In the twentieth year of the Apocalypse, the railway was finally repaired to Yuji City. In the past few years, the Rakshasa people have lived a very uncomfortable life under the coercion of the Ming Dynasty, Poland, and Sweden. In particular, the number of fugitive slaves in the country increased greatly, and the nobles made statements in front of the tsar every day that they would first befriend Sweden and Poland and free up their hands to attack the Ming army.

The Ming Dynasty stepped up the naturalization of all ethnic groups entering the Ming region in the Volga River Basin, and the forms of naturalization are now two, one is to change the surname of Han, and the tax rate is twice that of the Ming people, which refers to the tax rate in the interior of the Ming Dynasty, because immigrants do not have to pay taxes within ten years. The second is not to change the Han surname, and the tax rate is ten taxes and five taxes.

The premise of the tax rate of ten taxes and five is that the Ming Dynasty first provided seeds and farm tools, and the cost of these seeds and farm tools only needs to be returned with 10% interest after harvesting. Only a small number of people chose to change their surnames to Chinese, mainly Cossacks, and most of them chose the ten taxes and five. But when it comes to paying taxes after the harvest, looking at other people's twenty taxes and one, and then comparing their own ten taxes to five, my heart is unbalanced no matter what. The tax collector said that if you change your surname now, you can immediately enjoy a low tax rate, but once you regret it, you will have to pay back all the previous taxes, plus interest.

After the Ming agreed that their fathers and ancestors did not need to change their names and were free to choose their own surnames, most of the European immigrants changed to Han surnames, and in general, the surnames Luo, Yi, and Mi were more common. The Ming people also announced that after a woman married a Han Chinese, her immediate family members became Ming people and enjoyed full tax exemption. This solved the problem that a large number of Ming troops did not have a wife, but many people were unwilling to marry a foreign woman as their wife, and the result was basically a concubine. It's just that these Ming soldiers who took concubines here, the court never thought of letting them return to their hometowns, so they were nominally concubines, but in fact there was no difference between marrying a wife.

A large number of serfs fled from the Rakshasa country to the occupied areas of the Ming army in the Volga Valley, which made the estates of the Rakshasa nobles lack people to work, seriously affecting their income and enjoyment. And the Volga River is regarded as the mother river by the Rakshasas, how can it allow the Ming people to occupy it for a long time? The Rakshasas first sent a mission to contact Poland, saying that if they continued here, the Ming would become a common threat to Poland and the Rakshasa State, so they hoped to conclude an alliance with Poland and beat the Ming army out of the Volga River valley first.

King Władysław IV of Poland did not mean to aid the Rakshasa country, but the domestic parliament and the Grand Duke of Lithuania thought that the Ming Dynasty was too different from the Poles and the Rakshasas, even if it was for racial considerations, the Ming should be defeated first, and then fight to the death with the Rakshasa country. It was obviously impossible for the Polish king to speak against the parliament, so Poland signed a secret treaty with the Rakshasas called the Treaty of Smosoussk, in which the two sides agreed that the two countries would remain friendly until the Rakshasas defeated the Ming people. However, the Rakshasas' request for Polish assistance was rejected by Władysław IV.

After conquering Poland, Mikhail I sent people to Sweden again to ask for a temporary truce between the two sides to preserve their strength against the Ming Dynasty. Swedish Prime Minister Axel Uksensena, who was not the king of Poland, demanded that the Rakshasas cede another 500 square kilometers of land, so that the Swedes would not attack the Rakshasas for ten years.

The Rakshasas reluctantly agreed to this request and signed the Treaty of Helsinki with the Swedes. In this way, the Rakshasa people finally solved their worries and could concentrate on dealing with the Ming Dynasty.

Dai Chunfeng personally came to Yuji City in the eighteenth year of the Apocalypse, and the focus of the Military Survey and Statistics Bureau also shifted to Europe. The Military Survey and Statistics Bureau developed a large number of eyeliners, from the Patriarch's attendants, to the Tsar's bodyguards, to ordinary Muscovites, all of whom became supernumerary personnel of the Military Survey and Statistics Bureau. At this time, the Rakshasa Kingdom was very poor, and a silver coin was the income of ordinary people for three months.

How to deal with the attack on the Volga River valley that the Rakshasas would definitely carry out, the Ming army had two different points of view. One is the Ming army led by Zhou Yuji who can complete all the war factions, and the other is the Yi Yi faction led by Dai Chunfeng.

After receiving the letters from both sides, Cao Wenzhao replied that the two sides should report their ideas back to China and ask His Majesty the Emperor to decide, because this was not only a military issue, but also involved the question of how to treat the Cossacks in the future.

Now from Yuji City to the capital, if you take the train, it takes a total of 23 days, more than 10,000 miles, as long as 23 days, it is already a miracle. So Zhou Yuji sent a few messengers back to the capital to ask for a strategy.

After discussing with the General Staff Headquarters, Zhu Youxiao held another meeting with the cabinet members. In the end, everyone agreed that the Ming army should be ready for war at any time, but they could first send the Cossacks to resist the Rakshasas. Freedom is not something we will give if you want it, and the Cossacks must prove that they can be worthy of the freedom given to them by the Ming Dynasty.

So before the Rakshasa attacked, the Ming army had already recruited 20,000 Cossacks who were willing to fight and formed two divisions. It was promised that after the victory of the Cossacks over the Rakshasas, the steppe on the southern slopes of the Ural Mountains would be permanently divided into the territory of the Cossacks, and the Cossacks would be allowed to elect their own hetmen as an autonomous organization under the Mei.

Most of these Cossacks came from Ukraine, the Crimean Khanate, Poland, Rakshasa and other places, because the Ming declared that as long as they were willing to fight for the Ming, the Ming could give the Cossacks maximum freedom. So the Cossacks, who admired freedom, quickly came to the Volga and joined the ranks of the Ming army. And the Ming did not lose their trust, except for the recruitment of Cossack young adults into the army, the rest of the Cossacks were arranged in the steppe suitable for grazing.

The Cossacks brought their own mounts and weapons, and the Ming army was responsible for providing military rations. After the railway was built, the Ming army had no worries, whether it was food or ammunition, it was very well prepared. Because everyone did not have hope that the Rakshasas would abide by the "Volga Peace Treaty", the strength of the Ming army in Yuji City reached 60,000, which could deal with the Rakshasas pouring out.

The war first began in Saratov, where 20,000 Cossacks fought fiercely with the Rakshasas, and with the result of losing more than 3,000 people, the attack of the Rakshasas was defeated, and a confrontation was formed between the two sides on the mountains of Saratov.

Since the Cossacks proved their determination and courage to fight the Rakshasas, the Ming army relented and ordered the Cossacks to retreat in the direction of Yuji City, while the three divisions of the Ming army pressed up.

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