No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)

[alexmilman]

71. Oh, East is East, and West is West…

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..” unless they have something of value to discuss… 😜

"As for the issue of borders, it caused very heated controversy. The Chinese commissioners, by the remarkable power of their imagination, believed that the whole country to and including the city of Tobolsk belonged to China, and insisted that the Count [Sava Vladislavić Raguzinski] sign a treatise defining the border of Angara.”
F. Martens

“Russia is a small vassal state”
Emperor Yin Zhen, 1727

«Geography is not a noble science»
An old Russian play
​

Background
The concept of "Khalkha" appeared in Mongolia in the 15th-16th centuries and meant lands located north of the Gobi Desert. Khalkha was a territory divided into the possessions of many small Eastern Mongolian khanates that feuded with each other.

In the 1660s, a bloody internecine war broke out in Khalkh, as a result of which two warring groups were formed in the country. One of them was supported by the Dzungarian Khanate, the other was supported by the Manchu Qing Empire. As a result, in 1688, a war broke out between Dzungaria, led by Khan Galdan Boshogtu, and Khalha led by Tushetu Khan Chihundorj and the first Mongolian Bogdo-gegen Zanabazzar. At the same time, the ruler of Dzungaria aimed to unite the whole of Mongolia under his rule to confront the Qing armies. However, most of the Khalkha khans opposed Galdan Boschogt's unification plans, and when they were defeated in the armed struggle, they, not wanting to obey the Oirat khans, they turned to the Qing Emperor Kangxi to accept Khalhu into Manchu citizenship. In 1691, a ceremony was held near Lake Dolonnor to mark Khalhi's entry into the Qing Empire.

As a result, by the early 1700s Qing’s territorial interests grew comparing to those of the time of Nerchinsk. Of course, there were “theoretical” and practical interests.

“Theoretical” ones had been based upon the premise that everybody is a vassal of the Emperor of China and that all territories which at some point in the past really or allegedly had been populated by the Chinese are a direct part of the empire. By some (questionable) assessments, the Chinese delegation at the talks “demanded the entire south-east of Siberia, i.e. Tobolsk, all of Irtysh, Isset, Ilimsk, lakes and everything between them, on the grounds that they once lived there about 3-4 thousand years ago”.

Practical ones had been more modest, to get a clearly defined border between Russia and Khalkha territories, stop Mongolian emigration to the Russian territory and to prevent Russian help to the Dzungars.

Trade was not too high on Qing’s scale of interests and they tended to use it in OTL as a leverage against the Russian side, which was interested in it. IITL the Russian trade interest still exists but it is much more limited (basically, almost down to a single item, the tea, and even it is obtainable from other sources). The same goes for the military presence in the region: unlike OTL, Razuzinski does not have to take military measures (arming the local tribes, building a fort) to counter the Manchu military presence at the place where the talks had been conducted, just to balance it with some of the troops which are already there.

Strictly speaking, the 1st Chinese diplomatic mission to Russia had been sent by Kangxi Emperor in 1712 but it was sent not to Peter but to Ayuka Khan with an offer to join Qing in a fight against the Dzungars. The underlying logic was not quite clear because both Kalmyks and Dzungars were Oirat Mongols and did not have mutually-contradicting interests. On the top of this, Ayuka, with all his independent behavior, never was forgetting that he is Russian vassal and keeps getting quite tangible benefits from this status both for the Kalmyks in general and for himself personally (the Kalmyk troops participating in the BFW, which ended just 3 years prior, returned with a sizable loot and he himself got quite expensive gifts from Kremlin’s armory and presently the Russian government had been securing the line between the Kalmyks and the Kazakhs of the Little Juz). OTOH, the Chinese had been quite vague regarding the possible awards and, anyway, war against the Dzungars would be a difficult exercise with a need to ride across the hostile Kazakh territory. So Ayuka stuck to a safe “talk to my boss” position: Russia is neutral in that confrontation and he can’t act on his own in contradiction to this position.
Sending messengers directly to Ayuka was rather typical move of the Qing policy: they tried to ignore the existing political affiliations and implied that the Kalmyks of Volga are the direct vassals of China.

So in 1718 Kangxi Emperor sent a new missions to Moscow with the assurances of friendship and a request to allow the new talks Ayuka. After receiving the Russian escort, mission started from the border in January 1719 and arrived to Moscow in April.

The officials along the route received instructions to show the Russian military might so there were plenty of troops in a plain view and even few military parades “to honor” the distinguished guests. More of those and on a greater scale followed in Moscow before the audience and during the talks with Prince Dolgoruki and Shafirov. After the ambassadors acknowledged in writing that Qing government recognizes the Kalmyks of Volga as the Russian subjects, permission to send a new mission to the Kalmyks had been granted (and Ayuka warned about not listening) but this was seemingly it unless the ambassadors mentioned the Emperor’s wish to discuss the issue of the Russian-Chinese border. Arrangements for the meeting at the border in 1720 had been made.

Upon return of the embassy, a new direct embassy to the Kalmyks had been sent but it was not allowed to cross the border with the explanation that “the Kalmyks are the old subjects of His Imperial Majesty and without his direct order not only can’t receive the foreign ambassador but even made their own decisions.” [1] If earlier, the Chinese ambassadors had been allowed to talk to them, this was done exclusively out of respect and friendship to the Emperor of China. The Qing had to swallow this.

The border discussion had been trusted to the Sava Raguzinski-Vladislavich, a Serb from Raguza who was on the Russian diplomatic service since the early 1700s.

He composed a preliminary text of the treaty which had been approved by Kangxi Emperor except for the border part, which should be discussed at the border region. The place of the congress of commissioners was chosen by the river. Bura (Boro) south of Selenginsk, which was considered the border of Khalkha-Mongolia. Here the Qing side was represented by dignitaries Longotu, Ceren-wan, Tulishen.

Arriving in the border area, Ragizonski, wanting to obtain accurate information about the Kerulen and Tola rivers, along which he proposed to lead the border, sent there a reconnaissance party led by S. A. Kolychev. As a result of this trip, it turned out that the mentioned rivers are 15 days away from the last Russian guard on the Selengin road (Barsukovsky). During the move from Beijing to the area of demarcation S. L. Raguzinsky saw that the Qing authorities were strengthening in Mongolia, and a Manchu military detachment was located near the place of the congress of commissioners. That's why he forced the construction of the fort on the Chikoi River river and alerted a governor of Siberia who immediately sent a strong Russian detachment to the site. Manchu attempt to repeat the Nerchinsk scenario failed.

Qing representatives away from the capital did not become more compliant, although they slightly reduced the size of their claims. They now proposed to draw the border along the tributary of the Selenga River. Jide (Jide), and finish her Ujungar possessions, near the Subuktuy tract. At the same time, Manchu diplomatics were against the joint description and demarcation of the border, as insisted on by the Russian side. Once again, the conferences followed one after another, without bringing practical results.
The negotiations were especially hampered by dignitary Longotu, who categorically rejected all attempts to reach an agreement and influenced other Manchu representatives. In this regard, S. L. Raguzinsky decided to get Longota removed from the conference. Having held separate talks with the chief Qing representative of Tseren-wang on this occasion, the Russian envoy achieved success: Longotu was recalled to Beijing and demoted. The Manchus eventually realized that they did not have an overwhelming advantage of forces, and the decisive course of action of the Russian representative caused them concerns about Raguzinsky's demands to draw a border line along Kerulen and Tola. This prompted Tseren-van to offer Raguzinsky to establish a border on the existing line between the Russian and Khalkha borders at the time of negotiations - through the Mongolian guard posts. A complete demarcation of the border and setting the border marks on a ground took two more years and the work had been finalized in 1723 [2] in Kyakhta Treaty.

While ceding a small territory claiming by the Khalkha khans, Russia got a much greater territory and official Chinese recognition of the Russian possession of the lands to the South from Krasnoyarsk and Kuznetsk, previously controlled by the Khalkha. When it came to the final demarcation of the border the Manchu representatives “cheated themselves” due to the ignorance of a local geography : all research had been made by the Russian expedition while the Manchu simply relied upon the imprecise old maps composed by the Jesuits. The Russian-Chinese border was determined west of the Argun River to the Shabin-Dabat Pass (Western Sayan Mountains).

The final treaty established the duty free border trade in Kyakhta, diplomatic protocol, arrangements for the Russian caravans and the rules for dealing with the minor border violations.

Well, of course, except for the border definition, neither side was fully sincere. The Chinese kept considering Russia a Chinese vassal, kept making the petty offenses in the letters addressing and played the old games with the caravan while the Russian did not stick to the item of a treaty requiring return of the escapees [3].

Border by the lower Amur and a territory directly to the North of it, remained undefined, which allowed the Russians to start (later) establishing their de facto presence ignoring the Chinese assumption that this is their land [4].

______________
[1] In OTL “Her ….” because it happened during the reign of Anne.
[2] 1727
[3] Except that later they invited the Chinese officials to confirm that one of the rebel leaders who fled to Russia and died from the pox is really dead. 😪
[4] Which they did not bother to explore, let alone populate, until it was too late.

 

[alexmilman]

72. East coming to West

[could not find a suitable epigraph 😢]


Kazakhs

Since the beginning of the political dialogue between the Khan of the Junior Kazakh Zhuz Abulkhair, who expressed his desire to enter Russian citizenship, and the St. Petersburg Court, the development of Russian-Kazakh trade relations has not been considered as a priority task. Geopolitical issues came first. Abulkhair Khan asked St. Petersburg to establish a Russian fortress city on the territory of the Migest of the Younger Zhuz to protect from neighbors and strengthen its authority in the steppe. Russia sought to take control of vast steppe spaces in order to establish a trade caravan route to India through Central Asia. The economic potential of the Kazakh steppes was judged by the traditional economy of the population that occupied them. Initially, the organizers of the Orenburg Expedition (A state institution that was responsible for organizing trade with the peoples of Central and Central Asia and their further accession to Russia; later renamed into Orenburg Commission) only planned to exchange horses from Kazakhs, if these horses are fit for the military service.

The first step was to build in 1714 an exchange yard on the steppe side two versts from the Yaik (Ural) River (on small river Ori, hence “Orenburg”) intended for trade with Kazakhs and Central Asian merchants. In the same year, the government instructed the Orenburg Commission to organize the purchase of camel wool from Kazakhs, necessary for domestic industry. But it was not possible to organize wide trade with the Kazakhs in the city built at the mouth of Ori: the newly built and sparsely inhabited city, which did not yet have a developed domestic market, located also far from the nearest settlements, from where they could receive the exchange of products of cattle farming of Kazakhs and goods of Russian craft, had little chance of attracting the attention of Russian and Central Asian merchants. However, the activities of the Orenburg expedition to develop the south-eastern expanses, as well as the activity of the Dzungarian Khanate, forced the Kazakhs of the Younger and Middle Zhuz to move closer to the border with Russia with a resulting increased trade. Still the site of Orenburg was not convenient and in 1718 it was moved to its present location with the old site renamed into “Orsk fortress”.

The new Orenburg became the main center of the Russian-Kazakh trade but the Kazakhs, primarily the Junior Zhuz, preferred to trade not in one Russian city, but with their closest neighbors, Yaik Cossacks, from whom they could also get all the necessary goods without special migrated to Orenburg. The Russian government wasn't quite happy with that because the Yaik Cossacks enjoyed benefits without paying trade duties to the treasury, so their trade with the Kazakhs did not bring income to the state. The leadership of the Orenburg Commission suspected that the Yaik Cossacks did not specifically announce goods that were exchanged from Kazakhs not only in their town, but also in other places, so as not to pay duties to the state. Therefore, it appealed to the College of Foreign Affairs for advice on how to stop duty-free bargaining of the Cossacks on the Yaitskaya line. The government could not completely ban border trade, as it would infringe on the interests of the Cossacks. It remained to be regulated in such a way as to respect the interests of both Cossacks and the state. On February 15, 1718, a decree followed, according to which Yaik Cossacks were allowed to trade without paying duties only in their settlements.

On August 20, 1719, by a nominal decree to Prince V. A. Urusov (the head of Commission) was ordered to take preferential duties on goods that will be sold in Orenburg. In order to develop Orenburg trade, duties were established "against foreigners trading in Astrakhan with a decrease", namely three percent from the ruble. At first, it was recommended to choose a Burmist and ratman from the first-guild merchants of Kazan province to serve in Orenburg. Russian merchants who voluntarily enlisted as part of the Orenburg merchants were ordered to be forced to build their houses on a regular basis, but only after Orenburg itself has settled. Bukhara merchants who arrived in Orenburg, but wished to go with their goods to other Russian cities, were allowed to be released, taking a toll from them. Gradually, the artificial measures (higher bread prices in the Cossack towns on the Yaik, etc.) had been introduced to channel all Kazakh trade exclusively to Orenburg where the government could tax it.

At the same time the measures had been taken to develop agriculture on the Russian side to guarantee an easy bread supply: developing habit to eat bread was considered a good way to attach Kazakhs to the Russian Empire.
Edit: Limiting trade to Orenburg caused protests from the merchants of Astrakhan and even from the Kalmyks with a resulting paper war between Orenburg administration and Governor of Astrakhan.
Eventually, a more flexible approach got an upper hand and the trade was allowed not only to the Orenburg merchants but also to those of Astrakhan and to the Kalmyks.

The main places of trade between Kazakhs and Russia were the border fortresses of Orenburg, Troitsk, Petropavlovsk, Omsk, Semipalatinsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk. Kazakhs supplied livestock, products from cattle breeding raw materials and fur to the market. The bulk of the imported Russian goods were factory products. There were a number of features in Kazakh-Russian trade:
1. Trade was of an exchange nature, as the Kazakhs had very little money in circulation. The trading unit was, sec (an year old ram).
2. Trade was inequivalent. In the shortest possible time, Russian traders could make a large fortune. For example, for 18 meters of canvas, which cost about 75 kopecks, Russian traders received a horse and a bull. The latter were resold in Russia for 12-15 rubles.
3. Very low quality goods were received in the Kazakh steppe. On this occasion, the famous Russian researcher of the XVIII century P. Pallas wrote the following: "Kyrgyz residents are not very skillful in trading and take a lot of thin goods and all sorts of little things when exchange, so Russian merchants receive great profit from them." This, however, was not just a stupidity or a luck of the skills: on the Eastern end the Dzungars forbade selling to the Kazakhs any metal items so the Russian merchants used the situation to their advantage and then, again, while some manufactured item could be very cheap in Russia, so was a ram among the Kazakhs.

The Khanates

The start was not too encouraging. The rulers of Khiva and Bukhara more once sent to Peter the embassies with the offers of trade and even submission but, with a never-ending political turmoils of the region these offers meant nothing because both the rulers and the attitudes had been changing all the time. Another negative factor was a low level of the Russian competence regarding the region. Combination of these factors led to a disastrous Khiva expedition of 1717, which ended up with a death of almost 7,000 from the diseases, starvation and at the hands of the locals. After this all attempts of the Khiva rulers to restore relations had been ignored.

Ruler of Bukhara sent an embassy to Moscow but a Russian envoy sent to Bukhara had to flee due to hostility of the locals.

But the interest was too big to abandon the idea. It was just a matter of finding the workable solution and while the “khanates” were generally reluctant to allow the infidels to penetrate their territory, their merchants had been quite willing to travel all the was to the Russian border and, if permitted, even within Russia itself.

Raw cotton, cotton threads, silk, wool fabrics, varnish, multicolored paints, scribble, fox skins, as well as tea were exported from the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian khanates. Compared to Iranian and Indian fabrics in Russia, there was especially a great demand for Central Asian fabrics, which were durable, simple and cheap.

Silk, cotton and linen materials brought from Bukhara were also in great demand among the general population living along the coasts of the Volga River to the city of Kazan and to the Siberian regions. In these places, Bukhara traders had large revenues from this trade. In order to expand trade ties and convenient exchange goods between the cities of Central Asia Bukhara, Khiva, Kokand and Tashkent, the Russian state has built the necessary market areas and caravanserai in Orenburg and Troitsk.

For the first time in 1720-21, a trade caravan of Russian traders with military protection was sent from Orenburg to Tashkent. In this caravan there were major Tatar [1] traders selling various goods of Russian and European production.

“Russian” traders had to involve local traders in trading at fairs in Orenburg. Five months later, Orenburg traders returned with collected valuable information about Tashkent and other cities of Central Asia.

By 1725, trade relations between the khanates of Central Asia and Russia had reached such a level that all costs of managing the Orenburg region were covered by taxes collected from various products sold in the markets of Orenburg by visiting merchants from Central Asia. Bukhara merchants, together with various goods, also brought gold and silver to Orenburg for exchange for Russian-made goods.

Soon, at the suggestion of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the Senate adopted a resolution that Russian goods should be sold in the markets of Orenburg not for gold and silver, but to exchange various goods of Central Asian production. In 1728, various cotton fabrics, softly processed black and gray karakul [2] skins were brought from Bukhara, and grapes of good and sweet varieties, peaches, apples, pears, dried fruits, as well as gold and silver were brought from Tashkent.

Despite the recommendations of the Board, the import of gold coins minted in the Emirate of Bukhara, Iran and India continued as commercial products. 1 Indian coin cost 6 rubles, 1 Bukhara gold tanga was estimated at 2 rubles 70 kopecks. At the same time, Bukhara merchants, as well as on other goods, did not pay tax on gold and silver. Trade in Bukhara-made fabrics of shintz, silk and semi-silk also had been steadily increasing.

In order to create convenient conditions for traders in Central Asia, on February 12, 1727, the Governor of Orenburg has set stable prices for different products in the markets. According to the new pricing, "1 pood of light red paint was evaluated for 250 rubles, 1 pood of dark blue indigo paint for 60 rubles, red and other colors of wool fabric from 3 rubles 60 kopecks to 4 rubles, half-wool from 2 rubles 80 kopecks to 3 rubles 20 kopecks, cotton raw materials for 10-15.

The treasury of the Russian state received a good income from trade with Bukhara. For example, from 1725 to 1754, the state treasury of the Orenburg province received funds in the amount of 1,038,952 rubles from trade, and 176,980 rubles from taxes for products from Central Asia. Various goods in the amount of 5,957,426 rubles were exported to Central Asia from Orenburg. And goods in the amount of 5,047,113 rubles were exported to Orenburg from Central Asia

However, attempts by Russian traders to establish direct trade relations with the Bukhara Emirate, Khiva and Kokand Khanates were unsuccessful.


_________
[1] The infidels were not welcomed to Bukhara but the fellow-Muslims were OK.
[2] Very young or even fetal Karakul lambs are prized for pelts. Newborn karakul sheep pelts are called karakul. The newborn lambs have a tight, curly pattern of hair. The lambs must be under three days old when they are killed, or they will lose their black color and soft, tightly wound coils of fur. Below is an example of a karakul hat (🤭)

 

[alexmilman]

Question to @von Adler , @Jürgen and everybody else who has a clue regarding, Scandinavian and colonial affairs of that period:

“A later attempt to establish the Swedish trade on the East Indies was made by pirates sailing out from Madagascar. After having attacked other trading ships, they had become wealthy and were looking for a place to settle down and invest their money in legitimate enterprise. The pirates numbered about 1,500 and commanded a considerable and well-armed fleet of ships. They started by offering the Swedish King Charles XII half a million pounds sterling and 25 armed ships for his protection, but the matter was not resolved. In 1718, representatives for the pirates met again with the King at his camp during the campaign against Norway. The new offer was for 60 ships, armed and stocked with goods, if the pirates were allowed to settle down in Gothenburg and start a trade with the East Indies under the Swedish flag. One privateer by the name of Morgan actually obtained a charter for an East India Company and a letter of appointment for himself as governor over the colonies that could be the result of such an enterprise. When the King was shot and died on 30 November 1718, the venture folded.”

Swedish East India Company - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Could Charles XII accept such an offer (if this was not a legend) and if he did, what are the consequences? How the colonial trade is impacted, could Sweden maintain a base at Madagascar or did the pirates want to move completely out of it to Sweden? etc.

Any ideas?

If the whole schema is plausible, then what is a chance for the Baltic Mafia joining its efforts and wrestling for itself an ecological niche in trade with China (less competition) and India. As I understand, there were quite a few British and Dutch merchants who did not make it into their countries’ East India companies and looked for opportunity to get into it under the foreign flags. Something of the kind seemingly happened with the Swedish East India Co in OTL. Of course, this would be probably different from the existing/ongoing colonial territorial acquisitions (these would be linked to a specific country) but these colonies could be something of the naval bases for the extended trade.

If realistic, the whole thing is really tempting. Not that I’m planning the Russian/Swedish/Danish/Holsteinian/etc. capture of London (with a mandatory hanging of the PM) but a scenario in which the Perfidious Albion is a little bit squeezed is tempting. 😜

 

[alexmilman]

73. Dispensing Indispensable

“There are no irreplaceable ones, but there are unique ones.”
Picasso
“And the irreplaceable ones were replaced. And the unique ones were surpassed.”
Unknown author
“There are useful people, but there are no necessary ones”
Robespierre
“There are no irreplaceable people; in politics, as in other activities, habit and skill do most of the work”
Marquis Louis-Antoine Caraccioli
​

Just Juel (admittedly, not the most trustworthy source) wrote about Menshikov: “In fact, Menshikov is the most arrogant person imaginable, he maintains a large court, has countless wealth and large wide outstretched estates, … despises everyone and enjoys the greatest favor of his sovereign. His level of mind is very mediocre and in any case does not correspond to the many important positions entrusted to him. Menshikov speaks decent German, so it is easy to understand him, and he himself understands what he is told, but he can neither read nor write a letter, he can sign his name but in a way, which no one is able to disassemble if he does not know what it is in advance.”

Talented and energetic, Alexander Menshikov did not stop at anything to meet the needs that arose as a result of Peter’s activities; his quick, decisive actions were quite consistent with the boiling energy of the Tsar; deprived of any, even elementary education (he could barely sign his name), he made up for this deficiency with natural ingenuity. For these talents Peter valued him very high and showered with all types of the awards. Menshikov become on of the richest people in Russia (probably, the richest), had all Russian state awards and a number of the foreign ones. Was elevated to the rank of a full general regardless rather questionable performance during the Ottoman War and became a governor-general of Moscow.

However, Meshnikov was driven not so much by the clear understanding of the principles motivating the Tsar, but rather by his own selfish motives, and these latter gave his whole figure a special color. Unprecedentedly enriched by Peter, he became a virtuoso of theft. Peter reprimanded his favorite, beat him with a cane, threatened, and everything was in vain. Alexander Menshikov surrounded himself with a gang of official predators who enriched themselves and their patron at the expense of the treasury. Of these, Moscow Vice-Governor Korsakov and two senators, Prince Volkonsky and Opukhtin, were publicly carved with a whip. Menshikov was saved from the massacre by Peter's long-standing friendship. Governor-general of Siberia, Prince Gagarin ended up being hanged but Menshikov, whom he kept in the bribes of all types, got away untouched.
In 1714 Menshikov became one of the defendants in the case of abuses under various contracts and was fined about one and a half million rubles. In 1717, the so-called “Pochep case” began, related to Menshikov's accusation of illegally seizing estates of the Polish nobility and his Russian neighbors, and turning Ukrainian Cossacks into the serfs, which became the subject of proceedings in the Senate and special commissions and undermined his trust from the tsar. Peter I deprived him of several estates, tobacco monopoly, and imposed a fine but still left him in his position of Governor-general of the capital and tended to overlook the enormous expenses of Moscow’s “upgrading”: while managing to pave only 1.000 meters of the Moscow River embankment, Menshikov found time and money to build his own summer palace in Oranienbaum, near Peter’s summer residence in Peterhof.

Probably things could keep going this way “forever” because Peter valued Menshikov’s ability to act on implementation of Tsar’s wishes instead of procrastinating, waiting for the decrees and attempts to avoid the individual responsibility, which were modus operandi of most of his subordinates. That, an unquestionable ability to be entertaining, kept saving Menshikov for years. But a feeling that he is above the law was gradually making its impact and he started loosing a touch with a reality.

The first, seemingly insignificant, case was his attempt to replace Sheremetev as a head of the Military Collegium. He was arguing that the fieldmarshal is getting old and it should be difficult for him to perform all administrative duties related to this position. This did not work out because, besides having a deep respect to his fieldmarshal, Peter did not see any reason to complain about the Collegium’s operations (and, while there were no doubts regarding personal honesty of Sheremetev and his deputy, general Veyde, Peter had a serious suspicion that Menshikov would try to convert this Collegium into one more cash cow). Neither did Peter acquiescent to Menshikov’s pleas to make him a fieldmarshal: such a promotion would be undeserved and definitely offensive to more prominent generals starting with Michael Golitsyn.

However, the squabble with the Young Court was a completely different kettle of fish because, besides the domestic implications, it could produce a completely undesirable international impact and, in the worst case scenario, destroy the whole Baltic System on which Peter worked so hard. Of course, Menshikov was ordered to behave appropriately but his good behavior did not stretch to controlling his private conversations and, in his capacity of governor-general he was not above the pinpricks creating the minor problems with the supplies for the Young Court. Not always serious enough for the Cesarevna Elena to complain to Peter but still annoying and she did not like to be annoyed. There was no need to go directly to Peter when the issues could be brought up in a friendly chat with Empress Maria who would pass information to her husband with some comments of her own. As the old wisdom says, “the hen pecks grain by grain - the whole yard is in chicken manure”.

Then there were problems with the fulfilling requests from the State Control Collegium and Justice Collegium (of which Alexey had oversight): minor abuses of their staff, supply problems, access to the guarded documentation, etc. Each accident was blamed upon the stupid or excessively zealous subordinates and resolved but all this meant waste of the time and effort.

Then came serious things. Of course, Sheremetev used to be friendly with Menshikov but when governor-general started making his own rules and regulation for the garrison of Moscow bypassing the Military Collegium and ignored request for explanation, this had to be reported to the Emperor and Peter was not amused. Menshikov was severely rebuked and warned that he may lose his position if he continues to behave this way. There was an usual scene of repentance, blaming of everybody else for the misunderstanding and assurance that this was done only out if the eagerness to serve. Peter even issued an order to the Collegium to review the new practices and adopts the useful ones. However, Menshikov’s attempt to use the whole episode for a new attempt to get an appointment as a President of the Military Collegium had been severely rebuked with an unambiguous explanation that he is not on the list of possible candidates. But Peter took notice of the fact that Menshikov is trying to promote his own popularity among the garrison and especially among the Guards. Of course, this could be Menshikov’s usual modus operandi and a sincere attempt to make some improvements but OTOH this also could be something much more sinister than his usual insubordination and excessive eagerness.

The second option got a serious traction when a new head of the Secret Chancellery, Peter Tolstoy, reported Menshikov’s drunken statement regarding the Guards. Added to the recent “misunderstanding” with the Military Collegium, this started looking much closer to some kind of a conspiracy and the routine drinking parties in Menshikov’s residence could be not only about drinking [1].

All these complaints coming in parallel with the ongoing “Pochep case” investigation, report from the Collegium of Foreign Affairs that the tensions between the Young Court and Menshikov are known to Charles XII and circulating rumors that Menshikov laid his hands upon some stuff from the Kremlin Armory [2] made Menshikov’s situation quite bad. What made it hopeless was Peter’s changed attitude to the imperial administration. Of course, during the first years of his rule he need to break many things and to do even more things from the scratch. For this stage he needed people with the initiative who could achieve the needed results disregarding the cost. Now this stage was over and he needed the people capable and willing to operate within the system that he created, following the rules and laws and counting money. Menshikov with his insatiable greed and inability to follow the rules became not just a bad example, he became a liability domestically and even internationally.

However, Peter still had a lot of warm feelings toward him and was unwilling to disregard his important services of the past. The official (and only) newspaper, «Московские Ведомости» informed the public that, due to the ill health, governor-general of Moscow, Prince Aleksander Danilovich Menshikov, general of cavalry and cavalier, asked to be relieved of his duties and, after receiving permission, left Moscow and goes to his estate in Baturin. It was not reported that Menshikov had to return to the Treasury 500,000 rubles. However, his palaces and estates were not confiscated and there were no other usual byproducts of the disfavor. He was just removed from power.

Now, Peter had to find a suitable figure for a new governor-general. A person has to be aristocratic, rich enough not to be easily corruptible, obedient and competent enough to execute Peter’s orders and not suffering from having his own ideas. The lucky candidate was Prince Ivan Yurievich Trubetskoy, the last Russian boyarin.

Aristocratic, rich, married to Naryshkina (but also connected to the other branch of the family), spent few years in Sweden as an ambassador [3]. “Prince Trubetskoy was [the largest brute ; no one respected him; ignorant in military art,] very simple and vain, however, a kind man; he stuttered.” A reasonably good guarantee for an absence of the surprises and presentable behavior. 😜






__________________
[1] This may look like a paranoia but Peter was paranoid. During his reign the the people had been executed based upon seemingly crazy accusations. In 1697 Tsykler and two other noblemen had been quartered (IIRC after being broken on a wheel) because two Tsykler’s subordinates reported that he wanted to set on fire the house in which Peter resided. Not to forget the whole “Alexey’s conspiracy”: a circle of the “conspirators” included even a person who simply borrowed him some money.
[2] Peter Tolstoy was a subtle person and under him Secret Chancellery was not limiting its activities to just looking for the existing conspiracies. 😉
[3] In OTL after being captured at Narva. While being there (with his wife) was accepted at the Swedish court and managed to get a bastard son from baroness von Wrede whom he recognized under surname “Betskoy”.

 

[alexmilman]

74. It is complicated….

“For the whims of one person the whole Siberia is not big enough.”
Fonvizin
“Our whims are much more bizarre than the whims of fate”
François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
“The Siberian tract is the largest and, it seems, the most ugly road in the whole world.”
Chekhov
“- Did he just call you a bunny?
- It is complicated”
Red (movie, 2010)
​

Kyakhta trade

The Treaty of Kyakhta seemingly provided a mutually-accepted solution for both sides but this was true only if the primary interest on both side was trade. But was this really the case?

Probably it makes sense to start with a factual side.

Interlude:
The trade route followed the usual route to Irkutsk, by flatboat across Lake Baikal, and south by poling up the Selenge River past Selinginsk. Near the mouth of the Chikoy River at a place called Strelka or Petropavlovsk goods were loaded onto carts and carried south to Kyakhta where caravans were assembled or goods bartered. Much barter was done at Kyakhta during the winter and Chinese goods were shipped west when the rivers melted. Completion of the Siberian Trakt allowed to start replacing the Siberian rivers with overland route. When the ground was frozen solid this might take 70 or 80 days.

[Later in the century furs from Russian-America were sent via Okhotsk and Yakutsk to Kyakhta.]

From the border the route went south to Urga, southeast to Kalgan on the Great Wall and then Peking. The crossing of the Gobi took at least 30 to 40 days.
South of Kyakhta the trade route had three sections.

• 170 miles south to Urga. Here carts could be used. The land had more rain, grass, people, hills and rivers than further south.

• 625 miles southeast to Kalgan by camel caravan across the Gobi Desert. This took about 30 days. Ox carts were used for heavy loads. Horses were used for speed and to supervise the caravans.

• 100 miles southeast from Kalgan to Peking over the mountains west of Peking. This took about four days and used mules because of a difficult pass, probably to Juyong Pass.

Initial stress of the state trade was on the caravans, which combined the trade and diplomatic (and missionary) missions. The monetary value of the exported goods was in the range of 500,000 - 1,000,000 rubles with the tax revenue about 20% of exports.

Exports Furs were 70-85% by value, with the percent tending to decline, especially as European-made goods increased. Squirrel was the largest by quantity, about 2-4 million pelts annually. Furs were followed by leather and hides, Russian and later foreign cloth and then miscellaneous goods.

Imports About 50-60% was cotton (it is not clear where this came from). Silk, both raw and processed was about a third. Tea imports started small but were steadily growing eventually reaching 40%. These were followed by tobacco and manufactured goods. An unknown part of the northbound trade was brought by "Bukharans" as the Russians called Central Asian traders. [1]

[OTL, just to give an idea of the state caravans [2]:

1. 1727: Molokov, Lorenz Lange as diplomat: Outbound Sep-Dec 1727, stayed in Peking 6 months, returned Jul-Sep 1728. They set out with 205 men, 1,650 horses, 475 goods carts, 162 provision carts and 665 cattle for food. They had 285,404 rubles in goods including 2,100,000 pelts. Between Selenginsk and Kalgan they lost 489 horses and 258 cattle. At Kalgan they left their extra horses to be picked up on the way back. In Peking they stayed at the Russian House or O-lu-ssu Kuan. Numerous 'guards' soon appeared. Trade went slowly and the Russians blamed the Chinese officials. Before leaving Lange had an audience with the Emperor. They returned with 125,000 yards of silk, 570,000 yards of cotton, 30,000 pounds of tea (much less than later), 65,000 rubles in gold and silver and 404,000 unsold pelts. In 1731-33 excess goods were bartered at the border for about 125,000 rubles at Moscow prices. 335,301 rubles of Chinese goods were brought to Moscow for sale, some remaining unsold until 1735. Cost of caravan estimated at 62,687 rubles.
2. 1731: Molokov+Lange: Nov '31-Mar '32, returned Sep '32-Sep '33. 113 men, about 100,000 rubles in goods and 140,000 in coin. They returned with 214,699 rubles of Chinese goods at Moscow prices. Lange had another audience with the Emperor. Outbound, to avoid the Gobi desert, they followed the Kerulen River where they were robbed. They returned north to Tsurukaitu and were again robbed. The bandits were captured and the Manchus sent the heads of nine bandits to Kyakhta as a token of good will. The journey from Peking to Tsurukaitu lasted from Sep '32 to Apr '33. At Tsurukaitu they had difficulty finding storage space and laborers. It took them all summer to travel west to Irkutsk. This route was not used again.

]
The whole Kyakhta trade was perhaps 7% of Russian foreign trade.

Pacific coast
The first Russian town on the Pacific coast. Okhotsk, was founded in 1649 as the winter quarters by the Cossacks. fOn May 10, 1720, Okhotsk (Okhotsk Ostrog) received the status of a port city.

Since the beginning of the XVIII century, Okhotsk has been the starting point of sea expeditions that explored the northern Pacific Ocean and discovered the west coast of Russian America. The Okhotsk Flotilla was established to protect the areas of the Pacific Ocean discovered by Russian explorers and sailors. In 1721 Peter issued ukaz "to teach young Cossack children to sea” to provide the local cadres for the seafaring expeditions.
In 1713, Peter signed a decree on the search for the sea route to Kamchatka. Soon, immigrants from Arkhangelsk, experienced sailors Kondraty Moshkov, Nikephoros Tresku, Ivan Butin, feeder Jacob Neveitsin, as well as shipbuilders Kirill Ploskikh (Plotnitsky), Ivan Kargopol (Kargopoltsev) and Bartholomew Fedorov were sent to Okhotsk. The head of the new expedition, the Yakut Cossack Kozma Sokolov, was instructed "by the Lama Sea ... to build seagoing ships with those sent carpenters ... with those sailors and carpenters and with service people to go through the Lama Sea to the Kamchatka Nose without any delay."

Sailors arrived in Yakutsk on May 23, 1714 and went to Okhotsk Ostrog on July 3. In 75 versts upstream of the Kukhtuy River, near Okhotsk, the detachment laid a wharf called Sokolovsky. By May 1716, the first ship of the boat "Vostok" (also known as "Hunting" and "Great Lama Sea") had been built there, which became the first Russian military ship in the Pacific Ocean. From July 1716 to May 1717, this boat as part of the Cossack expedition sailed to the Bolsheretsky Ostrog, the then capital of Kamchatka, and back. On the same boat "Vostok", in 1720-1721, officers of the Russian fleet, surveyors I. Min. Evreinov and F. F. Luzhin made an expedition to study the Kamchatka coast and the Kuril Islands.

According to the decrees of Peter I of 1716 and 1719, new expeditions were appointed, which were instructed to "... explore Kamchatka, ... to build fortresses and start bargaining with the surrounding inhabitants; to equip expeditions to the shores of the seas of the North and East and along the rivers ... to pass through unknown lands lying opposite the mouth To solve the problems of the expeditions, new vessels were built in Okhotsk with a resulting creation of the “Olhotsk military flotilla”: “Four or six vessels to make, for a routine travel to Kamchatka and other places for service people and merchants”.

Two biggest ships built on the wharf were the 14-gun packet boats but also a brigantine, a galiot and few small ships.

The town itself was not too big. It had: Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, administrative building, office, barracks, 3 workshops, 5 barns, 40 houses, 5 shops, and in the adjacent expeditionary settlement: 5 barracks, 6 shops, 1 forge and 33 houses. All supplies had to come from outside: 4-6 thousand horses with food and equipment were annually transported from Yakutsk to Okhotsk using Okhotsky Trakt.

Supply of the settlements to the North could be done from Okhotsk exclusively by the sea, which was restricting their potential growth. The same goes for the trade aspect: the furs from Kamchatka had to be brought by the sea to Okhotsk, then from Okhotsk by Okhotsky trakt to Yakutsk and from here by land to Kyakhta.

Obviously, if Peter wanted further development of the area, there was a need for a better located main base, located in the area allowing the agriculture and having a reasonably convenient connection with the “settled” area of the Eastern Siberia.

Siberia
Which means that the whole Kyakhta Treaty, including the border, started looking rather inconvenient soon after it had been made. But to change the status quo in his favor Peter needed (a) to strengthen the Russian position in a region and (b) to weaken Qing’s position.

Implementation of the first part of the task already started by arranging resettlement of the state peasants and encouraging the voluntary settlement in Baikal and Trans-Baikal region (all the way to pardoning the criminals and promising no-return to the escaping serfs). There was also build up of manufacturing in Kuznetsk where Kolyvan-Voskresensky copper plant began functioning in 1718.

The second part was more complicated because it involved contradicting Qing-Dzungar-Russian interests with a possibility to get involved various independent and semi-independent local tribes like Yenisei Kyrgyz (which were more or less under Dzungar control) or Khalka Mongols (who were the Chinese vassals but mostly because they did not like Dzungars).

Geographically, Kuznetsk was on a border line of this messy area. In 1700. Kuznetsk was first surrounded by Kyrgyz and Oirat, who stormed the entire gates of the city. The residents made three counterattacks. Without waiting for the approach of additional forces, the nomads withdrew. The border sparsely populated and poor Kuznetsky Uyezd suffered catastrophic human and material losses. Peter personally ordered to send weapons here, including medium-caliber artillery guns. On his initiative, military offensive campaigns of Tomsk residents, Kuznetsk and Krasnoyarsk residents against the Kyrgyz were organized in 1701-1704. In 1707, Kuznetsk residents participated in the construction of the Abakan fortress. In 1709, they built the first Bikatunsky fortress, which was destroyed by the Dzungars a year later. In 1709-1710. Kuznetsk is again attacked by a large Dzungarian army, which failed to cross Tom near the village of Ilyinsky. In 1714-1715, there was a real danger of destroying Kuznetsk at the hands of thousands of troops of the Dzungarian taisha Tseren-Donduk. However, he withdrew his troops to Irtysh, where on Lake Yamyshev during the winter siege of 1715-1716, the three thousandth expeditionary corps of Lieutenant Colonel Buholz was destroyed. As a result, Peter ordered construction of a strong Kuznetsk Fortress, which became the most formidable fortified place in the region.

So the Dzungars obviously were a hostile force but, taking into an account that they had been hostile to the Qing as well, could they be used to advance the Russian goals in the region? Could the Khalka Mongols be persuaded to change their loyalty as well?





___________
[1] Self-designation: Bukharlyk, Sart. “Are ethnographic and sociocultural group in Siberia. They constituted a significant part of the Tobol-Irtysh and Tom groups of Siberian Tatars”. Russians formerly used the term "Bukharan" to refer to any caravan merchant from Central Asia, since the Russians did not always have a clear understanding of the geography and peoples further south. Since Muslim Siberian Bukharans had legal advantages and privileges under Russia, Siberian Tatars pretended to be them.
[2] In the Russian version of Wiki the dates and the numbers are substantially different and I have no idea which of them are correct. However, AFAIK, the profit margin tended to be low and some of the caravans lost money. Probably the open border trade in Kyakhta itself, with the custom dues around 20% should produce more state profit with much less effort. Anyway, 7% of the foreign trade looks peanuts.

 

[alexmilman]

75. Peter goes West

“Travel is the only thing that makes you richer for the money spent”
Unknown author

“My opinion about travel is brief: when traveling, do not go too far, otherwise you will see something that will be impossible to forget later”
Daniel Harms

“Even in summer, going on a trip, take something warm with you, because can you know what will happen in the atmosphere?”
Kozma Prutkov

“I'm leaving here abroad to calm down from the kaleidoscopic diversity of Russian life and I think I'm not the only specimen of my kind”
Leskov
​

1720 [1] With the domestic affairs being settled, the border negotiations with China going on and the Baltic System being functional, Peter decided to go on an extensive trip abroad. The official goal was to visit Spa [2] in a hope that its famous waters will help with his heath problems [3].

A planned route was St. Petersburg - Riga - Danzig - Mecklenburg - Bad Pyrmont (famous spa [4]) -

- Netherlands - France - Spa - Netherlands (Amsterdam) - Berlin - Danzig - Riga - St. Petersburg.

In Danzig he was greeted by The Favorite Pet. “King Augustus gave his contemporaries the impression of a vassal who is pleasing his sovereign rather than the owner of the house, who hosted the guest of honor. Seeing how arrogant Peter treated King Augustus in Danzig, contemporaries in Western Europe were horrified.” [5]

Probably not all of them had been too “horrified” because August’s position after the LNW was not a secret and it did not noticeably improved after the Big Foolish War. However, neither the Brits nor the Dutch had been happy with the fact that they are not anymore in a position to dictate the prices in Baltic trade. George I of Britain still kept the interests of Hanover as his top priority and, besides being angry at not expanding his territories at the Swedish expense and losing Saxe Launenburg to Prussia, was afraid that Prussia and/or Denmark may want to get more and had been worried about continued Russian military presence in Mecklenburg (two infantry regiments had been left there to guarantee that the Duke will be able to raise his own army) out of fear that Peter may want to annex Mecklenburg to Russia. To prevent this from happening, George I appealed to Emperor Charles VI to demand that he, as head of the German Empire, think about the means to save Northern Germany from the Russian preponderance.

A number of brochures had been published in Britain, the most important place between these works of journalism was occupied by the brochure "The Crisis of the North, or Impartial Discussion on the Tsar’s Policy". [6] The content of this pamphlet is as follows: after the general description of Peter, his abilities, his "purely political spirit" it refers to his ambition, his passion for the accumulation of wealth and expansion of power, his journey through Europe in 1697 and 1698, and especially his stay in England, aimed at giving Russia the opportunity to build a fleet. Quite harsh terms talk about Peter's cunning in his treatment of allies whom he forced to waste energy and money in order to make it more convenient to take advantage of the exhaustion of these states for his own ambitious plans. Thus, the author continues, Russia will become England's rival in the near future, capturing all trade in northern Europe, as well as trade with Persia and Turkey, which, with the successful development of industry in Russia, becomes even more likely and feasible. Peter is characterized as an intriguer, ready to sacrifice the benefit of his allies every minute. From all this, according to the author, it follows that the king has become extremely dangerous for the whole of Europe, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to beware of him, counteract him and, by the way, prevent Charles XII from further cooperation with Peter; otherwise, all Christianity will not cease to worry. In a word, it came to a crisis.

Actually, Peter was somewhat flattered by such an assessment of his achievements. In his letter to Alexey he wrote “By military affairs, we came out from darkness to light, and whom nobody in the word knew, now they are honored.” [7]

In Bad Pyrmont, where he stayed for few days, Peter had been visited by some diplomats but nothing pf importance did happen. From here he went to Havelberg where he met with FWI who recently cancelled meeting with King George (or rathe Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover 😉) and confirmed his loyalty to the Baltic System. Peter wrote about this meeting: “I announce here that our arrival here is not in vain, but with some benefit”. Conversation was about rapprochement with France on the basis of Utrecht and Baden treaties.

From here Peter arrived to Amsterdam and arrived there on December 6 1720. Peter stayed in the Netherlands for several months. During this time, he has been busy with as much foreign policy issues as the acquisition of versatile information in the field of economy, science and arts. On his first visit, he appeared in Holland as an inexperienced sovereign of the little-known Moscow kingdom alien to Europe, but now he could be considered a representative of a great power, a famous commander, an influential member of the Union of States. Since Peter's first stay in Holland, diplomatic relations between Russia and the Netherlands have become more lively. Since then, Russian diplomats in Amsterdam and The Hague, Matveev and Kurakin, have played a rather important role. Russia was increasingly involved in pan-European affairs, and the main city in the Netherlands, The Hague, was at this time that it became the center of diplomatic affairs in Europe. The states-general did not like Russia's growing power. There were different, albeit not particularly important diplomatic clashes between the tsar and Holland on the eve of Peter's arrival in Amsterdam. Holland feared that the Russians would interfere with the freedom of trade in the Baltic Sea, complained about the oppression of Dutch merchants in Russia [8], etc.

While in the Netherlands, Peter fell ill, which served as an official excuse for cancelling his meeting with George I. The meeting did not take place, partly on the occasion of the Peter’s illness, but especially, it seems, due to some discord between Russia and England. The reason for this discord was the question of Russian troops in Northern Germany. While these troops remained in Mecklenburg, the English king considered the situation of Hanoverian possessions dangerous. Therefore, he tried to force Peter to withdraw his troops from Northern Germany. Negotiations on this took place during Peter's illness in the Hague, mostly by Shafirov. However, Peter did not pay attention to the requests and ideas of the English king, emperor, German Sejm and responded to everyone in general terms.

Peter left Holland at the end of March. About his relations to the republic, Preis' reports say, among other things: "It is believed that the Tsar will no longer return here, a circumstance that is interpreted by everyone as a sign of displeasure with the states. There is no doubt that his current stay differed from the previous one by less caution and did not represent much pleasure. In general, here they began to speak about the Tsar with much less respect."

Peter's stay in the Austrian Netherlands, where a solemn reception was given to the king everywhere, was not of particular political significance. Going through Bruges and Ostend to France, Peter, having entered French soil, was in considerable danger. His curiosity to see everything, this dominant passion of Peter, in the words of the Austrian governor Marquis de Prieux, almost cost him his life. Taking advantage of the low tide, he wanted to go around the Dunkirchens bank and went to it in a carriage. Suddenly a strong wind rose; the tide began with extraordinary speed, and the water covered the road on which the Tsar was; he barely had enough time to untie one of the horses and ride away from the danger that threatened him. In France, measures were taken to meet the king everywhere with the honor, although they expressed a desire to travel incognito. However, he did not stay anywhere on his way to Paris for a long time. France does not seem to have made a favorable impression on him. After visiting the richest countries in Europe at that time, the Dutch and Austrian Netherlands, he was struck by the poverty of the population in France. Small wonder after ruinous reign of Louis XIV with its WoSS and the War of Quadruple Alliance, which just ended.

In Paris, two accommodations were prepared for the Tsar: in the Louvre and in the house of Lesdiguieres, owned by Marshal Villeroy. Peter preferred to fit in Lesdiguieres’s house. The day after Peter's arrival, he had a visit to the Duke of Orléans, and the Tsar behaved somewhat proudly. The Duke of Orléans, after a conversation in which Prince Kurakin, who served as an interpreter, praised the Tsar’s mind.

Two days later, the king himself, ten-year-old Louis XV, visited the Tsar and in this case very deftly said his memorized speech. The Tsar seemed delighted, kissed the king and took him several times in his arms. When the next day, April 30, Peter went on a visit to the Tuilerian palace, the young king met Peter with ministers and marshals on the lower porch. Peter took it in his arms and, carrying it up the stairs, as they said later, said: "I carry all France in my hands.”

Peter took a very careful look at the sights of the city of Paris. He was at the observatory, at the anatomical institute, at the tapestry factory, in the art gallery, in the library. Then he looked at the workshop where the statues were made, walked in the Tuilerian garden, watched the structure of the bridge, was in the opera, in the "Hotel des invalides", in various castles, for example, in Meudhon, in S. Cleu, in Issy, Luxembourg Palace, in Versailles, Trianon, Marley, Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain, etc. In Saint-Cira, he inspected the famous women's school established by Ms. Mentenon, and without ceremony went to the room where Ms. Mentenon, wanting to avoid meeting the Tsar, went to bed. Approaching the bed, he, without saying a word or bowing to her, looked at her and then calmly left the room again.

Peter was also at the Sorbonne, where they talked to him about connecting the eastern and western churches, and, however, he behaved cautiously and restrainedly. Then he inspected the royal printing house, was in the board founded by Cardinal Mazarin, was present at the exercitions of the French Guard, at a meeting of parliament, was at the Academy of Sciences, etc. Peter became a member of the Academy of Sciences. In France, his geographical knowledge was especially appreciated. The map of the Caspian Sea, which he showed to the scientist Delil in Paris, completely changed the concepts that existed in the West regarding the shape of this sea. Leaving France, as they say, Peter noted: "I regret the king and France: it will die of luxury".

Contemporaries claim that the French government was not very pleased with the arrival of the king, especially because France was in very close relations to England at that time.

In France, there were people who knew how to appreciate the importance of an alliance with Russia. The Duke of Saint-Simon wrote then in his memoirs: "Nothing else could favor our trade and our weight in the north, in Germany and throughout Europe. In the hands of this monarch was the trade of England (sic), and King George was very afraid of him because of his German possessions. Holland, as well as the Roman emperor, he was able to inspire respect for himself; in short, it is undeniable that he was a very important person in Europe and Asia and that France would benefit a lot from a close alliance with him. He did not like the emperor and wanted little by little to save us from the influence of England, and it is this last country that we owe the fact that in the most indecent way rejected his proposals made to us long after his departure. I have repeatedly insisted in this case with the regent; I presented him with the most sensible and irrefutable arguments in vain... Since then, we have repeatedly had to repent of following the harmful suggestions of England and the insane disregard for the conditions offered to us by Russia.”

Leaving France, Peter authorized Baron Shafirov, Tolstoy and Kurakin to enter into an alliance with France. The treaty was signed only on August 4, in Amsterdam, where Peter was at the time. By virtue of this treaty, the king and kings, French and Prussia, pledged to maintain peace restored by treatises of Utrecht and Baden as well as by the Treaty of Lubeck. The immediate consequence of the conclusion of this treaty was the departure to Russia of French Ambassador Campredon and French consul Villardo.

On June 9, Peter left Paris. On the same day, Danjo noticed in his diary that the king, leaving, promised the Duke of Orleans to withdraw his troops from Mecklenburg and that the English king had asked the regent to exert some pressure on the Tsar in this sense.

Anyway, during Peter's stay in Spa, where he was treated for four days he ordered to remove the Russian troops from Mecklenburg (the Duke, who already created his army of two infantry and two dragoon regiments, also asked him to do this). Peter’s visit to Spa greatly added to the town’s reputation with a resulting greater influx of the visitors.

On the way back Peter stopped, again, in Amsterdam where there were numerous festivities and diplomatic meeting but very little of a substance: no trade treaty had been concluded. From here Peter went for few days to Berlin and then returned to Russia.

On a whole, diplomatic part of the trip was not too successful except for a purely “presentation” part: unlike his first visit, Peter travelled as a head of a powerful state and behaved accordingly.

On a positive side, during Peter’s absence the empire kept functioning without any noticeable problems.



___________
[1] In OTL in 1716-17. The official goal was the same but diplomatic component quite different (GNW was going on).
[2] As in “town in the Ardennes region of eastern Belgium known for its mineral-rich thermal waters”.
[3] There are various opinions regarding a nature of his “problems” but it seems that among the contemporaries version regarding “social diseases” was quite popular. Official version was “pneumonia” (yeah, like “hemorrhoid colic” or “stroke” ) but a modern conclusion was “The cause of death at the age of 53 was inflammation of an ulcer in the urethra. The consequence of this disease, which caused so much suffering to the Tsar, was chronic gonorrhea. Even not being a medic, I have certain doubts that pneumonia could cause the known symptoms?
[4] This time in lower case.
[5] Brikner “History of Peter the Great”. A big part of this chapter is shamelessly stolen from this work. With the necessary adjustment to fit IITL. 🤭
[6] Both the title and contents of this brochure are …er… “abridged” to fit this TL. 😉
[7] Real Peter’s letter to Alexey in 1716.
[8] By 1700 the Dutch merchants had pretty much a free hand in their operations in Russia and, of course, did not have any reason to be happy with the Baltic System and its trade policies.

 

[alexmilman]

76. Slowing down

“But in old age he wanted to take a break from military affairs and arrange peace for himself.”
Pushkin “Fairy tale about golden cockerel”
“A good wife, a good house, what else does a person need to meet old age?”
‘White sun of a desert”
​

1721. Upon his return from the trip abroad Peter did not rush to get back to his capital (which he always disliked). Instead he went to his “summer residence” in Peterhof to oversee its construction and to make sure that its formal park is planned along the same lines as one in Versailles (which was something of a prototype for every …er… “civilized” monarch).

Of course, he was not, yet, old, only 49, but his health was failing and the regular fits of the “colics” [1] started making his usual travel-heavy life style rather difficult to maintain. But even Peter had to admit that there was very little need in his personal and rather chaotic intervention in all details of the empire’s life: the system was working within the established framework. Not ideally, but reasonably satisfactory and “apparatus” led by Aleksey seemingly could “translate” his ideas into the implementable directives and oversee their implementation [2].

The Baltic System had been functioning and participation in the Svenska Ostindiska Companiet [3] and Danish Ostindisk Kompagni allowed some alternative access to the goods from India and China.

There was a potentially growing problem on the South where the Ottomans seemingly wanted to use the turmoil in Persia to grab some of the Persian possessions on the Caucasus (especially Armenia and Georgian states) but so far this was not hurting the Russian interests, at least as long as the silk imports from Derbent were not hurt. A profitable trade treaty with the Ottomans made a direct confrontation unwelcome but the military presence in Astrakhan was increased and an order for creating the Caspian flotilla issued just in case the Ottomans will become too successful and extend their advance all the way to the Caspian shore. As Peter wrote in his instruction to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, “Our interests do not allow any other power, no matter who is, to establish itself in the Caspian Sea”. This, as the Grand Vizier was assuring, was not in the Ottoman plans and, anyway, so far they had enough problems with establishing control over the western part of the Persian Caucasus. Not because the Persians provided a serious military resistance or because their local vassals had been excessively loyal or strong but simply because the whole area was a complicated mess of the small states and tribes who were in a permanent conflict with each other. The Shahs, while being generally interested in the Russian trade, also were trying to prevent the Russian penetration into the CA khanates and their position toward the Ottoman was changing from one shah to another. So it did make sense to wait and see how situation is going to develop.

Further to the East the Dzungars and Qing Empire were in “neither peace nor war” status: there were no formal peace but for a while no open hostilities either. On a positive side, each of them finally made an agreement with Russia regarding the border (with China the process of marking it was going on) but a definite success of one side could make it more ambitious.

Both sides had been somewhere in the early XVII (by European equivalent) in the military technology with the infantry having the matchlocks but Chinese also had a primitive field artillery (on the picture below mounted on the camels but on another painting used in more “conventional” way). Infantry with the firearms had been routinely protected by the dismounted pikemen and used exclusively as a defensive force (preferably having some protective shields or some kind of the light field fortifications) leaving an offensive role exclusively to the cavalry. The Dzungar cavalry was, generally, of a higher quality but Manchu had more of it, especially taking into an account the Khalka Mongols. Also, while the Manchu were proficient in building fortresses, the Dzungars, due to the lack of artillery and engineering skills, had been pretty much helpless even against the relatively weak fortifications.

Taking into an account that the Dzungars were an objectively a weaker side (technologically and by the numbers), it was decided to upgrade their arsenal acting discretely through the “Bukhara” merchants by providing them with the flintlocks (no bayonets), field artillery (there was a huge surplus of the old pieces) and few specialists, preferably of a suitable descent, to have a plausible deniability.

Weakening both sides may provide an opening for revising a border without getting into a major war.

With all these things going on Peter had plenty of time for enjoying himself with construction of his palaces and sailing in the Baltic on his yacht “Saint Peter”. [4]

Of course, for his trip to Stockholm to visit “dear brother”, who was also a rather complicated “someone in law”, he chose a more appropriate ship.

With more time spent on a Baltic coast he inevitably way paying more attention to his Baltic Fleet (to a distress of the naval personnel 😉) and to expansion of St. Petersburg (to even greater distress of the city administration 😢 ). The imperial business may not require his close attention but, being “on a spot”, he could not leave the local entities without his fatherly attention and wise advice. Well, you can’t have everybody happy….




______________
[1] “Colics” at that time described pretty much any internal problem from a mere indigestion and all the way to the deadly “hemorrhoids colic”. 😉
[2] Two decades of experience had been enough to teach the bureaucrats that “thou shalt not object to your superior” ( 11th Commandment). How and if you are going to implement his orders is a completely different issue.
[3] In OTL founded in 1731 and formally open only to the Swedish subjects but with some loopholes.
[4] The picture shows Peter’s yacht of that name but in OTL it was in Archangelsk. Could not find a picture of one he got as a present from FWI. 😂

 

[alexmilman]

77. Life goes on…

“Field Marshal Prince Golitsyn, a hero of Russia, was a smart and noble man; he knew military art very well, was brave and loved by the troops; brave and generous; he did not love foreigners, but despite this, he gave justice to worthy of them; nobles were afraid of him, and Peter I respected him. In short, he was a truly great man.”
Duke of Liria

“General Fermor is an excellent administrator, a caring boss (Suvorov remembered him as a "second father"), but at the same time fussy and indecisive”
Kersnovsky
​

1721 was a year of the losses. First, died fieldmarshal Shetemetev [1] and then general Veyde [2] leaving the Military Collegium leaderless. Taking into an account that these two pretty much shaped the Russian army in the terms of organization, weaponry and fighting methods, the loss was very serious and Peter had to chose the replacements which would not screw things up and not just stick to the existing routine.

Choice of the President of the Military Collegium was more or less obvious because for quite a while Prince Michael Golitsyn was considered as Sheremetev’s successor in the terms of a military reputation and general popularity. It also did not hurt that he belonged to the top aristocracy and his appointment provided a balance of power between two leading families, Golitsyns and Dolgoruky (member of which was a head of the Foreign Affairs Collegium). It could be expected that, being an unquestionably intelligent person, he would consider and introduce the necessary changes and, based upon his reputation, it was a safe bet that he is not going to confuse the state money with his own. As a part of a “package” he was promoted into Fieldmarshal to be able to pull a rank over all his subordinates [3]

Choice of the Vice-President also was reasonably obvious. By his military rank and record in the last war general William Fermor [4]. His operations in Prussia were brilliant but he was not an energetic commander prone to taking risk and making the bold decisions. Never displayed any ambition to become a top commander. However, his strong point was an unquestionable administrative talent and quite sincere care about his troops, sometimes going all the way to being an impediment for the operations for which had been liked by his subordinates.

Both candidates already worked well during the Big Foolish War and it was expected that the new appointments are not going to produce the problems.

The problem, as Peter found, was elsewhere. It was seemingly a reasonable act to appoint Trubetskoy governor-general of Moscow and in some areas he lived up to the expectations being too rich not to be easily corruptible, promoting the “European” manners, etc. There was one tiny little insignificant problem: he was absolutely incompetent as an administrator and, as a result, was inclined to do as little as possible in the terms of Moscow renovation: “if you do nothing, you are not committing any mistakes”. Of course, his personal honesty did not trickle down to his subordinates who kept using his incompetence to their advantage. So all the ambitious projects of the previous administration staled under pretext of being reviewed.

While Peter did not really like Moscow and tried to spend as little time as possible in it, this was his capital and it had to correspond to the status of an imperial capital. The complaints he was receiving from all corners, including the Young Court (Alexey did not have jurisdiction over the Governor-General of Moscow) could not be ignored but (a) removing Trubetskoy from his position soon after appointment would mot look good, (b) he was seemingly on good terms with the foreign ambassadors, which was a good thing, and (c) there was only one suitable replacement, Prince Cherkassky, who was even worse. The only plausible solution seemingly was to provide him with a competent deputy. And such a deputy (vice-governor) must have a long list of the qualifications because he was going to oversee numerous engineering and construction projects and to have personality strong enough not to be intimidated by governor-general’s superior administrative and social position on one side and not to be swallowed by a bureaucratic swamp on the other. Preferably, he should not have the family links to the Russian aristocracy to avoid the usual practice of promoting the relatives but needs to have the powerful supporters and to have strong ambitions. But he also has to have certain degree of the social graces and to be intelligent enough to avoid the unnecessary confrontations.

Choice of a “miracle worker” was not too difficult because by that time Burkhard Christoph von Münnich already made himself a well-known figure. He was in charge of the Ladoga Canal construction (one of Peter’s pet projects) and when it was ready personally sailed with Peter on a small boat through its sluices, experience that delighted the Tsar. His plan of the Kronstadt fortifications and its speedy implementation also got him the high marks from Peter and provided working relations with Alexey who was overseeing the projects. After this he was in charge of a number of projects in St-Petersburg: replacing the earthworks of Peter&Paul fortress with the stone fortifications, installing a stone facing on the Neva embankment, and doing some city planning [5].

So his competence and ability to have things done were proved beyond the reasonable doubts. What was also quite clear is that he is extremely ambitious and, being an outsider, understand that he can raise only by the merit. Not having connections in Moscow also was a big plus. So Trubetskoy got himself an energetic vice-governor and, at least for a while, was quite happy because he could get himself busy with a social aspect of his position while leaving the boring stuff to his energetic deputy and getting praise for the things being done.

One of the biggest “show projects” was a huge Orphanage House built on the embankment of the Moscow river between Kremlin and the Yauza River and boasting a 379-metre frontage.

Besides its architectural and social merits, this was one of the first mostly publicly funded projects. The state did contribute 100,000 rubles but this was peanuts comparing to the donations (two biggest ones were 200,000 and 162,995 roubles). The Orphanage was designed as a chain of three square-shaped buildings: the eastern wing for the girls, the western wing for the boys and the central administration block connecting them. The inauguration ceremony, attended by the Emperor, Empress, Grand Duke, Grand Duchess and everybody who was somebody at the court, had been held in 1722. After which it took 3 more years to build the western block and ten years to finish the administrative block. The Eastern block was completely forgotten. The adjacent Moskva River embankment was paved and set in granite.

On the inauguration day, 19 newborn babies were brought to the unfinished Orphanage. Two of them were publicly baptized Peter and Maria , after the Emperor and Empress, but both died soon afterward. This was an early portent of extremely high infant mortality that would be characteristic of the Orphanage in the 18th century. The mortality rate continue to be high but few surviving hundreds of the resident orphans who studied a variety of trades ranging from metallurgy to accountancy.

Children lived at the Orphanage until the age of 11, whereupon they were sent for training to local factories and government offices. Some were assigned to the Michael Maddox theater school; others managed to qualify for free admission to Moscow State University. 180 students furthered their education in the universities of Western Europe. The majority, however, graduated with little more than a rouble in cash and a passport (which served to distinguish free men from serfs).

The institution was managed by the Board of Trustees and financed by private donations and two special taxes—a tax on public theater shows and a tax on playing cards. For nearly a century, all playing cards sold in Imperial Russia were taxed 5 kopecks per deck on domestic-made cards and 10 kopecks on imports. As a result, every pack of Russian cards displayed the symbol of the Orphanage, the pelican.

But these were the problems of a future and as of here and now the praises had been lavished upon the governor-general and his deputy.

______________
[1] in OTL in 1719
[2] In OTL in 1720
[3] This was not a trifle. In 1812 Barclay wasca Military Minister but Bagration was senior by promotion, which added to the tensions. In 1813 Wittgenstein had in his army 2 or 3 generals senior to him, which, again, did not make things easier. Almighty Military Protocol can’t be easily shrugged off.
[4] IITL born well ahead of the schedule (😂). In OTL he would be only 19 years old. But by a character he was a great “second man” to work under a strong leader.
[5] Peter personally planned Nevsky Prospect and location of some important buildings leaving the boring details to other.

 

[alexmilman]

Now, we have a …er… gap in the matrimonial links within the happy Baltic Mafia family. 😂

Prussia is, so far only marginally involved (through stepmother of FWI) but we have the growing up candidates for at least preliminary arrangements:
1. Peter Alexeevich and Princess Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine of Prussia are of the same age (in 1721 both are twelve)
2. Frederich (born in 1712) and Natalia Alexeevna (1710 or was it 1711?)

Of course, they are too young and I’m not sure how FWI would take the religious issue but an early betrothal was quite common in the royal families and in this case it also involves the tangible benefits.

So how about making two more happy couples? Well, taking into an account the alleged preferences of the future FII, not necessarily happy but who cares? 😂

 

[alexmilman]

77. Life in Moscow

«что за тузы в Москве живут и умирают!» [1]
Грибоедов

“You and me are the only two people in Russia who don’t take the bribes”
Nicholas I to Cesarevich Alexander

«Надо ждать» [2]
Unknown official​

Being somewhat off the epicenter of Petrian whirlwind of activities Moscow and its inhabitants were enjoying life, …. each according to his or her social status. 😂

On the administrative level there were definitely plenty of activities. While Peter’s order to build exclusively stone/brick houses facing the street was not officially cancelled, practicality took over: it was simply impossible to change a predominantly wooden city into a stone one because majority of its population did not have needed money and there were not enough materiel and specialists. So a mandatory stone construction was limited to the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod (a district adjacent to the Kremlin, the most prestigious trade area).

The rest of the city was left with a formula “кто какое строение похочет” [3] with a freedom to built houses facing a street or placed inside of a yard. However, construction of a new house required permission from the local police (see the 3rd epigraph regarding …er… waiting so here you have a category of people enjoying the life 😉).

Actually, even most of the nobility palaces had some kind of a front yard, if only to accommodate the arriving carriages, so Peter’s order order was lacking a practicality. However, this freedom of action was not absolute: the administration developed a reconstruction plan which was straightening streets and the lanes and regulating their width: the big streets to 21.3 meters, the lanes to 12.8 meters. These straightened streets became a part of the ring-radial Moscow plan. Needless to say that the “ideal” initial plan had been modified more than once to accommodate the existing city estates of the important people. Gradually, the big streets had been paved with a stone, leaving the less important streets and lanes in their initial dirt road condition [4], sometimes with the wooden sidewalks and the rains would be turning many of them into the pools of a clayish mud dangerous even for the carts. On a positive side, the geese and ducks definitely enjoyed (no need to discriminate against the livestock 😉) the resulting pools. But these were the places never visited by the officials above the level of a local constabulary which, understandably, had been using situation for the personal benefit [5] (one more category of those enjoying the situation). The main visible problem was the Neglinnaya River flowing right through the center. It spilled in the area of Okhotny Ryad (pretty much under the Kremlin’s walls) forming along the banks landfills and stink swamps.

Since the only transport was carts and carriages, there was a lot of manure on the streets, and dirt from them went to fertilize the royal gardens, where several wagons were transported annually. At night, as in the Middle Ages, the streets were locked with slingshots, which had watchmen from city ordinary people. In the evening they boarded at ten o'clock, and in the morning they opened an hour before dawn. The watchmen were armed mainly with clubs and sticks, and in case of danger they were beaten in ratchets.

Now, what was Moscow? Funny as it may sound, its official border was defined by a need to prevent unlicensed selling of an alcohol.

Traditionally, there was a system of “otkup”: the merchants (“otkupschiks”) had been buying a license from the state allowing to sell a certain amount of vodka. Wine (that is, vodka, which was called "bread wine") was received by otkupschiks from the treasury, some could have their own production. Kabaki was ordered to be called "drinking houses" and put state coats of arms on them, "as in houses under our protection." Vodka for otkupschiki was prepared by the state chamber from state or private factories, depending on what is more profitable. Of course, they did not want anybody to break their monopoly so, with the permission of Kamer Collegium, they built a rampart around Moscow called, first, “the Company rampart” and then “Kamer Collegium rampart”. This was a purely commercial fortification: a high earth mound on the outside of it there was a moat, on the inside there was a passage where horse guard patrols periodically passed. The construction had 18 guarded openings, by a number of the roads coming to Moscow. Kamer Collegium soon kicked in by started using it for collecting the custom dues (Russia still had plenty of the internal customs).

Needless to say that Peter’s fatherly concerns were not limited to only those above the grounds. During the funerals of “Prince-Caesar” Fyodor Romodanovsky he noticed that procession was impeded by the graves placed on a monastery territory. This caused the decree of April 12, 1722, which ordered "the tombstones at churches and in monasteries to lower level with the ground; to make inscriptions on the stones from above; which stones are inconvenient to place in this way, to use them in a church structure." Unlike his many other decrees, this one was implemented. The next year he issued a decree forbidding the funerals within city limits except for those of the “important people”, which broke the existing tradition of burials near the churches and led to creation of the city-wide cemeteries on city outskirts.

As for those above the ground, Moscow had population of approximately and was an extensive city consisting of several parts. It was so striking that someone [6] called Moscow "the concentration of several worlds." In addition to the stone Kremlin, Kitay-gorod and the White-City (Белый город)

the houses of rich people were stone, to which most of the wooden, small houses covered with bast and straw were adjacent. The Moscow authorities tried to fight the "wooden structure", prescribing to cover the roofs with tiles to protect against fires. Not that this was very productive due to the shortage of the tiles and their high cost.

The sharp difference between the palaces of the nobility and the houses of poor citizens was striking to contemporaries. A visiting Brit wrote: "Pity shacks pile up near palaces, one-storey huts are built next to rich and majestic houses. Many stone buildings have wooden roofs, other wooden houses are painted, others have iron doors and roofs. Countless churches in each of their parts represent a special style of architecture, some domes are covered with copper, others are covered with tin, gilded or painted green. Some quarters of this huge city seem completely wasteland, others are densely populated, some look like poor villages, others look like a rich capital.”

The city had many extensive gardens and reservoirs, which, as in the old days, had baths. Repeatedly described by foreigners in the XVII century, the custom of ordinary citizens to wash in baths and reservoirs, not gender differences, was preserved in Moscow of the XVIII century, which is reflected in the famous engraving by J. Delabart "View of the Silver Baths and the surrounding area" (on the Yauza River). In the middle of the century, there were more than one and a half thousand baths in Moscow but all pf them private. The first public (commercial) baths only started to appear and there were few of them.

One more work on the same subject:

Now, after Peter revoke his decree regarding mandatory military service for the nobility, there was a whole social class enjoying the newly obtained freedom with a great impact upon the external and internal appearance of Moscow, making it the center of the nobility, free from obligations to the state, often critical of the authorities and gladly indulged not only in entertainment, but also in sciences, literature, architecture, projects for the reconstruction of society [7] .

In 1722, out of 155 yards in Kitay-gorod, 26 belonged to nobles, 49 belonged to merchants and burghers, 80 to the commonersg and clergy. In the White City, the picture was as follows: out of 952 yards, 502 belonged to nobles, 82 to merchants and burghers, 368 to the commoners and clergy. In the Earth City («Земляной город»), 1,354 out of 3,225 yards were noble, 841 were merchant and petty bourgeois, 1,030 belonged to the commoners or clergy. Beyond the Earth City of 4,222 yards, 1,196 were owned by nobles, 971 by merchants and burghers, 2055 by commoners and clergy.

In total, out of 85,554 Moscow yards, 3,078 (36%), merchants and burghers belonged to 1943 (23%), commoners and clergy - 3,533 (41%).

Thus, in terms of the number of households, nobles were in second place after the dispensants and clergy. However, if among the commoners and priestly houses there were only 6% stone, then among the noble houses - 25%, which was 755 houses. There were 597 stone houses in the possession of merchants. Therefore, it was the noble mansions that determined the architectural face of the city. In the 1720s, the nobility moved from the congested Kremlin and Kitay-gorod to more peripheral White and Earth cities (Земляной город).

The main area of concentration of noble city estates was the space between Neglinnaya and the Moscow River, which strangely coincided with the territory taken by Ivan the Terrible in oprichnina.

The growing noble population of Moscow included the old aristocratic families like Golitsyns, Dolgorukovs, Sheremetevs, Volkonsky, Naryshkins, Yusupovs, Saltykovs, Cherkasy, Buturlins, the less aristocratic noble families like Rimsky-Korsakovs, Tatishchevs, Sokovnins, Musin-Pushkins, Eropkins, Izmailovs, Bakhmeteva, Golovins, Nashchokin and the new nobles like Demidovs and Stroganovs. Plus there was a big and growing number of the influential “service nobility” (the bureaucrats who got a noble status by raising to a certain level of a service ladder). Sooner or later many of these families got connected by the marriages forming a complicated and powerful web of a mutual protection and influence: even a remote family link had been deeply respected and valued. The Moscow nobility was characterized by a desire for constant communication and openness, but exclusively within the class. Anyone could come to the richest feasts arranged by Count Sheremetev in Kuskovo near Moscow - if only he were a nobleman. However, it could not be otherwise: so the upbringing and way of life of the nobility distinguished this estate from others. But at the same time, there were many criteria for belonging to full members of society. Not every nobleman could be accepted in all houses and enjoy the glory of an honest man. Marriage out of a social class would close the doors. It was difficult to win the favor of society and those for whom any "history" was drawn (cheating in cards, scandalous divorce).
Possessing huge fortunes, Moscow "aces" [8] led an open and hospitable life, hosting several hundred people. Many built huge palaces, built gardens with "wilds", maintained home and manor theaters. Considerable donations also went to charity.

Known for his huge wealth and incredible oddities, the heir of Peter's miners Prokofy Akinfievich Demidov [9] donated more than a million rubles to the needs of the Moscow Orphanage, 10,000 rubles to the building of Moscow University, 20,000 rubles to scholarships to poor students, 100,000 rubles to folk schools. In 1725, he opened the Demidov Commercial School at the Orhpanage, which existed at a percentage of its capital, the first educational institution in Russia in the field of commercial education. Demidov created a Botanical Garden in Moscow, arranged gardens behind Pokrovka and near the Donskoy Monastery (later part of the Neskuchny Garden).

Demidov's eccentricity was manifested even in what his departure looked like. Like other nobles, Demidov drove out in a carriage drawn by six horses. At the same time, the two front and two rear horses were small, and the middle pair was disproportionately large. The foreitor of a big horse was a dwarf, while foreitor of a small was a giant, and his legs were dragging on the ground. The footmen were dressed in strange liveries - one half was embroidered with golden galoons, the other was made of sermaga; one leg was wearing a lacquered shoe, on the other - a “lapot” (peasant’s footwear made of a bark).

Back in the second half of the XVII century, palace manufactories, paper mills and glass factories began to appear in the vicinity of Moscow. During the formation of a system of industry under Peter the Great, which worked for military needs, Moscow suffered the creation of light industry enterprises, primarily textile and manufactory.

The first manufactory that emerged in Moscow under Peter I was the new Khamovny Dvor, built in 1696-1697 on the bank of Yauza, in the village of Preobrazhensky. For the first time, water energy was used there to push the hemp, for which a large dam was erected on Yauza. This enterprise developed rapidly. If in 1700 there were 10 mills in Khamovny Dvor, in 1710 there were already 180 of them. The number of workers also grew: in 1710 - 400 people, and in 1719 - 1,362 people. By that year, the number of mills had increased to 383, and the production of different canvases amounted to about 180-190 thousand arshins. Almost at the same time, a rope factory was founded near the Danilov Monastery. It was significantly smaller than the Khamovny court. At different times, 35-40 people worked at the cable car factory. In 1712, a second rope factory was founded at Khamovny Dvor. Thanks to the efforts of these small enterprises, the Russian fleet was fully provided with ropes, the quality of which was recognized as high in Western Europe. The products of these plants were exported in significant quantities. Among other state manufactories of the Peter's era were the Leather Yard on Yauza (1701), Hat Yard (1701), Big Cloth Yard near the All Saints Stone Bridge (1704-1705), Button Yard. In the 1710s, a number of Moscow state-owned enterprises were leased to individuals (by the end of the reign of Peter I, most of the manufactories and factories in Moscow were in private hands). From 1714 to 1725, 21 enterprises were founded by Moscow nobles and merchants. Not sure if their workers enjoyed their lives too much.
In 1720s Moscow gubernia amounted to more than 40% of the internal trade in Russia so the Moscow merchants and manufacturers definitely had reasons for enjoying the situation.

Now, the bureaucracy in and outside Moscow definitely enjoyed it because the ever-growing aspects of life had been sucked under its umbrella. The bribe as a “gratitude for the services expected or rendered” was an old Russian tradition going centuries back. The officials were expected to live on such donations simply because the state did not have money to pay them the descent salaries. Stealing from the state was a crime and extortion of the bribes, especially using force, also could be prosecuted. So, in general, a bribe was not considered as something shameful by a society, which pretty much doomed the official attempts to fight them. And how could such a fight be successful if both civilian and military administration were routinely underfunded? Yes, the foreign trade was picking up but a miracle was not going to happen overnight and the salaries still were a problem. Squeezing the tax-paying classes even more was not necessarily a good idea. Even implementation of Munnich’s proposal to stop paying the foreign mercenaries salaries three times higher than to their Russian counterparts was not enough to change situation dramatically. Of course, all this was happening within a framework of the increasing bureaucratic machine, which was consuming the growing amounts of money. So the “government” had to wait while trying to increase the revenues by increasing the exports and internal trade, keeping expenses under control avoiding the expensive wars and hoping that the state income is growing faster than the funds consumed by a bureaucratic swamp.

The court news (for those interested in the royal lines, marriages, etc. 😜)

• After giving a birth to a healthy daughter named Elizabeth, Empress Maria had to more babies, each of whom died within a month.
• Alexey and Elena did not have more children leaving, so far, a single male succession line.
• Charles XII got a heir named Frederick
• Peter started considering matrimonial plans regarding his grandchildren.
• There were rumors regarding Peter paying too much of an attention to one of his wife’s ladies in waiting, Maria Rumyantseva.

______________
[1] Such important people live and die in Moscow!
[2] Depending on how you pronounce it, this may mean “you have to wait” («надо ждать») or you have to give [a bribe] («надо ж дать») 😂
[3] Build whatever you want
[4] Peter’s ukaz ordering every home owner to pave a street in from of his house died from the natural causes.
[5] Ukaz about the paving was dead but still in existence. For a house owner a final destination of a fine did not make a difference except that one going into an individual pocket was smaller than officially prescribed.
[6] In OTL this was Catherine II.
[7] Usually, along the lines of “how to improve things without making any changes”. Most of these people had plenty of free time (few of them were ready to waste it on making management of their estates more efficient) and not all of them managed to spend all of it on eating, drinking, carts, womanizing and hunting so “reconstruction of society” was a conversation topic as good as discussing the merits of a favorite wolfhound of a racing horse.
[8] “Ace” («туз»), as in the cards, was a definition of a VIP (socially or financially).
[9] Actually, he belonged to CII times but do you really care? 😜

​

 

[alexmilman]

78. Life in Moscow (cont.)

«А в ненастные дни
Собирались они Часто.
Гнули, Бог их прости!
От пятидесяти
На сто.
И выигрывали
И отписывали
Мелом.
Так в ненастные дни
Занимались они
Делом.» [1]
Pushkin
​

The cards
Peter the Great never played cards himself and was intolerant to the card game at his court. But there is reason to assume that card players were already acting at that time. Thus, according to Peter's charter, it was not allowed in the army and navy to lose more than one ruble in cards. Peter, however, liked to play chess with his cross priest Khrisanorov.

But, with Peter being safely away from Moscow for most of the year, the card games became popular in a “society” and even crept their way into the Young Court. Of course, the measures had been taken to prevent Peter’s wrath by introducing the official restrictions. Charter of the Descent Behavior (April 8, 1722) prohibited playing cards or other than games based on lucky chance or involving big amounts of money and directed the administration to make sure “that no one can: 1) have his house or a hired one to be open day or night to the players and used for the forbidden games ; 2) getting together for playing a forbidden game; 3) live exclusively off the forbidden games; 4) merchants or craftsmen or brokers to be, or to be here at a forbidden game, or in that game to write down, or to keep an account, or to notice what, or to contribute to the game, or to carry with you, or to send, or to borrow, or to promise, or otherwise directly, or by the party to deliver for that game gold or silver, in a coin or in business, or by appropriations, or copper money, or precious stones…, or things, or other goods of any type, or bill; 5) in the game to use theft is fraud.” [2] Specific names of the forbidden games were not identified based upon an assumption that any type of a game can be turned into the high staked gambling.

Even before this decree in 1721, by a decree of October 13, it was forbidden to pay debts on the card game and ordered to refuse to pay money to lenders, if they were knowingly given it for the game. This decree stated that "fathers and mothers of children who are not separated from a family don”t have to pay card debts for them" and "given from these last promissory notes and mortgages are not valid".

Of course, all these regulations were in vain. For example, Prince Sapeha lost all his estate gambling. One very rich aristocrat had been intentionally losing to his partners if he knew that they are poor: just offering money would be humiliating but gain in the cards was OK.

While the aristocrats remained pretty much above the law, a small fish could get itself on a wrong side of a law: “Collegiate assessors Ievlev and Malimonov, second-major Rostein, second lieutenant Volzhin and secretary Popov for an dishonest game to exile to the district cities of the Vologda and Vyatka provinces under the supervision of city administrators and also putting their names in public statements, so that everybody will beware of them”. Moreover, from Volzhin it was confiscated promissory notes, pawnshop tickets and mortgages for 159,000 rubles, and in addition, a lot of gold and diamonds. The confiscated wealth was transferred to a Charities Department of the Moscow administration. The “gambling academics” had been daily escorted to the head of the Moscow police but the new had been appearing on at least the same rate.

“A gambling was going on in every noble house at night, and then the state pawnshop was more and more filled with the mortgage of peasant souls. This institution of cheap and long-term loan did not serve the nobility at first. Twenty million given to landlords led to even greater development of luxury and ruin of the nobility. The transitions from luxury to ruin were quick and sudden.” [3]

On the very top level, the card game was quite often used as a political and diplomatic tool with an intention to impress the foreign dignitaries. Alexey was not, in general, too fond of the cards but from time to time played them with the foreign diplomats. For one of such games “there was a box of diamonds on each of the tables prepared for playing macao, and each nine will be paid for with a one carat stone…. After an hour and a half of the game, the guests shared the remaining diamonds. Diplomats were especially amazed by the game of gold and gems - les soupes aux pois”.

The theater and other entertainments

The Mecklenburg envoy, Weber, who was in Moscow during Peter's time, left a description of the theater of the king's beloved sister, Grand Duchess Natalia. Her theater was placed in a huge empty house, where the stalls and lodges were arranged; everyone was free to visit this theater. There were tragedies and comedies, the plots of which were borrowed from the Bible or from ordinary everyday adventures. The troupe consisted of ten Russian actors and actresses of the most ordinary quality. About the performances, he says that the role of Harlequin was entrusted to one chief official, and he interfered with his jokes here and there in the continuation of the whole action; then the speaker came out and told the course and content of the play, and finally followed the play itself, which depicted the failure of the uprisings and the always unfortunate end of them In this play, as contemporaries explained to Weber, one of the last Sagittarius indignations was brought to the stage. Performances at the People's Theater on Red Square were given on Mondays and Thursdays, these days the gates in the Kremlin, Kitay-gorod and the White City were not locked until nine o'clock in the evening, and travel fees were not taken from both Russians and foreign people passing by, "to watch that spectacles go willingly."

A whole troupe of craftsmen dancing on a rope, jumping, breaking and representing "pantomim" also arrived. There was a visiting Italian Joseph Julian Schweitzer with a number of large and small dogs accustomed to various amazing actions. For watching, he took first a ruble from a person, and then half, and from ordinary people - 10 kopecks per person.

Moscow also watched the African bird “strus” or ostrich; it was announced that this bird is larger than all birds in the world and extremely soon runs, spreading its wings, and has special power in its claws, which can grab a stone on the run and hit it as hard as if it were shot with a gun; this bird eats steel, iron, all sort Each of the nobles can pay for watching it according to his own permission, and there will be 25 kopecks from the merchants. The price will be announced to ordinary people at the very entrance.

The first circus was opened by the English bereitor Bates, notifying the public with the following poster: "By the highest permission, the glorious English bereitor Bates, who has reached his current perfection in bereiting through long-term science, so that no one has seen it anywhere else in England or anywhere else, will show viewers the following art: 1) he rides two horses on an open field a few pals around. 2) Simultaneously rides three horses in full speed switching from one to the other in an amazing way. 3) Rides three horses; letting two of them go, and jumps on the third, without preventing the horses from running. 4) Riding one horse to jump, jumps with it and jumps up again with amazing agility and jumps over it. He (Bates) asks that the audience not bring any dogs, so that they would not disturb the performance. One ruble will be charged from each person."

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Italian Locatelli gave public masquerades and balls; the price for entering them was very high: he took 3 rubles for the entrance from a person. This Locatelli was the first to introduce Russians to Italian opera - his opera buff, according to contemporaries, was delighting both court and society; his opera was then attended by the best artists invited by him from Italy and Germany; the singers were then called operaists and operaists; Locatelli also employed tze dancers and musicians. Its premiere was the famous Manfredini castrate. His theater stood at the Red Gate, it was called the Opera House. Here is one of his advertisements: “For the pleasure of the nobles and other local capital city residents, the free masquerades will begin here next Sunday. Those who want to come to these masquerades have to pay three rubles from each person for the entrance Who wants to have dinner, as well as coffee, tea and drinks, they will receive in the same house for a special fee. Masquerades will begin with a concert until so many masks gather that the ball can be conceived; and from now on, the congress in the masquerade has every Sunday at 7 o'clock in the afternoon, and without a masquerade dress no one will be allowed in. Those who want to buy tickets and masks of all kinds can purchase them in the same house from 8 a.m. till the end of the event.”

For the commoners, there were the skating mountains, merry-go-rounds, swings, etc. Such ski mountains and other ventures were arranged in Moscow at the Pokrovsky Palace. All these pleasures were arranged in the squares to entertain the people throughout Shrovetide, and everyone could "go there, watch different games, dances, puppet comedies, focus-pocus and different body movements and skating from the mountains all week, from morning to night, in a mask or without a mask, who would like any title of people"

_____________
[1] A lot of specific card terms, which I don’t know but, basically “They had been often getting together when the weather was bad and played cards winning and losing big sums of money (more than they had with them so the amounts had been written down on a table by chalk). This was their occupation when the weather was bad.”
[2] Decree of Catherine II.
[3] Pyliaev “Card games in old times”

​

 

[alexmilman]

79. Back to Asia

“You've got problems in Central Asia.”
Tony Blair
“There are many misunderstandings between Russia and China: Mongolia..”
Invan Urgant
“The coat of arms of Russia depicts a double-headed eagle: one head looks towards Europe, the other - towards Asia. Russia somehow of no interest for them”
Unknown authot
​

Below is Dzungar Khanate (in green) on the Russian map composed in 1720-25.

The уears 1705-20 saw “war and peace” situation on what passed for the Russian-Dzungar border. Conflicts had been caused mostly by the Russian expeditions into what the Dzungars considered as their own territory but for time to time the Dzungars were going on the offensive as well. While initially for the Russian side these were shoe-string operations badly organized (by Prince Gagarin), like Buchholz's expedition, with no adequate logistics, no locally produced military supplies and inadequate numbers: due to the shortage of the locally available troops, the reinforcements had to march all the way from European Russia.

However, by 1720 situation changed quite dramatically. To start with, Russian population of Siberia grew noticeably. Then a local manufacturing base had been created and the plants in Tobolsk, Kuznetsk and other cities had been able to produce the gunpowder and firearms, including the artillery. The same goes for a permanent military presence: after the war with the Ottomans and BFW had been over, Russian “Western flank” was seemingly secure allowing transfer of a noticeable amount of troops to the East of the Ural. Some of them had been used to garrison the fortified line protecting the Junior Zhuz and some marched further all the way to the region of Baikal Lake. Construction of a reasonably good (by the Russian standards) Siberian tract and general expansion into the region allowed support of a growing number of the regular troops. These troops had been augmented by the local Cossacks, both those coming from Russia and by the native tribes which had been given a Cossack status [1].

On the other side of the equation situation had been changing as well. Since 1716 Khong Tayiji Tsewang Rabtan started a war with China for the Khalkha steppes lost at the end of the XVII century. In 1717-1720, the Oirats occupied and held Tibet, but then there was a series of defeats. In addition, the Dzungarian Khanate was subjected to continuous attacks by Kazakhs. The danger of war on three fronts forced the Dzungar to change his attitude towards Russia. These changes manifested themselves during the embassy of I. D. Cheredov sent to the Khong Tayiji in 1719. He was carrying the message demanding to punish those responsible for attacking Buchholz's detachment; return captured prisoners, treasury, horses; not to prevent Russian expeditions in search of ores and construction of fortresses. The embassy arrived in Urgu on October 11, 1719. At first, he was treated cruelly: he was put "on a clean steppe, in anhydrous and place without the trees", surrounded by guards and no one was released anywhere; guards beat members of the embassy, took away personal belongings, brought prisoners taken near Yamyshev to the Russian camp and brutally tortured them. But at the end of November 1720, the attitude towards the embassy changed dramatically. Dzungarian officials began to properly supply ambassadors with food and showed signs of attention. Meetings of Cheredov with the Khong Tayiji took place almost daily. Tsewang Rabtan assured the ambassador that the border between Russia and Dzungaria should pass along the river Om and complained to him: "Now the Chinese king has risen against me, and the king of China claims that he is the king over all kings and there is nobody higher then him in all the earth and I’m asking that your sovereign would not give me to the king of China." During the meetings, he asked the ambassador in detail about the living conditions of the Volga Kalmyks, expressed a desire with Russia "to live in friendship and bid." Through I. D. Cheredov, he appealed to Peter I with a request: "1. He (Peter) would defend him from the Chinese and the Mungal [2] and he would live like Ayuka Khan; 2. Peter would take away the mungals from the Chinese, give him, like he gave to Ayuke the Magnuts (Nogays) as the vassals; 3. So that he can still take yasak [3] from the people from whom he is getting it now; 4. Peter wouldn't accept the Kalmyks (Oirats) who fled from him and return the fugitives.”
In January 1721, Khong Tayiji sent an embassy to Moscow. In May, the ambassadors reached Tobolsk and handed over to Governor A. M. Cherkasy letter from the Khong Tayiji, in which he offered the subjects of the two states to live "in council and in love" and asked to speed up the sending of 20,000 Russian troops to Dzungaria. The governor said that without the instructions of the tsar, he could not send troops to Dzungaria.
In early September 1721, the Dzungarian ambassadors arrived in Moscow and on September 6 Peter I was presented with a letter from Tsevang Rabtan in which he asked the Russian emperor to be "defended from Chinese and Mungal forces" and promised to "live as Ayuka Khan lives." He asked Peter to treat the Oirats "in a merciful manner" and allowed Russian subjects to look for ore, gold and silver in his possessions. On November 26, an imperial charter was signed, in which Peter I notified Tsevang Rabtan of the departure of Ambassador I. Unkovsky, "who has our decree on our inclined mercy to you, and how we deign to accept you under our protection and what is our intention regarding your petitions is going to be..."
Embassy of I. Unkovsky 1722-1723 was a major event in Russian-Oirat relations. His goal was to convince Tsevang Rabatan to sign an agreement on voluntary transfer to Russian citizenship on terms similar to that of Ayuk Khan. At some point the mission looked doomed because in December 1722 Kangxi Emperor died and for a while Tsevang Rabatan was contemplating a possibility to maneuver between Peter and a new Chinese Emperor, Yongzheng.

However, eventually Tsevang Rabatan came to the conclusion that after all, China, no matter who is in charge, represents an e existential danger for the Oirat state. He sent a new ambassador Dorgi to Russia, who was received by Peter I on April 4, 1724. Application to take Dzungar state under the Russian protection was granted [4] and having received a reply letter from Peter I to Khong Tayiji on September 28, 1724, Dorji went home.

On one hand this was a major diplomatic success for Peter formally placing under his control both Dzungar and Kazakh territories but OTOH, he just got on his hands a big time bomb which could place in danger the recently achieved agreement regarding the Russian-Qing border and trade. However, there was also a personal aspect in the whole situation: Peter, after all his successes in Europe, considered a condescending Chinese attitude (“Russia is an insignificant vassal state”) quite offensive and would not mind to teach the Qing a practical lesson regarding the relative significances.
As for the risks:

• The fur trade became a meager factor in the Russian foreign trade and the Chinese imported goods were not in the “strategic” category and could be obtained through the CA or European traders.
• The banner armies placed in Manchuria and Mongolia on paper amounted to 200,000 but at any point only one third of that number was in service and logistics needed for raising all of them made such an effort almost unrealistic.
• Weaponry belonged to the early-mid XVII: huge matchlocks requiring support, the best cannons being copied from the Portuguese guns of early/mid-XVII and proved not to be too impressive during the siege of Albazin. Most of the infantry still having the polearms, swords and the bows.

• Infantry with the firearms was using tactics of the 30YW (infantry caracole).
• The rest still relied upon attack with a pike or sword.
• 
• Cavalry was of a seemingly good quality but the last Ottoman War provided an adequate experience in that regard and both his own Kalmyks and Dzungars had a lot of high-quality “Eastern style” cavalry.
• While for the last few years he was building a massive logistic base close to the potential theater, the Qing had nothing of the kind anywhere close.
• Loyalty of the Khalka Mongols to the Qing was rather on a negotiable side and at least some of them could be persuaded to switch their loyalties.
  

Of course, there was also a good chance that, with a new Emperor seemingly having the domestic problems, a direct confrontation is a matter of years rather than months and he will have more time to strengthen his position even further.

So Peter was willing to take a risk.

___________
[1] The tangible benefits included guaranteed land (an outsider could not take it from them), freedom from taxation, regular salary and supply of the firearms. Also, there was an administrative protection against various types of the smart guys trying to cheat them out of their possessions. The downside was a need to perform some kind of a military service and to get at least a rudimentary training. On a balance, the deal was not bad.
[2] Khalka Mongols.
[3] tribute
[4] In OTL Tsevang Rabatan changed his mind again (expecting that with a new Emperor China is not going to be a threat) and the sides just exchanged the letters about mutual friendship. So this is a substantial POD

 

[alexmilman]

80. Calculated risk?

“…If he is wise, he accepts calculated risks but not reckless ones…”
regarding Operation Market Garden

“The less you think, the more like-minded people you have”
Author unknown

“May I answer without thinking?”
Student on exam

​

Peter’s willingness to accept the Dzungar offer was a mixture of a knee-jerk reaction and the valid considerations.

On a valid side was a peaceful acquisition (not immediate annexation but this was a matter of time) of the huge territories and, if the things go as expected, strengthening Russian position vs. China by adding the Dzungar military resources to those Russia had in the region. Plus, an ability to build the forts and settlements on the Dzungar territory could seriously improve security of the Russian possessions in Siberia, which so far had been regularly suffering from the Dzungar raids.

Of course, the “knee-jerk” part involved a rather optimistic view regarding ability to handle the Dzungars and preventing their current and future rulers from causing problems with China and from rebelling against their new master. After all, Dzungar Khanate could raise up to 80,000 of a good quality troops, which was not a trifle.

Accepting the Dzungar application was also a risky move because neither Peter nor anybody in his government could predict the Qing reaction with any degree of a certainty. Not that a war with Qing looked as much more than a big-scale border conflict but such a conflict could be dragged on for a long time consuming resources beyond its true value and potentially diminishing the Russian ability to react to other conflicts like the ongoing Ottoman-Persian mess (so far Russia managed to remain neutral but, if getting too successful, the Ottomans may be emboldened to renounce the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. Then, the Favorite Pet was getting old and, while there was no obvious Hapsburg or French challenge to the candidacy of his son backed by Russia and Sweden, a serious Russian engagement far in Asia may result in some creative ideas (of course, it was extremely unlikely that Austria and France are going to present an unified front on that issue but the European politics was quite convoluted).

Discussion between Prince Dolgoruky (Foreign Affairs Collegium ) and Prince Golitsyn (Military Collegium) resulted in a “dual strategy” presented to Peter:

• The military aspect: To move more troops and supples to the East (including Dzungar territory), accelerate fortification of the Dzungar-Qing border (chain of the forts garrisoned by the Russian regulars and the Cossacks) and keep a close watch over Tsevang Rabatan’s activities preventing him from attacking the Qing without an order. Train and arm some Dzungar infantry troops keeping them under control of the Russian officers and stimulating their loyalty to the new commanders by nice treatment and regularly paid salary. Taking into an account the huge logistical problems required for a major Qing mobilization and a low quality of the banner troops available in the region (both Manchu and Khalka Mongols), immediate presence of the 30-40,000 Russian regular troops with the addition of the irregulars and the Dzungar troops looked as a deterrent serious enough to prevent the Qing from a knee-jerk reaction.​
• The diplomatic aspect: Let the Qing know (though still functioning border commission) that Russia is going to prevent the Dzungars from trying to retake Tibet (providing the Qing is going to guarantee a freedom of pilgrimage). Find the members of Dzungar aristocracy willing to cooperate with the new masters and court them in usual way (as was done with the Kalmyks, Kazakhs, etc.). Pay special attention to Galdan Tseren, the eldest son of Tsewang Rabtan: invite him to visit Moscow (an offer which Tsewang Rabtan hardly can refuse) and organize a very nice reception. Basically, the usual program which worked fine with everybody else. Keeping in mind that the base of the Dzungar wealth laid in the profits gained from their control of the trade route between Russia and China, the well known Tea Road, keep pressing the point that they are getting more benefits from the peace than from war.​

Somewhat to everybody’s surprise (😉) this schema proved to be successful. To a great degree this was because Emperor Yongzheng, with all his traditional imperial posturing, had quite a few problems of his own.

To start with, there was a widely circulated rumor that Yinzhen was crowned emperor after he modified Kangxi Emperor's final will that detailed who will succeed him. Immediately after succeeding to the throne, the Yongzheng Emperor chose his new governing council. It consisted of the eighth prince Yinsi, 13th prince Yinxiang, Zhang Tingyu, Ma Qi, and Longkodo. The earlier players in the battle for succession, Yinzhi, the eldest, and Yinreng, the former crown prince, continued to live under house arrest. Yinreng died two years after the Yongzheng Emperor's reign began. While bestowing upon Yinsi the highest ranks, Yongzheng held him under close watch and kept him busy with affairs of state, reducing the chance of him conducting behind-the-scenes political maneuvers. Yinsi's allies received notably different treatment. Yintang was sent to Qinghai under the pretext of military service, but in reality was watched over by the Yongzheng Emperor's trusted protégé, Nian Gengyao. Yin'e, the tenth prince, was told to leave the capital to send off a departing Mongol prince, but since he refused to complete this trip as the emperor commanded, the Yongzheng Emperor stripped him of all his titles in May 1724 and sent him north to Shunyi to languish in solitude. His own brother, Yinti, was removed from his military appointment, recalled to the capital and placed under the house arrest. The emperor also confiscated the assets of Yintang and Yin'e. [1] Soon enough he got rid of his main military supporter, Nian Gengyao, who started getting excessively high opinion regarding himself (he will be forced to commit suicide in 1726) and was on his way of doing the same to the second one, Longkodo, the commander of the militias stationed at the capital at the time of the Yongzheng Emperor's succession (he will fell in disgrace in 1728 and die while under house arrest).

But, besides all that political entertainment, there was the usual problem with the money. In 1721 the treasury income was 32,622,421 taels out of which the total military budget came up to about 10 million taels a year [2]. Taking into an account that any serious military campaign would cost few millions taels and that the Russian involvement could result in a prolonged costly conflict, a resulting financial burden could seriously impact the Emperor’s ability to conduct the reforms he had been planning. And, all the traditional posturing aside, the information brought by the earlier embassy to Russia and by the participants of Kjakhta Commission regarding the Russian troops was not encouraging if compared to the equipment and condition of the banner troops available in Mongolia and Manchuria.

So the last thing he wanted at that point was an expensive war with an unclear outcome and the Russian proposal regarding peaceful resolution of the Tibet issue looked as a money-saving bonus.

As a result, both sides treated the Russian-Dzungarian pact as an issue unrelated to the Kjakhta Treaty and commission continued its work upon marking the border [3]. In the early January of 1725 Russian military and diplomatic mission was sent to Tsewang Rabtan’s court to discuss details of the forts construction, garrisons supply, security of the Tea Road and to distribute the generous gifts and even more generous promises.


But while this mission was on its way a courier caught up with it delivering the latest news from the capital….
____________
[1] Personally, I already lost track of all these royal personages. It seems to me that he was steadily getting rid of a potential opposition within his family but the process was taking a while.
[2] Compare this to the OTL Russian expenses during the GNW: at the peak they were above 80% and afterwards dropped to something like 60-65%. Actually, the 10M apply to 1730 when income was over 60,000,000. Taking into an account that even these expenses had been depleting the Qing treasury, I wonder what he was spending the rest of his money upon. The OTL Tibet campaign of 1728 cost 8M but still this does not look as being anywhere close. Perhaps the Brits were right considering Chinese “uncivilized barbarians” because the “civilized” governments rarely were concerned about the cost of their military adventures. 😂
[3] Part of these negotiation was settlement of the Russian-Khalka border.

 

[alexmilman]

81. The Emperor is dead

“The art of government comes down to the ability to gild the pill”
Adolphe Thiers
“…how to turn a loss-making enterprise into a profitable one without changing anything in it”
Saltykov-Schedrin​

According to the official version, the reason for Peter’s death was a pneumonia. The alternative versions included Cystitis, Pyelonephritis, Prostate cancer, Chronic gonorrhea and even poison.

“Many foreign doctors consider false stone disease to be the cause of his death, which followed January 28, 1725. The section done after his death resolved all doubts, because they could not find stones. Other authors equally unfairly attributed the disease to its consequence of the syphilitic phase. Most foreigners believe that the main cause of chyrs near the bladder. The most ridiculous thing, however, is the opinion of those who believe that the cause of Peter the Great's last disease is poison given to him during his youth.” [1]


Chronicle of Peter’s death [:
On January 16, Peter began to feel dying torment. He screamed from the pain.

On the 22nd, he confessed and communed. All the … doctors gathered at the sovereign's. They were silent; but everyone saw Peter's desperate state. He no longer had the strength to scream and only moaned, smearing urine.

On the 26th evening, he got worse. He was anointed.

On the 27th, those present began to say goodbye to him. He greeted everyone with a quiet look. Then he said with effort: "after..." Everyone went out, obeying his will for the last time. He didn't say anything anymore. He suffered for 15 hours, moaned, constantly pulling his right hand, his left hand was already paralyzed. Peter stopped moaning, his breath stopped - at 6 a.m. on January 28, Peter died.

On February 2, the sovereign's corpse was opened and embalmed. They took off his plaster mask.

Immediately, a year-long mourning had been declared during which ladies were supposed to wear mourning dresses, and gentlemen were supposed to wear mourning bandages on their sleeves. Before the burial, everyone was ordered to dress in black clothes, and the highest dignitaries (up to lieutenant general) were ordered to cover two rooms in their homes in black.

According to the old Moscow tradition, the burial was scheduled for the 40th day (early March 1725). Meanwhile, a "Sad Commission" headed by Jacob Bruce was created to organize the funeral. Bruce and his assistants did everything to turn the king's funeral from a purely church rite into a state event. In this regard, much was borrowed in the West, and the immediate model for them was the funeral ceremony of Franz Lefort, developed by the Tsar himself in 1699. On January 30, his body (pre-opened and embalmed) was exhibited for farewell in the "Marer Palace Hall". On February 13, it was moved to the "Sad Hall" prepared during these days, where it was located until the burial.

The design of the "Sad Hall" corresponded to the emperor's favorite military-imperial style. The best artists and architects worked on it. In addition to the usual decorations (figures, coats of arms, symbols), pyramids with inscriptions were placed in the hall. The walls of the hall were originally upholstered with trellis depicting "Wonders of Christ", but Alexey, looking at them, ordered Bruce and Bock to upholster them with just black cloth.

In the center of the hall, an elevation was made, covered with carmazine velvet and gold carpets ("amvon"). It was placed with a golden brocadebed under a rich canopy. The modern engraving shows that Peter is lying in his guards uniform. There are crowns in the headboard on the pillows. There is a guard of honor along the walls. Simultaneously with the farewell, preparations for the funeral were taking place. Copies of the printed "Body transfer ceremony" were sent to all guests. A day or two before the funeral, heralds in the main city squares announced the day and hour of the beginning of the mourning procession.

On March 10, 1725, the transfer of the body of Peter to the Cathedral of Archangel [3] began. The signal for the beginning of the ceremony was a shot from a cannon. The procession was divided into 14 departments, each headed by a master of the ceremony and a marshal. The procession was opened and closed by the detachments of the Mounted Guard. More than 10,000 people participated in the procession, including 200 clergymen. In front of the chariot with a coffin were carried the coats of arms of the largest cities and the Emperor’s awards, there were singers, senior clergy and officials followed by the ambassadors from Baltic Alliance (as family representatives).

The mourning chariot was drawn by 8 horses in black blankets. There were 60 guards scorers with lit candles on the sides of it. Above the coffin, 10 staff officers carried a rich canopy on cast silver poles with coats of arms. His cover was held by two colonels.

The royal regalia were carried after the chariot. They were followed by a new Emperor, the Empress, the Widowed Empress and other senior officials (all in black). Peter was buried with a gold crown on his head in a sealed coffin. Following the tradition, the coffin was placed under a slab of stone.


New reign starts

The day after the death of the Emperor, members of the royal family, the generals, the Senate and the Synod and the Guards swore allegiance to the new monarch. Coronation, by tradition, happened only after the mourning period was over, on February 24 1726.

The coronation of Alexey II was the first imperial coronation in the history of Russia according to the "established rank". Former Russian rulers had been crowned by an old “Byzantine-style” rite and Peter did not use any additional rite when he was declared an emperor. For the new rite of coronation of Alexey II was based on the old rite, but taking into account the experience of European countries - France, Sweden, the Holy Roman Empire, Denmark. For the first time, the state banner, sword, seal and diamond chain of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called were added to the traditional imperial regalia - an erine mantle of gold brocade with embroidered eagles, the globe, scepter and diamond crown [4]. The rite was complicated by the introduction of Psalm 100 into it, which was performed at the emperor's entrance to the cathedral. The Coronation was carried out by Novgorod Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich.

The manifesto issued on the occasion of the celebration announced the relief of the tax burden and the easing of punishments for convicts, 37 people were promoted, the people received treats, and "fireworks were burned in the Tsaritsyn meadow."

But this was later and a business of governing could not wait for the whole year. Fortunately, Alexey was already pretty much in charge of the routine affairs for the last few years so the transition was expected to be smooth and it was.

Of course, situation involved visits of the foreign ambassadors with the mandatory expression of the condolences both on the official and, in the cases of Sweden, Denmark and Mecklenburg, family level as well: after all, Peter was “everybody’s uncle” and as such something of a patriarch of the Baltic Mafia family. All of them had been assured that nothing changes and that the new Emperor is going to follow policies of a dead one and that the family relations remain very important to him.

With the “outsiders” (Britain, HRE, France) “nothing new” attitude had been maintained: Russia is intended to be friendly with everybody while not committing itself to any new alliances.

Russian resident in the Ottoman Empire, Ivan Nepluev, was promoted to the rank of Ambassador Plenipotentiary to underscore importance of the good relations and simplify the future diplomatic talks, which were more than once handicapped by the limited powers of his low diplomatic rank. The Ottomans had to be assured that the existing agreements regarding their “interests” in Persia are going to be respected.

The only “link” that had to be strengthened was Prussia and an issue of a potential royal marriage (after the mourning period will be over) had been brought to the Prussian ambassador: after all Alexey’s children, Peter and Natalia, were of the same ages (give or take an year) as Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine of Prussia and her younger brother Frederick and by 1726 all of them would be of a marriageable age. Marriage to the Russian imperial family surely would be a bonus for Prussia on more than one account.

On the less noticeable scale there were two more actions, both seemingly unimportant:

• Alexey’s mother, Eudoxia, was immediately recalled to Moscow. She returned to the former capital with a great pomp and was allowed to keep her own court at the Novodevichy Convent [5] until her death in 1731. This did not undermine position of the Widowed Empress Maria, with whom Alexey and his wife maintained the good relations, and while noticeably improving the living conditions of Eudoxia and providing her with a certain degree of prestige, kept her far away from being of any influence. The convent’s location on the outskirts of Moscow allowed for easy visits and maintenance of at least appearances of a happy family.

• Menshikov was allowed to return to the capital and even made a member if the Senate. As a political figure he was not a danger anymore but he, undeniably, had a vast experience, which can be useful.

As far as Alexey was concerned, the Senate was steadily going to evolve from its initial governing position into a place for a “honorable retirement”. As a governing body it proved to be absolutely inadequate due to its slowness and somewhat ambiguous position between a monarch and the Collegiums, especially taking into an account that the foreign and military affairs already had been exempt from its jurisdiction. In Alexey’s opinion, the Senate, as some kind of a collective government, made certain sense with an absentee Emperor who spent a big part of his reign being out of the capita. Other than that, it was clearly incapable of providing a normally functioning administration being just a very inefficient buffer between a monarch and the Collegiums AND also spending enormous amount of time on dealing with the individual’s complaints and applications. So, it would be reasonable to have some kind of a cabinet of the ministers composed of the heads of the Collegiums (with some additions, if necessary) and to make Senate something of a supreme judicial body responsible for checking compliance of the imperial degrees with the existing laws, reviewing individual complaints (after they passed through the courts), etc. The transfer to a new form of the government had to be done quietly to avoid an impression of a drastic change of the government’s course.

Another change was abolishment of a collective responsibility. When created by Peter, the Collegiums had to make their decisions by the unanimous vote of their members (the top level, of course). In theory, this should led to the well-considered decisions but in practice it proved to be a good way to avoid the individual responsibility (it was unlikely that the whole top level is going to be punished) and led to a very slow decision-making process. Following the letter of the decree, President of a Collegium was just a figurehead putting his signature on the top of others but hardly individually responsible for anything. De facto, the practice already changed in the Foreign Affairs and Military Collegiums but the rest, with the Senate’s support, happily held to the consensus system. After all, by definition, “collegium” is a group in which each member has approximately equal power and authority. 😉

Changing the attitudes within the existing system looked as a massive waste of time (Alexey already tried this during his father’s reign with a very little success) so the simplest and cheapest solution was to change the name from “Collegium” to “Ministry” and position of a President to one of a Minister. Change of a name cost very little but a traditional excuse for doing nothing had been gone. A direct subordination of the ministers to the Emperor made a traditional modus operandi even less sustainable.

Mission to the Dzungars was informed about the change of a ruler and ordered to proceed with its task, stressing invitation to Galdan Tseren.

Kjakhta Commission was informed with the order to pass information to the Qing court with the usual assurances of friendship and willingness to continue the border-charting process. Governor of the Eastern Siberia was ordered to keep his troops ready to any eventuality.



_____________

[1] Court physician and professor of the School of Medicine of Moscow University Wilhelm Richter, "History of Medicine in Russia"1, 1814
[2] Based upon Pushkin’s “History of Peter the Great”
[3] A traditional burial place of the Russian monarchs.
[4] Actually, the diamond imperial crown was an innovation: traditionally, the Russian monarchs had been crowned by “Monomakh’s Cap” or its modifications.
[5] The most prestigious place for the high-ranking widows with the very relaxed regulations.

 

[alexmilman]

82. Still in Asia…

“It is impossible [in the Central Asia] to go ahead in a passionate impulse - this path will not lead to the goal here. You need to move forward slowly, patiently and faithfully, be always ready to deal with new and new difficulties.”
Ivan Efremov
«Ходы прямые роет упрямый глупый крот; нормальные герои всегда идут в обход»
song from an old movie [1]
«На дурака не нужен нож, ему с три короба наврешь, и делай с ним что хош»
song from another old movie[2]
​

The last deed of the Peter’s reign, acceptance of Dzungar submission as a Russian vassal, was committed and now it was up to a new ruler to deal with its immediate and long-term consequences. Below is a map of the 1710s showing the Dzungar Khanate [3]

And this is OTL regional map (“China” on the right is Dzungar Khanate IITL) to get a better idea of a broader regional situation.

So here are the main “issues” and opportunities:

• Acknowledgement of a vassal status by the Dzungars was fine but a lot of work will be needed for developing this formal acknowledgement into the effective Russian control of the Khanate. The schema, for achieving that goal was already in action in the Kalmyk Khanate and in the Junior Zhuz but this was a long-term and not a straightforward process starting with the “domestication” of the local ruling class, gradual increase of the Russian presence (including construction of the fortifications), establishment of a pro-Russian ruler and, eventually, after his death, replacing the local rule with the Russian administration while leaving, for a while, a considerable power in the hands of the tribal leaders. Rushing the process, as happened with the Bashkirs, could led to the uprisings. Of course, crushing these revolts was accelerating the process but it was also consuming the resources because the unhappy regions needed a permanent military presence and fleecing the unhappy “natives” was less productive then the happy ones. So, the first thing needed was strengthening the pro-Russian sentiments of the current Dzungar ruler and making sure that his successor is going to be even more loyal. He was already on his way to Moscow and the intention was to give him a very good reception.
• The whole schema so far did not trigger any objections from the Qing but it was not officially acknowledged either, leaving the present Emperor or his successor with a free hand if he decides to attack the Dzungar Khanate, which, taking into an account the traditional Chinese imperial claims, was a distinct possibility. Which meant that Russian government will have to strengthen its defenses by building a new fortified line on the Dzungar-Chinese border to keep the Dzungars in (thus preventing the provocations against China) and Qing out. A vital part if the schema was a need to keep the Dzungar military force strong enough to be useful both for defense against China and for contributing to the Russian plans regarding the CA khanates while maintaining that strength below the level which may make a Khong Tayiji too independent.
• The agreement made the Great and Middle Kazakh Zhuzes pretty much surrounded on the West (Junior Zhuz), North (Russia) and East (Dzungars) which made their acceptance of the Russian rule a matter of a very short time (“work” on their nobility was already going on and a formal application was expected to be a matter of few months, with an alternative being the Russian-Dzungar invasion). The problem was in a separation of these two Zhuzes from the Dzungars who considered them their tributaries (with the resulting Kazakh resistance). As the first step, this status was going to be preserved but under the Russian supervision to prevent the excesses and stop the fighting. A separating line of the forts has to be created, the yasak (tribute) was going to be collected by the Russian authorities and a part of it given to the Dzungars.
• As soon as the remaining two Zhuzes will submit, the next step was going to be a two-prong attack on Kokand and Bukhara. Khiva was of a lower priority both logistically and economically but Bukhara, ruled by Astrakhanids, was too rich to let it to remain independent and a newly-created (in 1709) Khanate of Kokand, besides other considerations (like controlling the fertile Fergana Valley), was vital for a secure control of Bukhara.

All of the above required a continually increasing Russian presence in the region stretching from the Yaik River and all the way to the East of the Baykal Lake. Which, in turn, required a limited distraction by the European affairs, especially by those outside of the Baltic region. OTOH, an ability to dedicate more resources to the East required a greater positive balance of the Russian exports to the Western trade partners and growth of the domestic manufacturing, especially in the areas which may be relevant for maintaining the Eastward move, which meant production of a wide nomenclature of items from the weapons and all the way to the things used in the CA barter trade (fabrics, household utensils, grains, etc.).

The experience already demonstrated that for the increasing profitability of the western trade at least some part of it has to be conducted by the Russian merchants all the way to the ports of a destination even if this was not exactly a British or Dutch idea of a happy life. Which, in turn, meant that, besides encouragement of the Russian naval trade, the Empire has to spend considerable amounts of money on maintaining a meaningful navy, which, in conjunction with the Danish and Swedish fleets, can prevent the Brits from being excessively pushy.

In other words, Alexey had to run in more than one direction simultaneously. One of the first steps taken was to change the existing relations with Britain. By the Navigation Act of 1660 goods from Russia and specially named goods from Europe (enumerated articles), such as firewood, salt, tobacco, potash, olive oil, flax, bread, sugar, wine, vinegar, etc., can be imported only to England and only on English ships.

This provision now became unacceptable because it was preventing development of the Russian own maritime trade, hurting the Danish and Swedish trade interests, and because nomenclature of the Russian exports dramatically changed since 1660. Of course, the Brits were not eager to make the changes but, OTOH, the Baltic Mafia pretty much monopolized exports of the strategic materials and this made the British position rather difficult. A squadron dispatched to the Baltic Sea with the usual intimidation mission did not risk to force its way through the Straits with the Swedish-Danish-Russian squadron positioned behind the Sound and the government of Hanover had been informed that in the case of a British hostile action the Electorate is going to be considered a legitimate target for the invasion, which forced newly-crowned George II to cool down his bellicosity and to start advocating a more accommodating approach to the issue. Then, there was a serious possibility that the desired items are going to be sold to the Dutch thus hitting the British dominance in a naval trade. A negotiation followed ending in 1728 with a modification of the Act of 1660: the item regarding the Russian goods was removed as well as the list of enumerated items; they were permitted if carried by the ships of a country where they had been produced or, to accommodate the Baltic Alliance, the ships of the nations with which country of origin is in a common trade alliance. As a compensation, Russia agreed to review some items of the protectionist tariff established by Peter in 1724.

Tariff of 1724:
Goods that were manufactured in Russia in sufficient quantities were subject to a duty of 75%. Among them were tablecloths, napkins, canvas, silk brocade, taffeta, ribbons, caps, peeled wax, starch, potash, sulfate, turpentine oil, iron "not in products", needles, parchment and others.

A patronage fee of 50% of the price was imposed on Dutch canvases, velvet, drawn and spinned silver, cards, silk brocade.

Moderately - patronage fee of 25% - on all woolen fabrics, except for cloths, semi-silk fabrics, bike, made leather, stockings, fringe, mittens, paper goods, iron weapons, glass bottles.

The taxation of other goods was for fiscal purposes: 20% duty was levied on the finished women's dress, mirrors, toys; on porcelain, faience, copper and tin dishes - 10%.

Precious metal products, garden seeds, animals, except horses, many building materials, some food products were allowed for duty-free import: oranges, lemons, oysters, etc.

Goods that were not produced in Russia were completely exempt from import duty: silk goods, various varieties of kitties, wallpaper, mathematical and surgical instruments, glasses, etc.

The export duty was left in the same amount - 3% of the price. Only some Russian goods, such as not processed moose, deer, saiga and goat leather, linen yarn, badyan, under the pretext of their use as raw materials in Russian factories and manufactories, were essentially subject to a prohibitive 75% duty or prohibited for export.


The top bracket was lowered from 75 to 50%. Russia already became exporter of the iron and was producing enough of the needles not to fear competition of the imports. Potash was a tricky issue because on one hand a lot of it had been produced domestically while OTOH, Peter I established a monopoly on the production of potash in 1721 to prevent a deforestation: "Nowhere to do or sell potash to anyone on pain of exiles to eternal hard labor" - in order to save the forest, as he introduced the technology for the production of potash from "bad barrels, kets and other scraps". So there was no logical reason for not importing a foreign potash, which would be most probably more expensive (with the tax and transportation cost) than a domestic one. More or less the same applied to the rest of the category.

In the 25% bracket the woolen fabrics and paper goods were taxed at 20%.

As a separate agreement, the Russian officers were permitted to serve in the British Navy and Russia got an official permission to hire the British sailors of all ranks providing that they are not in an active service and that their contract explicitly excludes an obligation to serve against the Britain in the case of war.

Taking into an account that by this time the Franco-British alliance already was losing its popularity on both sides of the Channel, Russia, in a secret item of an agreement, promised not to make a military alliance with France in the next 10 years (which it was not planning to do, anyway).

There was one domestic development, which initially looked unimportant but actually had the fundamental impact upon the further development. A traditional reward system of giving a person estate with the serfs (out of the state-owned pool) changed to the “arenda” system under which a beneficiary was getting, for a certain number of years, a profit (income minus the expenses including taxes) from a state-owned and state-run estate. This could come either in a form of a fixed income or in a form of an income from a specific estate but in both cases a beneficiary did not own the estate and the state retained ownership of its peasants. As a result, a pool of the serfs was not growing and a number of the “state peasants” was not shrinking.

A person could be awarded a land out of the “empty lands” pool and either move his own serfs into it or to allow the free peasants to rent it but purchasing of the serfs without a land was forbidden.

This had little to do with a charity or not yet existing “emancipation” ideas: (a) a state peasant had been paying a higher head tax than a serf (who had also to pay his owner in money, goods or labor), (b) it was easier to get the state peasants for various duties, like maintaining the roads or military service, because an intermediary, the estate owner, was absent [4].





____________
[1] “the stubborn stupid mole digs straight tunnels; normal heroes always go around”.
[2] “you don’t need a knife for a fool, you’ll lie to him and then do with him whatever you like.”
[3] In OTL it was composed by a Swedish officer who, with many others, ended up on the Russian service in Siberia after being captured at Poltava.
[4] And in the case of a military service estate owner was tempted to provide the worst serfs in the terms of health and character.

 

[alexmilman]

83. The kids

«Не хочу учиться, а хочу жениться»
Фонвизин ‘Недоросль’ [1]

“Kids!
What the devil's wrong with these kids today?
Kids!
Who could guess the they would turn out that way!
Why can't they be like we were
Perfect in every way?”
Bye Bye Birdie
​

As if all the international and domestic issues were not enough of a burden, the imperial couple was facing a family problem. Actually, two of them and both related to their two senior kids.

The first problem was nothing original and, strictly speaking, not a problem, just a task to perform. It was 1726, the mourning year was over and it was a good time for Peter and Natalia to get married.

The intended spouse for Peter was Princess Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine of Prussia, the eldest daughter of King Frederick William I. She was of the same age as Peter, a nice looking and seemingly intelligent girl (not that this mattered) and the marriage was going to strengthen the Prussian ties to the Baltic League, which would be beneficial for both sides involved. The main obstacle was her mother, Her mother, Queen Sophia Dorothea, who wished her to marry her nephew Frederick, Prince of Wales, but on the British side there was no inclination to make an offer of marriage except in exchange for substantial concessions that Wilhelmine's father would not accept. Still, Sophia Dorothea kept trying and opposed all other options. FWI was initially inclined to look for a match with the House of Hapsburg but when the Russian proposal had been received, he changed his priorities because political and economic benefits of becoming a family member of the Baltic Mafia would be overweighting pretty much anything that the Hapsburgs could give him. So it will be Russia and unhappiness of Sophia Dorothea was her own problem.

The happy bride was not objecting (not that anybody was interested in her opinion) because so far her life was not too happy. She was fiercely beaten and abused by her governess during her childhood. Wilhelmine later wrote: "Not a day passed that she [the governess] did not prove upon me the fearful power of her fists." Then, her father brought up a laudable intention to save the court’s expenses all the way to a plain stinginess and the tales about much more luxurious Russian court made it to look as a fairy tale. The young Peter looked quite handsome on a portrait so the whole thing looked quite attractive.

With Natalia it was even simpler. Charles Frederick, the 1st Grand Duke of Gottorp, was a nice boy and her cousin (his mother, Hedwig Sophia, and Natalia’s mother, Empress Elena, were sisters) and he already visited the Russian court more than once. He spent some time at the court of his uncle, Charles XII and the empress blamed her brother for somewhat rough manners her nephew picked up at Stockholm but, taking into an account the manners of Natalia’s own grandfather, this was peanuts.

Of course, a close relation was, in theory, a problem with the Orthodox Church but Peter created the Holy Governing Synod and made Theophan Prokopovich its vice-president not for the Church’s interference into the state affairs. “Interests of the state” was a trump card beating all possible objections including, seemingly sacrosanct, secrecy of a confession. Dispensation was easily received and Prokopovich received as a gift a very valuable panagia [2]. Other members of the Synod also were not forgotten so the things had been settled to everybody’s satisfaction. Except for one stubborn bishop who was deprived of his rank, made a simple monk and sent to a strict confinement in a remote monastery. All these things had been done by his former colleagues who, quite reasonably, did not want to have a dangerous idiot in their glorious institution: who needed to be compromised by such as association?

Now comes the problem. Name of the problem was Cesarevich Peter Alexeevich who, so far, was not growing exactly up to his father’s satisfaction (well, neither was the elder son of FWI). Initially, Andrey Osterman [3] was his governor and he spoiled the boy rotten never trying to force him to study or to do something he did not want. As a result, education dwindled pretty much to the dances, court manners, hunting, and some rudimentary French and German. When this was discovered, Osterman was replaced with Dmitry Cantemir who did everything he could to remedy the problem but Cantimir died in 1723 when Peter was 14. Probably the best lasting thing he managed to do was providing Peter with a good friend, Antioch Cantemir, who was one year older, quite charming, very intelligent and could provide a good example.

So, grudgingly, Peter was doing at least some studying and when he was 15 Alexey started having him present at some government proceedings explaining, afterwards, what had been done and why. Of course, a mandatory part of the education was “military service”: Peter entered Preobrazensky Regiment as a private (of course, this was not a full time service) to get a rudimentary education in a military drill but had been carefully kept away from the young Guards and their, rather questionable, entertainments. Count Peter Tolstoy (the head of <you know what>) was assigned to be his governor and oversee the education: whatever he could be, he was a very intelligent and well-educated person who travelled a lot and had a vast experience in diplomacy. Among the assigned tutors the vice-governor of Moscow, von Munnich, soon started playing the main role both because his wide knowledge of various disciplines and because, when he considered it to be to his advantage, he could be really charming and capable to make studies of seemingly “dry” subjects, like mathematics and fortification, quite entertaining. Peter was still not fully up to his intended destination but at least there was some progress. Of course, there was a possibility that the marriage was going to be used as an excuse for dropping the studies but, OTOH, both Tolstoy and Munnich had reputations of the people with an iron will, quite capable to deal with a teenager.

Of course, strictly speaking, Peter’s behavior was quite normal for a teenager from a privileged class but he was a single male throne successor from Peter’s line with all the related responsibilities. The Russian Empire still was in a precarious state in Asia and the wrong actions could destroy or at least severely damage the Baltic League as well throwing Russia back to the times of economic dependency upon the Brits and Dutch. So Peter had to be taught the necessary things no matter what his wishes could be. The rulers of that period could be quite pushy, as FWI was with this elder son.

Both weddings took place in Moscow in 1726 after which the Grand Duke and Duchess of Gottorp left for their duchy.

The next coming event was arrival of Galdan Tseren, the elder son of the Khan of Dzungars, to Moscow. His friendship was vital for the Eastern plans and no effort had to be spared to achieve that goal.

_____________​

[1] “I don't want to study, but I want to get married” Fonvizin The Minor
[2] medallion with an icon in the center worn around the neck by Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic bishops. The icon is normally surrounded by jewels.

[3] After being disgraced for his attempt to shape the Russian foreign policy, he was eventually returned to the court and made a governor of Grand Duke Peter because his general knowledge was undeniable.

 

[alexmilman]

84. Showing a very good time

“Now that I'm here baby
Show me a good time”
Song by Drake
​

Taking into an account the scope and complexity of the ongoing Central Asia plan, Galdan Tseren qualified as VVIP (very, very important person) and had to be shown a very, very good time in Moscow.

Well, at least one aspect of the planned agenda was reasonably clear and the best available “asset” of the court was assigned to it. Natalia Lopukhina was described as "the brightest flower of the court" and her liaisons with some of the most powerful courtiers extended her qualifications beyond just the good looks. Just in case the VVIP will prove to be too picky or wants more than one lady-friend (Asia was still a mysterious land and so were the tastes of its natives [1]), a reserve was prepared out of the ladies-in-waiting of various shapes and age categories. However, Natalia proved to be completely up to the task and there was no need for any extra resources. 😉

Of course, there were balls, masquerades, banquets, visit of the Kremlin Armory (where he was given some very expensive gifts) and impressive military presentations but, besides this entertainment part, there were very serious talks as well: the guest proved to be very intelligent person with a good grasp of the diplomatic and military realities.

Of course, the diplomatic talks included certain amount of the BS, including non-existent Chinese secret proposal to partition the Dzungar Khanate but it was impossible to tell if Galdan Tseren swallowed this bite. However, Russian assurance of support against the possible competition from his younger brothers was received with an obvious appreciation and the same applied to the issue of help against Qing (and its Khalka vassals) in a very probable case of the renewed hostilities.

Wars with the Kazakhs proved to be a thorny issue because the Great and Middle Zhuzes just asked to be received under Russian protection and it took some effort to convince Galdan Tseren that Dzungar attempts to conquer the Kazakh lands are going to stop in exchange of a “split tribute” (part of the tribute collected by the Russian authorities will be delivered to Dzungars) and a generous pension given to him personally. By the time of his departure both sides were seemingly quite satisfied with each other.

Fortunately or unfortunately, a time for putting the promises to a practical test came sooner than expected. While Galdan Tseren was on his way back to home, the news were received that his father is dead [2]. He had to make the rest of his journey in a haste because there were competing claims to the throne from his step-brothers. While on his way, he appealed to the governor-general of Siberia for a military help and sent messenger with a similar request to Moscow. Reaction was fast and soon after Galdan Tseren reached Dzungar territory he was informed that 5,000 Siberian Cossacks and 3 dragoon regiments with the artillery are ordered to ride toward Kuldja (Dzungar capital) to his assistance. More would be added upon his request and, just in case, the infantry units are in a process of being relocated closer to the border to be available if a need arises.

The very short civil war was over before the first Russian contingents saw any action: the rumors grossly exaggerated their size and made opposition’s resistance seemingly hopeless with a resulting mass defection to the winning side. Galdan Tseren entered the capital and was proclaimed Khong Tayiji. His rebellious brothers has been captured one by one and discretely disposed of [3].

However, Qing remained a clear and present danger because Emperor Yōngzhèng, after initial removal of the Chinese contingents from Lhasa, sent there 15,000 soldiers to crush the anti-Chinese uprising. the Qing reconquest of Lhasa in Tibet, several Tibetan rebels were sliced to death by Qing Manchu officers and officials. The Manchus wrote that they "set an example" by forcing the Tibetans to publicly watch the executions of Tibetan rebels of slicing like Na-p'od-pa since they said it was the Tibetan's nature to be cruel. The exiled Tibetans were enslaved and given as slaves to soldiers in Ching-chou (Jingzhou), K'ang-zhou (Kangzhou) and Chiang-ning (Jiangning) in the marshall-residences there. The Tibetan rNam-rgyal-grva-ts'an college administrator (gner-adsin) and sKyor'lun Lama were tied together with Lum-pa-nas and Na-p'od-pa on 4 scaffolds (k'rims-sin) to be sliced. The Manchus used musket matchlocks to fire 3 salvoes and then the Manchus strangled the 2 Lamas while slacing (Lingchi) Lum-pa-nas and Na-p'od-pa to death while they beheaded the 13 other rebels leaders. All relatives of the Tibetan rebels including little children were executed by the Qing Manchus except the exiled and deported family of sByar-ra-ba which was condemned to be slaves and most exiles sentenced to deportation died in the process of deportation. The public executions spectacle worked on the Tibetans since they were "cowed into submission" by the Qing. Even the Tibetan collaborator with the Qing, Polhané Sönam Topgyé (P'o-lha-nas) felt sad at his fellow Tibetans being executed in this manner and he prayed for them. All of this was included in a report sent to the Qing emperor at the time, the Yongzheng Emperor.

Even more troubling, he used uprising of the Khoshut Mongols in of the Kokonor (Qinghai) for conquest of the whole region (so far, allied to the Dzungars) in 1724. 230,000 Qing troops under the command of Nian Gengyao

and Yue Zhongqi were thrown against the Oirat aimak located here. Conquest of the aimag followed by killing of more than 80,000 locals and massive looting. The territory of Qinghai was annexed to the Qing Empire, and the surviving Khoshuts were divided into several aimags and subordinated to the governor in Xining. This significantly weakened the Dzungarian Khanate, which lost one of the four aimags. Leader of the rebellion, Lusban Danjin, fled to Dzungar and Galdan Tseren refused to surrender him to the Qing. The open hostilities did not start, yet, but the Qing started moving large forces to the Eli area under the command of Fuerdan and other military leaders.

In a typical Chinese way, Nian Gengyao had aroused hatred and jealousy, and many officials submitted memorials hostile to him. As a result, he was gradually demoted from a Prince of the First Rank to Tartar General and, as accusations accumulated from his former friends and officials, Nian was in a few months progressively degraded in rank until he became merely a bannerman-at-large. In November 1725, he was arrested and taken under escort to Beijing. Early in 1726, his crimes were enumerated under 92 heads, and Nian was sentenced to be executed. The Yongzheng Emperor granted him the privilege of committing suicide but his eldest son, Nian Fu (年富), was beheaded and his other sons were banished.

As a result, the Russian military presence in Dzungar Khanate became not only permanent but also a steadily growing with the emphasis on infantry and artillery, the branches in which the Dzungars were traditionally weak. Situation did not warrant, unless not yet, presence of the top rank military figure like fieldmarshal Golitsyn but a capable candidate from the “second layer” was to be made ASAP to give a chosen candidate time to get familiar with the local conditions. So far, the top candidates were:

• Peter von Lacy who already distinguished himself during the BFW and presently given command of the troops in St Petersburg, Ingria and Novgorod and ranked third of only six full generals in the Russian Army. Taking into an account a failing health of the Favorite Pet, he could be needed elsewhere.
• 
• Burkhard von Munnich. While his military record was not as impressive as one of Lacy’s, he had a firmly established reputation of a great organizer and specialist in the area of fortification, which could be very important because the Chinese routinely used construction of the forts for getting a strategic advantage over the Dzungars. Unlike Lacy, he had very strong relations at court and the main problem was that, so far, he was a highly valued teacher of the Cesarevich Peter. Well, after Peter got married, his continued education was supposed to be more on a practical side (increased participation in the state affairs).

____________
[1] At least on an apocryphal level, when the Chinese diplomatic mission visited Russia during the reign of Elizabeth, she (being extremely fond of her appearance and always looking for the compliments) asked head of the mission how would he estimate her beauty and received an answer that for a complete perfection she would need to have slanted eyes.
[2] One of the wiki articles says that he was assassinated by a hostile faction. Could not find any confirmation or denial anywhere else.
[3] This was Asia and the rulers tended to be practical. At least the “disposal” did not mean a slow slicing person to the pieces or some other inventive methods favored by the Chinese rulers.

 

[alexmilman]

85. The general

“Is he lucky?”
Napoleon [1]

«Полководец с шеею короткой
Должен быть в любые времена:
Чтобы грудь — почти от подбородка,
От затылка — сразу чтоб спина.На короткой незаметной шее
Голове удобнее сидеть,
И душить значительно труднее,
И арканом не за что задеть.Но они вытягивают шеи
И встают на кончики носков:
Чтобы видеть дальше и вернее —
Нужно посмотреть поверх голов
…..
В Азии приучены к засаде —
Допустить не должен полубог,
Чтоб его прокравшиеся сзади
С первого удара сбили с ног..»
Высоцкий Баллада о короткой шее [2]

“The Russian state has the advantage over others that it is governed directly by God himself, otherwise it is impossible to understand how it exists” 😜
Ernst Johann Graf von Münnich [3]
​

In a competition for a potentially very important and promising position of Commander-in-chief in Asia the victor was Burkhard Christoph Graf von Münnich who used all his court connections to get it. Unofficially, this position, while presumably being a temporary one, was for all practical purposes something of a vice-royalty because its bearer was trusted with a full freedom of actions, had a right to issue orders to the governors of the Siberian areas and Russian administrators in the CA, mobilize the “natives”, conduct diplomatic activities and to do many other things except for making the peace treaties without the terms being approved by Moscow. He was promised more troops, if addition was needed to the 30,000 regulars already there, and his war chest was 200,000 rubles in gold and silver.

“The Count of Münnich is a real contrast of good and bad qualities. Polite, rude, human, carried away, in turn, nothing is easier for him than winning the hearts of those who deal with him. But suddenly, an instant later, he treats them so harshly that they are forced to hate him, so to speak. In certain conditions, we saw him generous, in others of a sordid greed. He is the man of the world who has the highest soul and yet we have seen him do mean things. Pride is a dominant vice. Constantly devoured by an excessive ambition, he sacrificed everything to the world to satisfy it. One of the best engineers in Europe, he was also one of the greatest captains of his century. Often reckless in his businesses, he has always ignored what the impossible is. With a tall and imposing stature, and a robust and vigorous temperament, he seems to have been born general.” Christoph Hermann von Manstein, his aide-de-camp.

“…he had the virtues and vices of the great generals: skilful, enterprising, happy; but proud, superb, ambitious, and sometimes too despotic, and sacrificing the lives of his soldiers for his reputation.” Voltaire

“He knew military affairs very well and was an excellent engineer; but being proud to the extreme, he was very vain, and his ambition went beyond. He was lying, double-minded, seemed to every friend, but in fact he was not a draw; attentive and polite to strangers, he was unbearable in dealing with his subordinates.” Duke of Liria

To make the long story short, combination of his qualities, good and bad, was making him an ideal commander to this specific theater because being a lying, cruel, insincere bastard was something of a pre-requisite for being on an equal footing with the allies and opponents. Military talents were coming on a top as a nice bonus . 😉

A relatively quiet life in the Siberian gubernias came to a screeching halt after Munnich arrived. The troops were reviewed and brought into the fighting shape, the military warehouses had been ordered to report immediately upon the amount and quality of the stored weaponry and all types of supplies, existing fortifications had been repaired, the additional horses purchased, food stores filled, the Siberian Cossacks put on an alert. Requests for the extra troops and supplies had been sent to Moscow on a principle that it is better to be safe than sorry (and exaggeration of a potential danger was a good career move, anyway). Brigadier Buchholz, founder of Omsk and Kjakhta, who had been operating in the area since 1714 and now was overseeing the Kjakhta area, was asked to increase his already existing contacts with the Mongols who lived South of the border and were directly involved in Kjakhta trade [4].

Then came turn of the Dzungars. The main difference was, of course, the fact that Galdan Tseren was, while formally Russian vassal, still a de facto almost independent ruler and had to be treated politely. Immediately, Munnich switched from his “I’m the boss” mode to a charm offensive. Together with the Khan they reviewed the territory, discussed strategy and the ways of cooperation. There were prolonged interviews of the veterans of Dzungar-Qing wars to figure out tactics and strategy of the potential enemy and work out the countermeasures.

Seemingly, so far the main Dzungar problem in their wars with the Qing (and Russians) were fortifications: an absence of the artillery and a lack of the engineering skills made sieges of even the primitive Russian frontier forts very problematic and the Qing were seemingly capable of constructing the formidable fortresses in a very short time. But a further investigation revealed that situation was not too gloomy because most of these fortifications had been made out of a compressed earth - this favorite Chinese material. Outside, the walls could be covered with burnt bricks.

Below is the fortress of Barkol built by Chinese general Yue Zhongqi in 1726 [5] on Dzungar border. Barkol was then a frontline command center and a supply base for the Qing military. Qing soldiers built the first fortress town, with four gates and 3,600 battlements on the walls. “Outside the walls were a moat of four meters wide and four drawbridges, as well as fort barbettes and protruding ramparts.” (from a modern Chinese description of the fortress)

Needless to say that the bastion system, not to mention the Vauban-style fortifications, was not there, yet. For a military engineer like Munnich this looked as a dream coming true, especially taking into an account that he would not need even to lie about the real strength of these fortifications, just to omit the unnecessary details.

The field fortifications usually amounted to some kind of the big wicker shields protecting infantry from the arrows and while the Qing had some, seemingly pathetic, field artillery including zamburaks (small swivel guns mounted on and fired from camels) and the bigger guns, it looked (based upon what could be deducted from the Dzungar stories and what little the Russian travelers saw in China) like the whole artillery was on the obsolete side and it was almost definite that the Qing soldiers, or at least those positioned on the Northern border, never saw the artillery firing explosives.

To be better prepared, Munnich and Galdan Tseren conducted few joined exercised to get their troops to act together and the results were, seemingly, encouraging: at least some of Munnich’s officers participated in the Ottoman war and BFW and had an experience of the joined operations with Kalmyks.

In few months the general was itching for some kind of a Qing provocation that would allow him to show, finally, his value as a military commander, cover himself with a glory and got a coveted fieldmarshal’s baton. His Dzungar colleague was not excessively enthusiastic because even a victorious war was going to be costly for his people. However, the war was seemingly unavoidable so it would be better to win it and it look like the Russian general knew well what he is doing and the only thing that had to be impressed upon him was understanding that the Chinese commanders are very subtle people with a lot of tricks in their sleeves. Munnich’s usual response was that he is going to see how well their subtlety works against the firepower. It looked like the waiting time was running out fast…


_____________
[1] Allegedly, Napoleon was routinely asking this question before promoting somebody into general’s rank.
[2]
“Commander with a short neck
Must be in charge at all times:
So that his chest starts almost from the chin,
And a spine - immediately from the back of his head. On a short imperceptible neck
The head sits more comfortably,
And it's much harder to strangle,
And there's nothing to catch with a noose.
But they stretch their necks
And they stand on the tips of their toes:
To see further and more precisely -
You need to look over the other people’s heads
.....

In Asia, they are accustomed to ambush -
Demigod should not allow,
To those who sneak in from behind
Knock him down from the first blow.”
Vysotsky ‘Ballad about a short neck’

[3] Son of Burkhard von Munnich.
[4] From time to time small groups of them had been asking permission to move to the Russian side and Buchholz was responsible for providing them with the necessary permissions and defining the new places fir them to live.
[5] Actually, in 1731.

 

[alexmilman]

86. Everybody is getting busy…

“War is peace … Ignorance is power”
Orwell
“What I don’t know does not exists”
Ivan The Terrible
“Incorrect knowledge is worse than ignorance”
Friedrich Adolph Wilhelm Diesterweg​

To start from the West,

The Pet’s issue

The Favorite Pet was still alive and kicking but he was not getting younger and healthier and an issue of his successor was making its way higher into the list of European priorities.

• The Mafia, so far, did not see a serious reason for changing its position regarding the replacement but preferred it to be as seamless as possible. If Frederick August has to sign some meaningless piece of paper to get the Hapsburgs on board, this should not be a problem: when and if push will come to shove, the Hapsburgs could use it to whip their imperial posteriors. Taking into an account the growing involvement on the East, Alexey would prefer to avoid any military confrontation or at least to minimize it so that two major wars will be avoided. Charles did not see a potential military involvement in the PLC as a major issue as long as it is not growing into something bigger. Approximately the same position was held by FWI: a small victorious war could result in grabbing some pf the PLC territory (for example, Bishopric of Ermland which was sticking in the middle of East Prussia) but a major war would be a different kettle of fish.
• The Hapsburgs would not mind, providing Frederick August will cede his claim to the Hapsburg succession and accept the Pragmatic Sanction. As an alternative, they played with a candidacy of Infante Manuel of Portugal who in 1728 became one of the candidates for the hand of the wealthy Maria Zofia Sieniawska. The schema was supported by the Habsburgs in attempt to gain a strong position in Poland but , taking into an account the potential problems related to going against the Baltic Mafia, it was just a backup idea in case Wettin will prove to be too stubborn. Prince Eugene of Savoy recommended to the emperor a more warlike posture against its longtime rival, France. He suggested that the Rhine valley and northern Italy should be strengthened with more troops, however only minimal steps were taken to improve imperial defences on the Rhine.
• France was in a search of a suitable anti-Hapsburg candidate but its ability to back up any French candidate (like Prince Conde of whom everybody would be happy to get rid of) was nixed by a physical inability to send any military or naval force to the PLC. As a result, the French court was searching for a suitable Polish magnate popular enough to be able with the help of pro-French Primate of Poland Teodor Potocki to win the election.
• The Brits and the Dutch wisely played neutral.

Memel scheme

As a result of the BFW Memel became Swedish. At that time this meant little because, except for the dilapidated fortress, there was very little of any worth in the city. Its population was slightly over 1,000, exports of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania along the Neman River went through Königsberg. In addition, another competitor, Tilsit, began to grow near the Neman River.
Of course, the Swedish rule brought some improvements because under the Prussian rule the construction of ships was prohibited and the merchants of Memel were obliged to deliver their goods through the Curonian Lagoon to Königsberg. [1] The Swedes removed all discriminatory restrictions on trade but the area still had to contribute to a maintenance of the garrisons in Courland and the main impeding factor was still there: the city did not have an “economic rear” resources of which it could export except for the Lithuanian Semigalia (which was not the richest or most developed region of the Grand Duchy, to put it mildly). Even with the failed Lithuanian attempt to establish its own port on the Nieman based upon the stretch pf a land the Grand Duchy gained in the BFW, Memel was not doing too well. Its main exports were reasonably small amounts of flax, hemp, rye, etc. produced by Semigalia [2]. The main imported product was salt (to be resold in Lithuania) and only 20 to 50 vessels visited Memel every year.

But in the 1720s, a significant rise in Memel’s development began: its residents found a product that glorified their city all over the world. This product was wood. The main trading partner became Great Britain (merchants, sailors, ship carpenters and other people from England and Scotland played an important role in the then development of the city, many of them permanently settling there). One by one, windmills were built, shipbuilding revived (in 1728, [3] finally, a workshop of ship carpenters was established), trade turnover grew rapidly. In 1728, 100 vessels entered the port, in 1729 - 400, and the numbers kept growing. This growth was accompanied by a rapid increase in trade and profits of local merchants.

Of course, not everything was nice and easy. To have a wood-processing industry you need, among many other things, a wood. Most of the easily available wood had been growing on the Curonian Split, which was Prussian: at the time the peace treaty was signed neither side had a magic crystal allowing to see the future.

So the Memel’s prosperity depended upon the Prussian good will and FWI was not a man known for the unselfish generosity, especially when the big money were involved. Re-channeling the wood trade to Koenigsberg was not practical by a number of reasons (more difficult to transport, not very nice relations with George II with a resulting unwillingness to have a strong British presence in Prussia, unwillingness to spoil relations with Sweden over a non-crritical issue, etc.) but this did not mean that he had to get engaged in a philanthropy. Prussian custom posts had been established on the Split and each and every cut down tree was taxed. The limits had been established to prevent a speedy deforestation and even some measures taken to restore (at least partially) the cut down forests.

Of course, there was also some wood available in a nearby Samogitia but not of the same quality as the Curonian pine forests and could not replace them.

As a result. something which was initially looking as a purely token arrangement caused mostly by a mutual ignorance evolved into a strong economic link within the Baltic League.

The Ottomans and Persians

By 1727 the Ottomans finished the Ottoman–Hotaki War of 1726–1727 against the Afghan Hotali tribe the leaders of which overthrew the Safavids and declared themselves the rulers of Persia. The Ottomans declared war with an aim was to restore the Safavids as a client dynasty. In 1726 the Ottomans suffered a defeat at Khoramabad due to the defection of the Kurdish cavalry which did not want to fight against the other Sunnies in support of the common enemies, the "heretical" Persians. However, the Hotaki Shah Ashraf opened negotiations which led to the signature of a peace treaty in October, 1727 (Treaty of Hamedan). The Afghans agreed with the treaty which confirmed Ottoman sovereignty over all the western and northwestern parts of Iran and, in return for Ashraf's abandonment of his territorial claims, gave him official recognition as Shah of Persia with rights of minting coins and sending annual pilgrimage caravans to Mecca.

But the fun just started because the exiled Safavid Shah Tahmasp II already contacted general Nadir who was building his own army since in 1722. During the chaos, Nader cut a deal with Mahmud Hotaki (who ruled Persia in 1722-25) to rule Kalat in the north of Iran. However, when Mahmud Hotaki began minting coins in his name and asked for everyone's allegiance, Nader refused.

Tahmasp contacted Nader and asked him to join their cause and drive the Ghilzai Afghans out of Khorasan. He agreed and soon Tahmasp made Nader the chief of his army instead. Nader subsequently took on the title Tahmasp Qoli (Servant of Tahmasp). In late 1726, Nader recaptured Mashhad.

Nader chose not to march directly on Isfahan. First, in May 1729, he defeated the AbdaliAfghans near Herat. Many of the Abdali Afghans subsequently joined his army. The new shah of the Ghilzai Afghans, Ashraf, decided to move against Nader but in September 1729, Nader defeated him at the Battle of Damghan

and again decisively in November at Murchakhort. Ashraf fled and Nader finally entered Isfahan, handing it over to Tahmasp in December. The citizens' rejoicing was cut short when Nader plundered them to pay his army. Tahmasp made Nader governor over many eastern provinces, including his native Khorasan, and Tahmasp's sister was given in marriage to Nader's son. Nader pursued and defeated Ashraf, who was murdered by his own followers.
With this being done, Nader was preparing for the campaign against the Ottomans with a purpose to return the previously lost Persian territories.

Moscow

From the Russian perspective, a continued Ottoman-Persian crisis was the good news because, while not impeding the existing trade (and even presenting a chance for selling some obsolete weaponry to the opponents), it more or less guaranteed that for a while neither of them would be interfering into the Russian affairs in the CA allowing to move more resources into the potential Oirat front: the hostilities there did not start, yet, but, based upon the arriving reports, there were too many loose cannons on both side to expect that the peace will be sustainable:

• The Dzungars became Russian vassals but this did not mean that they fully submitted to the Russian administration and while Galdan Tseren gave up on the plans to conquer the Kazakhs he still had the traditional Dzungar ambitions regarding the Khalka Mongols.
• Khalka Mongols became the Chinese vassals to avoid being conquered by the Dzungars and had been already pushed by the Russians to the South of the Baikal Lake.

• Qing on one hand had been motivated by a need to defend their Khalka vassals and OTOH never truly gave up their imperial ambitions regarding subduing all steppe tribes.
• While this was not obvious to the Russian government, Munnich himself also was something of a loose cannon. Of course, he would not risk to start a war on his own initiative but using a lucky opportunity for a successful military campaign was a different story.

Extra considerations or a little bit about an ignorance.
Both sides in a coming conflict had something in common, and that something was a fundamental ignorance regarding an opponent.

• On the Russian-Dzungar side a perception based upon the earlier Chinese campaign in Tibet was that the Qings are going to raise and send a huge army of at least 200,000. In a reality, that campaign cost to Emperor Yongzheng at least eight million silver taels and he hardly could afford its repetition because his treasury was already dangerously shrinking. Besides, that huge army proved to be quite ineffective due to the low morale, massive defection and very difficult logistics. So his plan for the next war was to use a much smaller and more mobile force with a heavy reliance upon the Khalka cavalry and the fortresses which Chinese already built and will be building during their advance. So both Munnich and Galdan Tseren were preparing themselves to a war with a much bigger and slower army.
• On the Chinese side attitude to Russia had been formulated by Yongzheng: “Russia is an insignificant vassal state”. Nobody seriously bothered to get in-depth knowledge of the Russian army and the Dzungars were considered the main opponent with the well-known strengths and weaknesses. The Chinese frontier fortresses were, so far, and will be in the future, impregnable and Chinese field artillery would be unmatched by the opponent. Yes, the Russians had the cannons but surely they will not be compete with those of the Banner Armies and perhaps the Russians would simply stick to the defense of their border forts leaving the Dzungars more or less on their own.

As a result, one side was overestimating the enemy while another was grossly underestimating him.






_________
[1] In OTL these restrictions had been lifted in 1657.
[2] For the Swedish Courland Memel was rather peripheral and for the Swedish Livonia in general simply nothing in a middle of nowhere so it simply made no sense to re-route the existing trade or to invest too much in the city, especially taking into an account that now Prussia was a trusted ally and maintenance of a major fortress on its border was not just a waste of money but simply counterproductive politically.
[3] In OTL in 1782 but let’s not be pedantic. 😉

 

[alexmilman]

87. Little victorious war?

“There are no small wars for a great nation”
Wellington
“They never lie as much as during the war, after hunting and before the elections.”
Bismarck
“The war consists of unforeseen events”
Napoleon​

Qing banner armies

“Muskets and cannons. The soldier's gun is cast from the iron; in length with the bed contains 6 1/10 feet; it is loaded with three «золотник» [1] of gunpowder spools and a bullet with one «золотник». The rifle lodge in the Manchurian and Mongolian divisions is yellow, in the Chinese divisions it is black, and the troops of the green banner are red. Supports are iron, high in a foot. lashing. Gunpowder is placed on the shelf and is lit with a wick. Cannons are of a different caliber and mostly bronze, cast by Catholic missionaries. The weight of the charge gunpowder and the cannon ball is determined by the caliber of the gun; for example, the gun, called the golden dragon, weights up to 370 jins, [2] up to 6 feet long. Gunpowder goes to charge for her up to 8 lan [3] ; the cannonball is up to 16 lan.

Training. Troops [located in the capital] are trained in military art in their free time. Four banners located in the eastern half of Beijing are trained on the 4th, 8th, 14, 18th, 24th and 28, and four banners located in the western half are trained on the 2nd, 7, 12th, 17th, 22nd and 27th. The exercises begin on the 20th of the first month and lasts up to half past four months. In the summer heat, the exercise stops, and again begins on the 16th of the 7th month and lasts until the 20th of the 12th month {In 1835, the 16th of the 4th month was or the 2nd, and the 16th of the month was August 27.}. Soldiers with the firearms are trained from 8 months, until the new year, only five months, Training is performed three times a month. 200 muskets are taken to the training every time. The Artillery Corps is annually exercised on the Lu-geu-guyao Bridge in the 9th month from the 1st to the 5th. Nine guns are brought from each division, which will amount to 216 guns. Three shots are made of each gun a day.

In autumn, a review of troops is carried out, accompanied by maneuvers representing the form of battle. Privates in armor and helmets are arranged in five lines. Officers of the back and lines are arranged in rows by class. From the first line, the company chiefs - each against his company, in the second colonels - each against his regiment, all on horseback; further in the same way become their divisional chiefs and their assistants - all on horseback riding.

Maneuvers are opened by trumpeting into the shells - a signal to the upcoming battle. After this, there are three shots from the signal guns - a signal to the opening of the battle, the command is not made by officers, but signals at the first blow to the litavra give a sign with red banners and the troops make a volley of muskets and guns. Thus, nine volleys are produced, marching 50 feet forward after each volley. On the tenth attack, they shoot by readiness from the muskets and guns. After three blows into the metal drum, the fire stops. After this the cavalry, with a general blowing of the shells and a loud shouting, is launched forward in a wedge formation and on this maneuvers end.” [4]

The provincial banner troops, except for the regular review, had even less training, except on with the bow: the government relied upon their qualities as the “born horsemen”. However, in this specific area they were quite good, partially due to the severe punishments for those who in an attack dared to get ahead or behind of the formation for more than horse’s head. The heavy cavalry, especially the Mongolian units, had the same 3-4 meters long spears as the Dzungars and similar type of an armor.

The basis of the battle formation were infantry units with hand firearms, covered on the front by spearmen and swordsmen (large shields may have been used) and the cavalry was located in the second line and dealt a decisive blow to the enemy weakened by rifle fire. Manchurian, Mongolian and Chinese "banner" heavy cavalry detachments fought in the tight combat formations and had unified defensive and offensive weapons. Solones and Shivets [5] were a type of light cavalry adapted to act on foot on rough terrain, and Tibetan units were mainly used to maintain order within the country and carry out security service.

On paper total strength of the banner armies was up to 260,000 but a part of that number was used as a garrison of Beijing or for some other purposes and, taking into an account that the whole system was more or less hereditary, the real military force in a birder area was well under 100,000.

The opponents

In theory, Galdan Tseren could raise up to 80,000 out of a total population of 600-800,000. In practice, the number was much lower. Seemingly, the Dzungar cavalry was of a slightly higher quality than their Qing opponents but its equipment and tactics were pretty much the same except for an absence of the artillery.

Munnich had on paper up to 40,000 regular troops and 10-15,000 irregulars (Siberian Cossacks). In a reality, 5-6,000 regulars had been forming the garrisons pf the border fortresses so there were 10 more battalions and 3 dragoon regiments marching to his support from the Western Siberia as well as 5,000 Kalmyks and 5,000 Cossacks riding from Volga and Yaik.

Specifics of the force in his disposal was that it was formed from the numerous battalion-strength units sent to the area at various times or even raised locally. As a result, they were not a part of the standard army structure which was used in the European wars. On one hand this produced certain administrative disadvantage but OTOH it presented an opportunity to build an ad hoc alternative structure more suitable for the specific occasion.

By reshuffling what was available Munnich formed 8 brigades, each containing 6 full strength battalions (800 each) and 400 Cossacks. With the main stress being upon a firepower, each battalion was given 2 20-pounder unicorns and brigade had a battery of 8 guns (4 20-pounder unicorns and 4 6 pounder cannons). There was a strong reserve of the regular and irregular cavalry, field artillery reserve of 40 guns and a siege park of 16 heavy guns.

Fighting starts.

1730. The hostilities started when the Qing contingent, 15,000 strong, marched out of the Barkul fortress into the Dzungar territory toward the Barkul Lake.

Near the lake it was intercepted by 20,000 Dzungars and defeated in a multi-hour battle.

The remaining Qing troops retreated toward the fortress. Altogether, there were more than 25,000 troops in a fortress, which was quite safe against pretty much any Dzungar attack so the Qing commande, senior general Yue Zhongqi, felt himself quite secure and confident looking at the Dzungar cavalry encircling the city and their infantry shooting at the fortress: without the guns they could do nothing and either would go away or will hung there until the Qing reinforcements arrive and crush them.

However, his relaxed attitude evaporated couple days later when the strangely dressed troops appeared near the fortress. It was not as much their appearance as a number and size of the cannons they had been carrying with them. It took them a day to build the earthworks blocking all four fortress gates and place their batteries. Then the Hell broke loose. Not just the clay fortress walls had been crumbling, the not seen before explosive shells had been flying over the walls destroying everything around and causing the fires. The small cannons installed on the city walls had been helpless and soon enough most of them were silenced.

A very short intermission: If Napoleon’s question “is he lucky?” was asked about Munnich, the answer would be “too much so”. It can be argued both ways if he was or was not a great field commander but the luck always was with him. It could be practically guaranteed that a lousily prepared assault would be in most critical moment helped by a timely explosion of an ammunition magazine or that something else of the kind would happen providing him with a spectacular victory . This is not going to change IITL.

On a second day of a bombardment one of the gate towers crumbled and soon afterwards a bomb hit the Qing gunpowder storage causing numerous casualties and spreading the panic. The Dzungars rushed into the city through the broken gates and soon afterwards the defenders surrendered. After being forced to destroy the walls, all of them had been massacred.

The first episode of the war was over and everybody, except for the dead Qing, was happy. A field victory over the Qing was a good start of the campaign and a seemingly effortless destruction of a powerful fortress was a very impressive demonstration. If a wisdom of getting under the Russian “protection” could be doubted, these doubts now disappeared. The main base for the Qing’s advance into Dzungar territory was destroyed handicapping their future operations and Munnich’s reputation was firmly established.

Now Galdan Tseren could keep mobilizing his forces and wait for the Russian reinforcements: it will take a while before the Qing raise a new invasion army.

In a meantime (as a reciprocation for the good time in Moscow) Munnich (who never pretended to be a monk) also should be shown a very good time. 😂

__________
[1] 1 золотник = 4.2grams
[2] 1 jin = 604.79 grams
[3] 1 lan = 50 gram; which means that a cannonball of that cannon weighted approximately 800 grams (aka, the caliber is less than 2 pounds). During the reign of Kangxi Emperor the total of 905 cannons had been cast but out of them only 201 weighted more than 250 kg. There were, some pieces of the caliber 17-20 pounds, seemingly placed in China proper. http://www.battle-of-qurman.com.cn/literature/Stary-Verbiest-1994.pdf
[4] Nikita Bichurin “Army of China”, 1840
[5] Tungusic tribes of Inner Mongolia