Alexey sent two expeditions to research the Russian Pacific coast:

• The first expedition had to travel to Okhotsk, build the ships there and to sail North along the coast exploring the coast and, in a process, finding if there is a land bridge between Asia and America.
• Second expedition had to sail down the Amur river, mapping it in a process, and finding if there is a suitable site for a port at its mouth or on a nearby cost. In the case of success, a fort should be built on the site and information communicated to Irkutsk so that more resources would be assigned to establishing a port and perhaps making it into a replacement of Okhotsk.

_________
[1] Did we married him to somebody relevant? I lost trace of all these matrimonial links. 😢
[2] “The importance of being Earnest”
[3] Objectively, FWI was right, in general: as a result of the rotten French influence Young Fritz did not smoke and dislike beer. How could he be a descent Prussian officer? However, his judgement was not without a fault: Fritz was fond of playing a flute, which could be considered a military musical instrument. A more attentive parent would just guide his son to playing the right tunes. 😂
[4] Grand Duke Peter, probably under influence of his wife (or perhaps because he became a father and began feeling some responsibility), started paying attention to the state affairs so the major worry of his parents was over.
[5] A proposal to name it “Hami gubernia” («Хамская губерния») was considered for a short while but mostly as a joke: it would mean “gubernia populated by the low class people”. 😂
[6] This was a special “upgrade” of the award granted on individual basis.

 

[Valena]

Grand Duchy of Gottorp was adjusting itself to leaving in peace while its Grand Duke had been busily trying to figure out how to put under his control the numerous semi-independent landowners (inherited from the land swap with Denmark) without causing too much of the international and domestic problems [1].

Tsarevna Natalia Alexeevna, his first cousin, so he's Alexis II son-in-law.

 

[Valena]

[1] Did we married him to somebody relevant? I lost trace of all these matrimonial links. 😢

A simple Excel/Google Docs table would help.

 

[alexmilman]

A simple Excel/Google Docs table would help.

Too late: going back to find out who married whom will be a wasted effort because most of these marriages are of a little or no relevance to this TL. But sour prompts are always appreciated.

 

[redfire]

I’d love if you’d continue this TL into the nuclear era or so (basically the stage where conventional war is restrained by international nuclear arsenals), I really am enjoying it.