Baykov knew very well that Ablin, like most of Tobolsk's "non-stingers", was not simple, and could also be said to be a successful businessman who already owned a lucrative estate on the outskirts of Tobolsk. Moreover, these Muslims, known as the "unstabbing people", had settled in the lower Irtysh River long before the Tsar incorporated Siberia into Russia.

Today, they live in the area around Tobolsk and are engaged in small business, trading long-distance shipping on the Irtysh River. Due to the convenience of religion, language, customs, and customs, most of these people do business in Central Asia, Mongolia, and sometimes even as far as Chinese mainland. These people were familiar with the situation in the Eastern countries, so when the central government of Moscow dealt with trade and diplomacy with Central Asia, Mongolia and other regions, these merchants were often called to offer their opinions to Moscow, or directly to fulfill the official mission, which was also an important reason why Ablin was able to be chosen by himself.

After receiving the task from the Tsar, another "non-thorny" businessman in Tobolsk, Segash? Kurtimaiti had to recommend Ablin to himself as a specialist who was familiar with trade with China. Now that I think about it, perhaps the bias at that time paid a heavy price......

Just as he was thinking about it, the dwarf Mongolian horse under Baykov's crotch suddenly stepped on a pebble on the mountain road, and almost threw him off the cliff with his front hoof! Baykov broke out in a cold sweat, and cursed loudly in fright:

"This damn dry road! Why can't you take the waterway? ”

After leaving Jaisangbo, the mission could no longer take advantage of the dense rivers of the Siberian region. They had to go overland instead. As a result, the journey became extremely difficult. On several occasions during this period, the members of the group went to Bajkov one after another, and this year they should return to Tobolsk to wait for news from Ablin, and then continue their journey to China after the beginning of spring next year.

Why didn't Baykov want to go home? But as the "first person to make the clear", he couldn't make this decision! Regardless of the great glory of the Petrin mission to the Ming Empire after its successful mission, his first mission to the Qing Empire was a great responsibility, and the weight of the task assigned to him by the tsar was unprecedented! In the bag he carried with him, he had to leave the supreme Tsar Alexei. A personal letter from Mikhailovich to the Emperor of Bogda!

In February of the previous year (1654), the Foreign Affairs Department of Moscow prepared this credential for the mission to the Emperor Bogda. The credentials are in duplicate, one in Russian. One is in Tatar. It is modeled on the style of the 1646 letter to Shah Zahan, King of India. This is an important letter, and its length alone can be judged! Moreover, just describing the title of Tsar is more than 500 words in ink! When Jean, Alexei of Baykov differed from the lengthy title of the last Tsar Nicholas II. First of all, these are more than 300 words. In fact, it is almost a list of all the territories that the second monarch of the Romanov dynasty can govern. Naturally, it is proud to list the stations east of the Ural Mountains one by one, and in passing mention many regions of Western Siberia and Novosibirsk! And this point will be fully exploited by a person of insight in the Qing Empire in the future! But that's all for later.

In the national letter. Alexei said that his family originated from the Roman Emperor Augustus. Caesar and Grand Duke Rurik recounted the high prestige of their ancestors among the nations and their correspondence with them. However, his ancestors have not exchanged letters with the Chinese emperors, nor have they sent envoys. He was willing to establish a strong friendship with the Qing emperor, live in harmony, and exchange letters.

Others may not know why the tsar was so polite to the Bogda emperor, and they don't know the deep-seated reason for this mission to the Qing Dynasty, but he Baykov knows it! That is, once a continuous and stable trade route with China is opened, Russia will benefit so much that it will take the lead, whether in Western Europe or Eastern Europe, and in the whole of Europe.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Russian merchants arrived in Central Asia and bought some Chinese goods through local merchants, almost at the same time that Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands profited from Chinese goods through maritime trade. Since then, Chinese textiles and Chinese medicinal materials, especially silk and rhubarb, have enjoyed a high reputation and huge profits in Russia.

Until the middle of the seventeenth century, however, Russia's trade with China had to be carried out through the intermediary of Central Asian merchants. Through the Siberian cities of Topolsk, Tara, Surgut and Tomsk, Central Asian merchants peddled Chinese goods, mainly silk, cotton fabrics and medicines.

By the middle of the seventeenth century, this situation had changed. First of all, the prerequisites for the establishment of direct contacts between Russia and China are already in place. During this period, Russia had accumulated sufficient experience in diplomatic affairs with Turkey, the Crimean Khanate, Persia, India and other eastern countries, as well as some Central Asian countries. On the other hand, Russia's economic and political development, as well as the strengthening of its position in the international arena, have created realistic conditions for more "active" political activity in the Far East. In particular, this was greatly facilitated by the "joining" of the Siberian Khanate, which brought Russia's borders closer to the de facto independent Mongol khanates, and through them to China during the Ming and Qing dynasties. You know, in fact, at this time Russia became the first and only European country directly adjacent to the countries of the Far East!

In the second half of the seventeenth century, the central government of Moscow in Russia began to try to establish formal relations with the Mongol khanates and China, but this was done in the footsteps of so-called "expeditions" in the Far East. At that time, Europeans' understanding of East Asia was still very limited and vague. Indeed, the route to China via the Indian Ocean has been opened and is first used by Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. However, the road from European Elite Siberia to the Far East was not yet known, and European geographers at that time knew about it only in their imaginations.

Britain, already on the eve of its rise, stubbornly asked Moscow to allow its merchants to go to China via Siberia, partly because of this immature conception of geography. However, the main reason why the British actively opened up the land and northern sea routes to China was that they wanted to avoid direct competition with the European powers of the time, as they had firmly occupied the few trading ports in the South China Sea and along the Chinese coast. Moreover, the British wanted to wrest the initiative from the Russians to establish direct trade links with China, and to allow British goods to occupy the Siberian market.

Russia, which had just experienced the "double torment" of the turbulent period and the Thirty Years' War in Europe, had long understood the pivotal role of the "brand-new" Siberia in the extraordinary period for this backward European country, and Tsar Alexei was naturally even more reluctant to give up the wealth that the East had continuously sent! Why should this difference be left to the westernmost part of Europe, the "common kingdom of England, Scotland, and Ireland"[1], or the so-called "Commonwealth of England[2]" and "Republic of England, Scotland, and Ireland[3]", which the madman Cromwell had just founded, instead of "Tsarist Russia", the easternmost point of Europe? We have to get ahead of the game! As a result, the central government in Moscow and the Yamen for Siberian Affairs were in full swing.

But if you want to establish solid diplomatic relations and trade with China, in addition to the geographical chaos that is difficult to overcome, what was originally appeared to the Russians as a "great thing" has now become a fetter - the colonization and killing of expeditions in the Far East! And this point must be "forgiven" by the Chinese authorities, or "reluctantly admitted"!

But how easy is that?

(Chapter to be continued)

"A limerick poem. Hidden Head

Reading literature and reading history is only a long breath

I was saying that there was an opportunity back then

The layout is a long-cherished wish

It's hard to come and go

Get up and spend a hundred years

Point out the suffering and diseases of the world

The edge of the town was razed to the sea

Wen'an Wuding tears of joy

[1] The co-kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland refers to England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625 – 30 January 1649 when Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was executed (he was the only king of England to be executed as king). The official title of King Charles I was "Your Majesty Charles I, by the grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, King of Scotland, Guardian of the Faith." (King of France is an honorary title, and every King of England, from Edward III to George III, claimed King of France in his official title, whether or not he actually controlled French territory.) However, those who sentenced him to death did not want to use the faith-related part of the title, and they only addressed him as: "King of England, Charles. Stuart".

[2] The Commonwealth of England, also translated as the Republic of England, was established by the British Parliament to rule England after the execution of Charles I in 1649. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, it was renamed the Kingdom of England and was the first republican government to rule all of England.

[3] Following Cromwell's invasion of Scotland, he ruled Scotland from May 1653 onwards, and later extended his rule to Ireland. In 1653, Cromwell dissolved Parliament and appointed himself Lord Protector, changing the name of the country to the Republic of England, Scotlandand and Ireland. In 1660, Charles II was restored, ending the period of the Republic. (To be continued......)