While Prince Albert of the British Empire was discussing with the Prime Minister about being Chinese, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was also discussing China.

The news of the total annihilation of the expeditionary fleet had already reached St. Petersburg, and this news could not be concealed even if it was wanted to, and there was no doubt that this news caused the whole Russian group to get out of anger.

The defeat of Crimea is good because Russia single-handedly provokes the whole of Europe, and the defeat is understandable, and the Russians feel that although they are defeated, they are defeated in the hands of backward and ignorant Chinese, and that is absolutely unacceptable emotionally.

Because of this, all the Russians clamoured and demanded that they send troops again to continue to punish China, an ignorant and backward barbaric country.

Of course, it is said that Russia is up and down, but in fact it does not mean the entire Russian population, but a very small number of ruling classes.

Speaking of which, although Russia was considered a European country at this time, it was actually still a serfdom country with strong feudal characteristics.

At this time, the Russians were roughly divided into four classes, namely nobles, merchants, soldiers and peasants, and the only people who really had the right to speak in society were nobles, merchants and soldiers, and as for the peasants, their status was actually lower than that of Chinese peasants.

Among the entire Russian population at this time, 91.6% were peasants, completely tied to the land, without any political rights. As for the rest, 4.3% were merchants, 3.2% were military men, only 0.9% were nobles, and among the nobility, 0.6% were real nobles, and the other 0.3% were so-called clergy.

Among these four classes of people, only the nobles and soldiers really have political rights, although the merchants have a certain economic status, but the political rights are quite low, as for the more than 88 million peasants who make up the majority of Russians, seventy percent are serfs, and the rest are peasants who are confined to the land (majority) and free peasants (minority).

In other words, the Russian Empire at this time. In terms of democracy and openness of the political system, it is not far behind China during the Manchu Dynasty, but because Russia is close to Europe and has accepted some of Europe's scientific and technological knowledge, especially military and industrial knowledge, it has become a behemoth.

This also shows a truth, whether a country is strong or not has nothing to do with whether it is a people's cooking, especially in the nineteenth century, the significance of people's cooking to the country's strength is not very great.

But. It is precisely because Russia is not a capitalist country in the traditional sense, so this has also caused a lot of obstacles to this old empire, not to mention the slow development of industry and agriculture, and the military power is actually at the bottom in Europe, purely supported by numbers, but in terms of combat power, it cannot be compared with European powers.

If we say that a small number of elite soldiers, due to the existence of the military class, Russia is quite eye-catching. But if the scale of the war is large, then the question of serfdom in Russia will create a serious obstacle. In other words, the larger the scale of the war, the worse the Russian army became. This was already evident in the Crimean War.

Moreover, just as China's feudal society was full of turmoil and uprisings, Russia has actually been suffering from serf turmoil, and it can be said that a large number of serfs rebel every year. And the number of rebellions is increasing, and the scale of rebellions is getting bigger and bigger.

Other words. Serfdom, because it constrained the population, had already severely restricted the development of Russia, especially capitalism, just as it had during the reign of the Qing government, so reform was actually imperative.

If there is no top-down reform, sooner or later it will become a bottom-up revolution, and this form has become more and more intense, and many people of insight have actually seen it clearly.

It's a pity that in order to reform, it is necessary to move the cake of those very few nobles, which will definitely cause a backlash, and Alexander II was very careful.

In fact, Alexander II had already made up his mind to carry out reforms, so as early as 1857, the "General Council for Peasant Affairs" was established and began to prepare for the reform of serfdom, but a series of events later caused him to delay the reform.

In normal history books, Alexander II would have issued the famous 219 Decree in March 1861, abolishing serfdom and carrying out a comprehensive reform of serfdom.

But at this time and space, because of the Chinese factor, Alexander II put a lot of energy on China, so much so that the process of serfdom reform was delayed.

"Bastards, bastards, these brainless bastards!" Alexander II angrily swept all the things on the table, "Beat and beat, you know how to fight, do these people know anything else in their minds besides beating?" Forming a large army? Punish the Chinese? Where do we have the money to form an army to fight the Chinese? The French and the British have not yet paid their debts. ”

"Your Majesty is angry." Pressure on the great II of the mountain, the military minister Dmitry. Miliudin said to him, "These nobles just can't accept their feelings and are just shouting, and they are not you, they don't control the country, so they naturally don't know the difficulties of the empire." ”

"yes." Alexander II sneered, "I pay for it myself, they watch the excitement on the side, and take advantage of it by the way." But if I say that the tax will be raised, I will say that the tax of the expeditionary force will be increased, or let them give some people, and if you look at it again, one or two will definitely shirk it in every way. ”

"Yes, Your Majesty." Demetri. Miliudin said, "These slave-owning aristocrats are simply a group of blood-sucking locusts, and if they don't reform, the empire will be destroyed in their hands sooner or later."

These failures also proved that serfdom was a direct obstacle to the creation of a modern, mobile and rapid army.

Just because of serfdom, we have a huge amount of manpower, but we can't gather a huge army, and even if we gather a huge army, these serf soldiers have no morale, and they will be chaotic and run away as soon as they fight, and eventually lead to the collapse of the entire front. ”

"I know, I know." Alexander II walked back and forth with his hands behind his back, "I also want to reform early, but now is the wrong time, we are short of money, if we reform at this time, I am afraid that it will cause unrest." Moreover, the most important issue now is not the question of reform, but the question of how to deal with the big mouth of the Chinese lion. ”

After speaking, Alexander II angrily pointed to the letter on the table: "Look, this is the condition of the Chinese, do you know what is said above?" They actually want the entire Far East, and not only that, but he also wants us to pay us 10 million taels of silver! If I agree, our Russian face will be gone! ”

"陛xià." Demetri. Miliudin said, "But if you don't agree, won't the Chinese take it by force?"

Your Majesty, the Chinese have completely annihilated our expeditionary fleet, showing their great naval strength, and their army is said to be not to be underestimated. In this case, our Siberian fleet in the Far East is simply no match for the Chinese Navy, and once it is impossible to stop them at sea, then Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk, Nikolaevsk are under the threat of the Chinese.

Especially Pavlovsk and Nikolaevsk, which are the bases of our Siberian fleet, if the Siberian fleet is annihilated by them again, or even directly lands here, then we will not even have the last face.

In short, since the destruction of the expeditionary fleet, we have lost the Far East, and even if we do not agree, the Chinese can easily occupy these areas, so why don't we take the initiative to compromise and change to a more decent agreement? ”

"I just can't swallow that."

"Your Majesty, you're too worried." Demetri. Miliudin said, "Our retreat now is for a better attack. Bear with the Chinese first and throw the Far East to them, and after they get their hands, it will involve their material and financial resources and energy. We just need to develop well, and when the strength is strong, we can grab it back, anyway, this land is not fixed, whoever has a big fist can get more, do you say this is the truth? ”

"But they still have to pay compensation." Alexander II said, "Ten million taels of silver, no way!" ”

"We can talk about that again." Demetri. Miliudin said, "For example, we can exchange our Aleutian Islands and Alaska and other American regions for this money, anyway, we can't hold these places, and the American company is said to have been in a state of loss, which is also a trouble, and throwing it to the Chinese is also a good thing." ”

"That's a good idea." Alexander II nodded, "But will the Chinese agree?" ”

"I can't help it if I don't agree." Demetri. Miliudin said, "Ten million taels, presumably the Chinese also know that we cannot agree at all, and the Chinese cannot always fight with us, which is not good for everyone, so if we agree to give more land, and then agree to no longer support the Manchu Qing and withdraw all our troops in the Far East, I think he should agree." ”

"You mean, withdraw all our troops in the East?" Alexander II frowned.

"Yes." Demetri. Miliuddin nodded, "With our current financial capacity, it is no longer realistic to continue colonizing the East, it is better to withdraw all the troops and then go all out to colonize Central Asia." Central Asia is closer to us and more fertile, but it has always suffered from a lack of strength. Now, if the troops from the Far East can be withdrawn to Central Asia, it will be easy to obtain greater benefits.

In addition, our 30,000 expeditionary force can't give up, this is an elite army, there are many nobles in it, if you really don't care about them, you can't say anything about it.

On the contrary, if we save these 30,000 people, they will be grateful to His Majesty, and this will be the most loyal armed force in the future, and with such a force sitting in St. Petersburg, no matter what they do, they will be more sure, right? In short, we don't have much leverage left for China, peace talks are the only solution, and continuing to drag on will only make us more passive. (To be continued......)