"Why is this happening? Why? Anna's eyes were misty.

"Didn't she say that Her Majesty Catherine II was a great king? Why can't she stick to her ideals? ”

Everyone looked at Ye Kai, and Ye Kai coughed, "This is going to start with the emergence of serfdom in Russia, in fact, this lady's point of view represents the point of view of the majority." ”

Ye Kai looked at the lady in the purple dress who was a little yin and yang.

"In the time of Peter the Great, or rather from the day the Russian Empire was founded, serfdom was such a thing that the country could never get out of a nightmare!

Because although Russia's territory is large, it is vast and sparsely populated, and its domestic system has always lagged behind the countries of Western Europe, and even the German states are far inferior!

Russia's domestic economy has always been entirely dependent on agriculture, with only a few dozen pitiful handicraft factories in the country, and a poor literacy rate.

However, although it was mainly dependent on agriculture, the productivity of Russian agriculture was very low, and the poor Russian peasants could not afford to cultivate the fertile land.

So the aristocracy came up with a plan, they took the peasants and kept them in captivity like slaves, the nobles produced seeds and production tools, and the peasants sold their physical strength, they cooperated with each other, relied on each other, expanded large areas of wasteland, and Russian serfdom was formed! ”

Ye Kai said slowly, but the eyes of the others present lit up, the attitude of Europeans, especially Western Europeans, towards Russia.

The Russians are the same, although they are both Caucasians, but in the eyes of Western Europeans such as Britain and France, Russians cannot be regarded as Caucasian like them at all, which is one of the reasons why Russia has not been able to integrate into the West!

In this era, Western Europeans knew about the Russians even less than they knew about colonies such as North America and India, and few people could clearly analyze the reasons for the emergence of serfdom in Russia!

After they digested it for a while, Ye Kai continued, "By the time of Peter the Great, the greatest monarch of the Romanov dynasty can no longer tolerate Russia continuing to sink into the ranks of barbarian countries!"

So just a few decades ago, the young Peter the Great concealed his identity and began to travel to the Netherlands, England, France and other countries, learning shipbuilding, architecture, and various science and technology, and even ventured to Sweden to learn infantry tactics.

Almost single-handedly, he pulled half of Russia's giant body into the quagmire into the ranks of civilized countries! ”

"This is a great king, I have heard his story since I was a child!" Little stars popped up in Anna's eyes again, and it looked like this girl was an admirer of powerful figures!

But this process was extremely difficult, because industrialization required a large number of workers, and there were not many people in the Russian cities who could engage in industry, so Peter the Great, who had no choice, had to fight the idea of serfs, and he was determined to free the serfs from the land!

But this harmed the fundamental interests of the Russian aristocracy, who believed that Peter the Great was eradicating the soil on which they depended, so that almost all the Russian aristocracy and ecclesiastical forces hated Peter the Great, including Peter the Great's eldest son Alexei.

For all those who opposed him, Peter the Great took a tough step, he personally executed his own son, Crown Prince Alexei, and completely disbanded the shooting army! ”

"It's horrible, it's horrible!" Mrs. Todd murmured, and all the ladies seated were silent.

The royal struggle in Russia is oriental, and it has always been bloody, but how iron-blooded and desperate it is to execute one's own son with his own hands!

Driven by this strong determination, Russia entered the path of rapid development, and Peter the Great introduced real factories to this country with nothing, building new styles of infantry and cavalry and navy.

He defeated Sweden and gained access to the sea for Russia, Peter the Great was a terrible father to Crown Prince Sarevich Alexei, but for all of Russia, this was the greatest king in their history! ”

"But even so, did Peter the Great not be able to put an end to serfdom in Russia?"

Jenna, who was sitting on the main seat, couldn't help but ask faintly, she had forgotten what she wanted to do when she called Ye Kai up, he just wanted to hear Ye Kai finish this 'story'!

"Yes, it is very sad that Peter the Great gave so much, and after his death, Russia was restored to its original state, except for the mighty army that was preserved, everything else was destroyed, and Russia returned to square one!

But no one could have imagined that a woman from the German Confederation would inherit the great cause of Peter the Great's reforms, and this person is now His Majesty Catherine II!

This is a woman who lived in Paris as a teenager and was deeply influenced by the ideas of the French Enlightenment!

She saw the backwardness of Russia and was determined to change it, she saw herself as the reformed successor of Peter the Great, who would continue to emancipate the serfs and bring freedom, equality, and the rule of law into every inch of Russia! ”

"What a great woman, a great monarch!" This time, not only Anna, but all the women, including Jenna, were sincerely amazed.

The status of women in this era was not high, and Catherine II, who rose to become the Russian Emperor from a close to commoner background (Catherine's father's Duchy of Anhalt was very weak and could not give her much more than the status of a princess), was the idol of all European commoners and even aristocratic women in this era!

"It's a pity! Her Majesty Catherine II would soon turn her back on her ideals, because she found that her power, her everything, came from the Russian nobility with whom she was dissatisfied.

At the same time, she did not thank her much for wanting to liberate the Russian serfs, because the serfs were the personal property of the serf owners, and the serf owners would not completely squeeze every drop of the value of the dry serfs, but would try to let them live, and only the living serfs were valuable!

But the capitalist is different, the worker is not his private property, he has nothing to do with dying of exhaustion or starvation, and he can recruit no one again, so they will suck up every penny of value from the workers who have become serfs, so you will find that the most opposed to the emancipation of serfs is the serfs themselves! ”

As soon as this point of view came out, everyone was shocked, in their imagination, becoming a serf must be the most tragic thing in the world, but the reality is that becoming a serf can still survive, and becoming a worker has no choice but to starve to death and die of exhaustion!

"So I suppose that Her Majesty Catherine II has made some peace with the Russian nobility whom she once hated.

But her reforms were not without results, otherwise Her Majesty Catherine II would not have been crowned with the title of the Great!

Under her push, Russia's industry developed, the aristocracy became more enlightened than before, the literacy rate increased, and the country, which had always been known for barbarism, finally became like a civilized country!

And since it is not possible to achieve institutional success, Her Majesty Catherine II has only one choice.

She can only choose war, choose to use war to bring great territory and glory to Russia, Mrs. Todd, if your son can be trusted by Her Majesty the Empress, I am sure he will achieve something in Russia! ”