Hello everyone, I am the up owner Mo Jiajun, today is the third episode of "Thousand Years of Russia". Today our protagonists are the only two great emperors in Russian history.
Preliminary summary: After the death of Ivan the Terrible, powerful ministers usurped the throne, civil riots continued, and copycat princes were mass-produced. They all said that they were descendants of the Rurik royal family, and there was a chaos in the country.
neighbor The king of Poland had a bold idea: This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Can I merge Poland- Lithuania -Russia and become the world's largest country? This idea is not unreasonable. At that time, most of Russia's land and the capital Moscow were occupied by Poland.
Seeing that all nations are about to be exterminated, and even religions are exterminated, the Patriarch of Moscow stood up and called on all Orthodox Christians to fight against foreign invaders for the sake of their country and their faith. Fueled by religious fanaticism, a rebel army fought for three months and liberated Moscow.
The first thing to do after taking back the capital was to hold a "Meeting of the Gentlemen" to elect the tsar. In the end, 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov was elected with a high vote.
Why did everyone choose a doll with no hair to be the czar? Because the Romanov family is the most powerful relative of the Rurik dynasty, Ivan the Terrible's favorite first wife came from this family. Xiaomi Although he is young, his father who was detained in Poland is a great man. Xiaomi became the czar, and he will be able to rule legitimately when the emperor comes back.
In this way, the rule of the Romanov dynasty , the second dynasty in Russian history, began. The start was a little stumbling, but at least the basics were maintained, and during the period, the " Longxing Land " Kiev was obtained.
As we introduced in the first episode, Russia originated from Kievan Rus . But during the Mongol rule, the Kiev region was occupied by Poland. After the independence of the Principality of Muscovy, Moscow replaced Kiev as the political, economic and cultural center of East Slavia, and the original old ZTE Kiev became Ukraine - meaning a borderland.
A great uprising broke out in Ukraine in 1648. The leader of the rebel army sought help from Moscow, his long-lost brother: We want to go home.
Originally, Russia did not want to provoke Poland, but this is Ukraine. So he fought with Poland for almost 20 years and finally got back half of Ukraine. In 1667, the two sides stipulated that the Dnieper River be the national border. Ukraine and Kiev on the left bank were merged into Russian territory, and the right bank continued to remain in Poland. This is today's Dongwu and Xiwu.
After three generations of czars and a female regent, Russia finally welcomed a strong man from heaven - Peter the Great.
Statue of Peter the Great
Peter's childhood was a bit miserable. Just after he ascended the throne at the age of 9, his half-sister Sophia launched a coup and wiped out Peter's maternal power in one fell swoop. In front of little Peter, the rebels threw his two uncles out of the window and stabbed them to death among the guards' knives. There was no psychological intervention at that time, so Peter was troubled by PTSD for the rest of his life.
Fortunately, after Sofia seized power, she drove Peter and his son to live in a rural area 10 kilometers outside Moscow, where they stayed for seven years. This was actually a good thing for Peter. The 10-year-old child was far away from the filth of the center of power. Without the constraints of the high-walled fortress, the free air in the countryside was particularly healing. Peter grew up rolling in the mud and grew to 2.05 meters tall. Stupid big guy. Then he also launched a coup and easily took back the ruling power.
After Peter took office, he did not indulge in extravagance, did not rush to issue orders, and did not make any major reforms. He was thinking about how to accomplish what started with Ivan the Terrible and which his grandfather, father, brother, and sister had not been able to accomplish - that is, to seize a Black Sea outlet from Ostrk. Peter came to a conclusion: the Russian army was sufficient and could capture cities and territories, but even if it could capture a port, it would be blocked by the Turkish navy. And the Russian Navy. . . . . . Oh wait, Russia doesn't have a navy.
So Peter decided that his first job was to learn how to build a navy.He disguised himself as Corporal Pyotr Mikhailov and took a study tour group to Europe to learn shipbuilding.
He first went to a shipyard of the Dutch East India Company and started as an apprentice to learn how to build ocean-going ships with Dutch engineers. Soon, he got the completion certificate .
Then, Peter went to a shipyard in Greenwich, England, where he stayed for nearly a year, systematically learning navigation, shipbuilding and other technologies, and even became a popular local contracted carpenter. He also went to the British Royal Navy to steal lessons, visited various scholars, and learned astronomy, mathematics and other navigation-related knowledge.
After returning home from his studies, at the ceremony where the ministers welcomed the Tsar, Peter held a pair of scissors and cut off the beard of an old marshal on the spot. This pair of scissors initiated the most famous and influential reforms of Peter the Great in Russian history.
You must know that Russians believe in Orthodox Christianity, and traditional Orthodox believers often have big beards. At that time, old Russian men were very particular. The maintenance time of their beards far exceeded the time of women's makeup, and they also had to style and decorate their beards. For Russian men, cutting off their beards means cutting off their masculinity, which can be called psychological castration.
But the Tsar has already seen the big world of and in Western Europe. In order to keep in line with European culture, he has decided to implement the policy of fully westernizing to throughout Russia. But if you want to learn from Western advanced science and technology and political systems, you must first change customs, improve living habits, and make everyone ideologically conscious of reform. Only in this way can other reform measures be smoothly promoted.
The first step in reform is to cut off the beard. Peter did not cut it across the board. He allowed his subjects to grow beards, as long as you paid a huge beard tax. At all city gates and public places, there are people checking whether the bearded man has paid taxes. If the tax payment voucher is forgotten or lost, he must pay it again. In this way, gradually, except for church people, all men's chins became smooth. Don't tell me, your appearance has improved a lot all of a sudden.
Peter the Great
What followed was a series of reforms in clothing, etiquette, law, science, etc. Especially etiquette, such as urinating and defecating at designated times; not making noise when eating; officials not shouting when discussing matters, etc. This shows how careless the original Russia was.
As for those princes and ministers who couldn't learn, Peter would either curse them or beat them up himself. No wonder Marx said: This is the victory of one kind of barbarism over another.
The construction of "spiritual civilization" has been completed, and it's time to get serious about it. Russia's voyage to the sea is officially staged. There is a sea in the south and north, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, but the corresponding enemies are Turkey and Sweden . These are the top leaders in the region, and they are not easy to deal with. By chance, a grand anti-Swedish alliance happened to be formed in the north, so Peter decided to go north first and then south.
This Great Northern War lasted for 21 years. According to Russian historical tradition, at the beginning of a war, you will always lose a few games first. Peter was heartbroken by his defeat, so he began to reform the army, update equipment, and build new cannons. What to do if there is no raw material? Peter ordered that every three churches should deliver a bronze bell. Then Peter got 350 new cannons, and it seemed that the church was really rich.
Then the capital was moved. The Kremlin in Moscow was built for defensive purposes. The windows are small, the walls are thick, and the streets are narrow. The overall atmosphere is gloomy, not to mention that it left Peter with deep psychological trauma. Moreover, Moscow represents the conservative past. Now Russia is going to the sea and needs a maritime capital. He finally chose a newly dug swamp on the Baltic Sea coastline and built a brand new city - St. Petersburg to guard the northern outlet.
Peter invited Italian designers and skilled craftsmen from all over Europe to participate in the design. Starting from March 1, 1704, a large number of craftsmen, serfs, prisoners and Swedish prisoners of war were escorted here to start building the city. Due to the harsh climate and even worse construction conditions, approximately 200,000 people died from disease, accidents, fatigue, and cold, and their bones are permanently buried deep in the foundations of St. Petersburg.
After its completion, St. Petersburg was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, with spacious streets, gorgeous palaces, stained glass, and exquisite balconies. In autumn, the whole city was dyed red with maple leaves. It was so beautiful that Lao Mo still wants to visit it again. Go once.
But at that time, St. Petersburg had a fatal flaw. It was right on the Russian-Swedish border. If the Swedish king had nothing to do, he could use a slingshot to hit the windows of the Tsar's royal family! This is not how the emperor guards the country, so we have no choice but to continue the Great Northern War.
First came the Battle of Poltava, where the Russian army suffered a tragic victory and Peter gained the initiative on the battlefield. Then it was time to build the navy. Peter invited the most powerful navigation experts and naval experts in Europe to copy all the standards of the British Navy. The first gunboat was launched in 1703, and in the following years, Western countries were horrified to find that Russian naval ships were launching dumplings. A new maritime overlord has taken shape. Peter took this new navy with him. After defeating Sweden in two naval battles, the Russian army occupied Finland and marched into Sweden itself. In 1721, Sweden had to negotiate peace, and Estonia and Latvia were merged into Russian territory. After that, Sweden withdrew from the competition for European hegemony and lived its own life behind closed doors. And Russia finally has the outlet to the sea that it has dreamed of, entering the era of ocean hegemony.
Battle of Poltava
But at this time, there were only four years left before Peter's death, and he had been fighting a lifelong battle without realizing it. The task of opening the southern seaport has to be left to future generations.
After the death of Peter the Great, his wife, his grandson, his niece, and his daughter came to power successively. When Queen Elizabeth was in power, she fought a Seven Years War , which forced Frederick the Great to almost commit suicide. Then, the greatest German soldier in history, a patient with sexual dysfunction, and the grandson of Peter the Great, Peter III, came on the scene. This man knelt down and licked Prussia crazily, ruining all the results of the Russian army; at the same time, he was also preparing to abolish the original Yeka. Telina , put her in a convent and imprisoned her for life . Unexpectedly, Catherine took the initiative and led the Guards to launch a coup, overthrew Peter, and proclaimed herself emperor. In history, she was known as Catherine II , or Catherine the Great .
The romantic affair between Ye Er and her boyfriends is very well depicted in the Russian drama "Ekaterina". Those who are interested can go and watch it. Today we focus on Ye Er’s literary and martial arts skills, especially her ability to know people well and take charge of them.
The first person Ye Er killed was his old enemy Poland. Remember at the beginning of this episode, Poland was thinking about annexing Russia? More than 100 years later, the situation has turned around. Ye Er solved Poland very easily. Lover No. 1, Prince Poniatowski of Poland, Ye Er pushed him to the throne of Poland, and the weak new king was at the mercy of Russia from then on. Later, Ye Er conspired with Germany to partition Poland three times, completely dismembering Poland.
We think that these three partitions are imperialism, but Russia feels that it is not a big villain. The Ukraine and Belarus that Russia got were all the territory of ancient Kievan Rus. They were snatched by Poland. At most, they can regain their homeland. Bar.
The second enemy is also an old enemy, Turkey. Even Peter the Great suffered a defeat at their hands. A big reason is that Russia does not have a permanent navy in this area. Ye Er's lover No. 2, Grigory Orlov, made a crazy suggestion, asking the Russian fleet stationed in the Baltic Sea to expedition to the Black Sea, transform Baltic Sea Fleet into the Black Sea Fleet, and fight against the Turkish Navy.
Russian Navy Expedition Route
On August 6, 1769, the fleet left the naval base in the capital St. Petersburg and embarked on a long journey. You can see the difficulty from this map. Walking such a long way, there is no need for naval battles on the way. Just a storm and the fleet will be finished. In fact, it did end once in the middle, and Ye Er built a batch of ships in St. Petersburg to supplement the past. The fleet did not arrive at its destination until the end of June of the following year.
The Russian army only has battleships 9, cruisers 3, and 1 assault ship, a total of 13 battleships and several transport ships.The opponent Turkish Navy has 16 battleships, 6 cruisers and 50 small boats, artillery 1,430, and 2,000 shore defense artillery support. Just looking at the data, it would be a pipe dream for the Russian army to win.
The person commanding this battle was Alexei Orlov, the brother of Lover No. 2 and Lover No. 3.
Catherine II
On June 25, 1770, the first battle began. The Russian battleship "Yevstafi" launched a suicide charge against the flagship of the Turkish Navy. As soon as the two ships approached, the Russian sailors jumped on the other side's flagship and started hand-to-hand combat.
At this time, a shocking scene happened. Other Russian warships fired together and sank both ships. Although the Turkish Navy lost the command of its flagship, the Russian army also lost a valuable battleship, which sank with 629 crew members.
The Turkish navy was frightened by this desperate style of play and hurriedly retreated to Cesme Bay. Throughout the history of naval warfare in the world, those who hide in ports to avoid battle usually end badly. Türkiye is no exception. As soon as he hid, he was blocked in the bay by the Russian army.
In the early morning of July 7, under the cover of thick fog, three Russian warships entered the bay and began to attack. The Turkish navy focused its attention on these three ships and did not see them at all. Behind them were three huge old Greek flat-bottomed boats, which were filled with flammable materials.
By the time they discovered it, it was too late. They saw a towering, blazing wall of fire rushing toward them, followed by Turkish warships, one after another being engulfed in flames and then exploding.
Diagram of the Battle of Cesme
In the Battle of Cesme, the Turkish Navy suffered a devastating disaster. Only one ship managed to escape. 9,000 sailors died, while the Russian army only lost 30 people. This kind of battle-loss ratio is very rare throughout world history.
At the same time, the Russian army on land also beat Turkey to its knees. 220,000 Turkish troops were wiped out in two battles, and Turkey's subsidiary country, the Crimean Khanate , was merged into Russia. The area on the east coast of the Black Sea basically belongs to Russia. From then on, merchant ships can freely enter and exit the Bosporus Strait and Dardanelles . Starting from Ivan the Terrible, the Black Sea outlet that has been dreamed of for generations has finally been obtained. .
Only then did Russia become a European power with truly imperial significance, no longer a barren land in the north.
The foreign war is going well, but the domestic situation is a bit pessimistic. Ye Er was originally a literary and artistic young woman with quite progressive ideas, and she most admired enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire . However, when she became a queen, her perspective on issues was completely different. Ye Er was married to a German princess without any Romanov blood. She came to the throne after her husband was killed in a coup. There is no tsar in the history of Russia who has a more unfair name than her. Therefore, in order to maintain power, she must gain the support of the aristocracy, the basis of her rule.
During her reign, various kinds of preferential treatment were given to the nobles, and the privileges of the nobles reached their peak. The gentlemen could do whatever they wanted to their serfs. The queen absolutely supported it. In order to protect the interests of the nobles, the serfs were also prohibited from complaining about their masters.
As a result, retribution has come. In 1772, just as the Russo-Turkish War was victorious, Turkey sued for peace, and Ye Er was about to raise the price, the desperate serfs launched a major uprising. The initiator of the uprising was a Cossack named Pugachev who had served in the Russian army. However, he said that he was Peter III, the queen's husband, who had escaped the queen's assassination, and now came back to take revenge.
Ye Er was so angry that his head hurt. Who are you pretending to be? You have to pretend to be Peter III, an ED scumbag, and there are so many people following him. It's so outrageous. In fact, she may not have thought that the people just needed an excuse to resist.
The Pugachev Uprising was the largest peasant uprising in Russian history. It lasted for a year, forcing Ye Er to quickly sign a peace treaty with Turkey and bring the frontline troops home to quell the chaos. This uprising not only did not make Ye Er reflect, but it also made her firm in her mind. A country like Russia must not make the people at the bottom live too comfortably.In order to better control the peasants and serfs, Ye Er stepped up his efforts to strengthen the power of the nobles. So the era she ruled became the pinnacle of Russian serfdom.
Potemkin
After the Pugachev uprising was put down, Ye Er began to think about how to manage the new territory snatched from Turkey. Lover No. 4, Ye Er's favorite man, Duke Potemkin, who is good at infrastructure construction, serves as the governor of Crimea. First, the population changed. The Tatars moved to the interior of Russia, and the Russians moved in. Then a lot of construction work was carried out. Today, Sevastopol, where the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is located, Kherson, the Ukrainian shipbuilding industry base, Odessa, the Ukrainian heavy industry center, and other Black Sea coastal cities were all created by him. If you look at today's situation, you will know how strong the centripetal force of this place is towards Russia.
The Duke is away on a business trip, so the Queen's bed is inevitably lonely. So Potemkin did not forget to do a beauty pageant for the Queen while he was busy with everything. The specific process is like this. After handsome men who think they are qualified to please the Queen pay a certain registration fee to Potemkin, Duke will find professionals to check the quality, select the best ones, and send them to the Queen's bed one by one. . There was a man here who was tired of the life of a bedchamber and secretly cheated on a young palace maid. The queen gave a sum of money to support the two young men, which shows that she still has a very broad mind. The last face of the Queen even helped to pull off a coup after her death, killing the Queen's most disliked son, Paul I, and supporting the Queen's favorite grandson, Alexander, to ascend the throne. We will talk about this in detail in the next meeting.
So, the emperor is the emperor after all. Other queens mainly look for their lovers based on their looks and length, while Ye Er looks for his lovers mainly for his ability to govern the country and lead troops.
Catherine may be the only female monarch known as the Great. Of course, some friends may ask, what about Wu Zetian ? Can anyone answer this question? A barrage show. During her 34-year reign, Catherine created an invincible and powerful army that terrified the whole of Europe. She knows people well and appoints capable ministers and generals in large numbers. The most famous military strategists in Russian history Suvorov and Kutuzov are all talents discovered by her. She added 670,000 square kilometers of very strategic territory to Tsarist Russia. But this result is far from her ideal goal. Her dream Russian Empire should have six capitals, namely: St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna , Paris, Constantinople , Astor. Lakhan (a city by the Caspian Sea), so before she died she said regretfully: If I live to be two hundred years old, I will let all Europe crawl at my feet. In fact, it doesn't take 200 years, as long as she lives for 20 more years, we can see the Russian Empress PK French Napoleon, which would be very exciting.
Ok, that’s it for today’s video. In the next issue of "Millennium Russia", although Napoleon's invasion of Russia failed miserably, it brought freedom, democracy, and equality to Russia. Russia's overall Westernization finally led to revolution. Then we'll see you in the next issue. I wish you all well and all the best.
