After a not-so-pleasant farewell to Queen Elizabeth, Peter returned to his room listlessly.

He had not had sex with Catherine for the past few days, and he always kept himself alone in his room, even in the carriage, playing the violin or harmonica, and did not speak to anyone at all.

The attack a few days ago was the first time Peter felt the embarrassment of those in power. On the one hand, they have great power to kill and kill, but on the other hand, they are too cowardly to be powerless, even in the face of the rabble, they will be frightened, so they desperately strengthen their protection, the slightest disagreement will immediately be killed in the bud, because they really dare not face opponents of their own strength, few people will be like Peter the Great to immediately go to the battlefield with a sword.

Fortunately, he is not the one who needs to be held responsible, even if he is not innocent, or his identity is not innocent. One theory is that both sides of the violence must be responsible, even if you are a stupid crown prince who has no influence and everyone laughs at you, but you are the heir of the Russian Empire, the representative of the ruling power of the great aristocracy, the nephew of Tsaress Elizabeth, who usurped the throne of Ivan VI, and in the eyes of the rebellious serfs, or the Ottomans, Swedes, Poles, Prussians, you are the enemy who should be killed, and it does not change because you are a fool.

A few years later, when the French Revolution broke out that swept across Europe, the usually amiable king immediately became the great devil hated by everyone, and the angry people wanted to tear you to pieces, so that they would not care whether the officials who oppressed them were out of their own evil or what, but all the sins would be counted to the greatest nobleman, that is, the king, and only when the king died, the people could win. This is the price of terror after the great emancipation of the common people's minds that Catherine and the writers Voltaire and Rousseau could not have imagined.

No, I have to talk to Ekaterina about these things, otherwise sooner or later the Russian Empire will pill.

Peter thought to himself, and got up and walked out of the room.

Ten days later, the Empress and her entourage arrived in Poltava, the first major border city they had visited.

Originally part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poltava became the most important stronghold on the southwestern border of the empire after it became a territory of the Russian Empire in the mid-to-late last century.

Poltava was built next to the Volskla River, a tributary of the Dnieper River, and formed a Polish defense line with Kiev in the middle and upper reaches of the Dnieper, and across the Dnieper River to the west, Poland was located. Further south to the Dnieper was the territory of the Crimean Tatars, a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, known as the Ukrainian steppe. After the Zaporozhye Cossacks on both sides of the Dnieper were subordinated to Russia, the borders of the steppe line were mainly defended by the Cossacks.

Ukraine is worthy of being the south of Eastern Europe, with a warm and humid climate, coupled with the fertile plains formed by the perennial impact of the Dnieper River, it has become the southern granary of Russia.

However, the Crimean Tatars, as the descendants of the Mongol Tianjiao, had been living here nomadically before being vassalized by the Ottoman Empire, and regarded the Poles, Lithuanians, Genoese, Cossacks, and Russians from the west and north as permanent enemies.

In the last Crimean War more than a decade ago, the Russian Empire finally carved a nail in the Black Sea, that is, the port of Assyria, and plunged one of its fingers into the Ottoman Empire's inland sea.

However, a little finger was not enough, the Ottoman Empire was not hurt, and with the European power France behind its back, the Ottoman rulers always wanted to take back Assyria and completely cut off the hands of the Russian Empire.

Recently, the Tatars, the minions of the Ottomans, invaded the north again, burning and humiliating everywhere they went, razing hundreds of Russian villages, putting men and old people to death, and young women and children being sold as slaves into the Ottoman Empire.

War between the two sides is about to break out again.

The Russian Empire had less than 100,000 standing troops, of which 60,000 were stationed along the border with the Ottoman Empire.