Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Nikolai was helpless to stop his two school accomplices, Alexander Pushkin and Alexander Gorchakov, from siding with the troublemakers.

This has made the first graduating class of Huangcun Middle School seem like they've been victims of school gang violence.

Now he wants to send Pushkin to China. The round trip will take a long time, which should give him some peace and quiet.

Anyway, going out for a trip probably wouldn't affect the poems he wrote. Pushkin's book and newspaper censorship was always Nikolai's personal responsibility, and sometimes he would even bring it up to talk to Solovyov.

However, the master was biased and always protected this boy, saying that there was nothing wrong with these poems and that they didn't need to be checked.

If Solovyov were to resemble an official from any Chinese dynasty, he'd probably most like one of the Mongol Darughachi, who didn't care about the crickets below.
But once he turns his talk into action, he'll definitely get the hang of it.

Then, Pushkin's poem "If Life Deceives You" spread among the nobility, which shows that poets have a natural advantage.

“Sasha, go to China. I’m going to ask the Chinese emperor to exchange Buddhist scriptures. In exchange, you’ll need to bring a batch of books. After all, you’re a civil servant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Regarding his trip to China, Pushkin didn't care that he couldn't speak Chinese; he was very happy to go.

In literary circles, there is a certain mystical feeling towards China.

Especially after the Jiaqing Emperor received the Russian delegation, the interaction between the two sides became very frequent. Even the embassies established by Russia and the Qing Dynasty were incorporated into the Russian treatment system, and Chinese traditional medicine was introduced into the Russian medical system, with clinics opened in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The Russians, on the other hand, have always been arms dealers.

After traveling halfway around the world, Anton arrived in Guangzhou, met with Ruan Yuan, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, and was about to go to the capital.

He came with a mission, so naturally he had to go to the capital.

The process was the same as always: we arrived in Tianjin, and then went to Beijing.

Going to the capital is naturally a good thing. This time, Andong is doing the work of a fourth-rank civil official. He brought a good letter of state and will also have to meet the emperor.

Emperor Daoguang received news from Russia around the same time as the Russian envoy arrived in Beijing from Guangzhou. However, when Andong departed, the Russian Tsar was still Alexander I.

Now that it was Nicholas I who saw it, even the officials in the Grand Council were confused about what was going on.

So they also summoned the Russian envoy to inquire about the situation.

Although Anton is not as good as his older brother, he is still useful.

The place where Emperor Daoguang summoned him was again the Yuanmingyuan Garden.

The Russian envoy was able to skip the three kneelings and nine kowtows during the audience, which was a testament to the good foundation Solovyov had laid beforehand.

After being offered a seat, Daoguang asked a question.

"How have you been, Suo Qing?"

"Thanks to His Majesty's concern, my elder brother is in good health and has been promoted another rank."

After hearing this, Daoguang nodded. The three Solovyov brothers, General Uliastai reported that he had met the youngest brother who had just joined the army. The second brother, Anton, was his eldest brother's adjutant when he last came here.

Of course, he speaks Mandarin very fluently, with an even more authentic accent than his brother.

Then Emperor Daoguang made a series of polite remarks, expressing his deep condolences for the death of Alexander I and deciding to send envoys to Russia to offer condolences, even though they would not be able to attend the funeral, it was still a gesture of goodwill.

When Emperor Yongzheng sent his envoy, it coincided with the death of Peter II.

But the key point is what happened next. Emperor Daoguang also learned about the changes in St. Petersburg through the minister to Russia and inquired about the matter.

"Your Majesty need not worry. My elder brother has his own methods in the south. When I set out, this was not the case. And since the rebellion was quelled by Your Majesty in a single day, there should be no major incident."

"If they are traitors, they should be severely punished."

"Your Majesty may not know, but His Majesty has always been benevolent. He will likely only punish the ringleaders and not the others. In other words, he will exile some of the rebels to the border regions, and he will surely pardon the families of their followers as well."

Emperor Daoguang was somewhat bewildered upon hearing this.

Ok?
Is this even possible?

Shouldn't all rebels be punished by having their entire family wiped out? At the very least, they should be sent to Ningguta to be enslaved by the armored people; at worst, their entire family should be executed. The Qing dynasty inherited the Ming system, and Emperor Daoguang thought that it was only because his own father was a merciful ruler that he hadn't thought of eliminating the root of the problem even when someone was stabbing him with a knife.

"If this happens within the Imperial Guards, can it be dealt with leniently?"

"That's natural; there are many sons of nobles among the Imperial Guards."

Upon hearing this, Emperor Daoguang roughly understood.

The information he received was firsthand news after Nikolai quelled the rebellion. At that time, he hadn't heard of many people being sentenced to death; most were exiled or dismissed. Those who fared better were demoted to soldiers. Those who were involved, including some noblemen, were either pardoned or had their investigations suspended.

Since that was the case, although Daoguang found it absurd, he stopped asking about it.

He personally led the Russian envoys and Russian officers in Beijing on a tour of the Yuanmingyuan Garden and hosted a banquet for them.

The only problem was that Daoguang's banquets were too stingy, with only four dishes and a soup on each table. Compared to the banquets bestowed by Jiaqing, it was rather meager for a state banquet.

"I don't know why this is?"

"His Majesty has always valued frugality, hence this."

Anton had seen it all before. At the banquets held by Emperor Jiaqing, although the previous emperor was relatively frugal, the event was still respectable.

The next step was a military parade to showcase the Qing army's achievements in recent years.

This military reform mainly targeted the Beijing Garrison and the Eight Banners outside the Great Wall. Some of the Eight Banners stationed there, such as the Eight Banners of Qingzhou, were also equipped with French 1777 rifles and 6-pound cannons, mainly for ease of movement. The Eight Banners stationed there had certain tasks of assisting in the defense of other places, so they emphasized mobility.

The Beijing garrison, on the other hand, looks much more organized.

From the perspective of the three Solovyov brothers, their views differed. The Solovyov brothers themselves certainly knew the Qing Dynasty's true nature; they knew roughly how many petals a chrysanthemum had. In Ryukyu, the Qing army performed somewhat better than the Satsuma Domain samurai under the shogunate, but what would happen in the future was hard to say.

Anton disagreed, believing that the Eight Banners were equivalent to the Russian Imperial Guard, with the Upper Three Banners being the "Old Imperial Guard" and the Lower Five Banners being the "Young Imperial Guard." However, he argued that the Qing army's "Imperial Guard" was a comprehensive force, with infantry, cavalry, and artillery all under one "corps."

Unlike the Eight Banners of the past, besides guns and cannons, what best reflects the characteristics of the new army is probably the Guards Cossacks who are under the Bordered Yellow Banner.

These Cossacks were mostly transferred from Siberia. They even wore the original Cossack clothing, except that the platoon commanders had yellow jackets, and some even had Qing army swords and sabers.

Then followed by the 6-pounder cavalry cannon.

Next came the Eight Banners Beijing Garrison. Although the Qing army might have started to falter in battle, their marching and inspections were still quite impressive. If the British were to send an ambassador to Beijing now, they would have to reconsider the relationship between Britain and the Qing Dynasty.

Because the Plain Yellow Banner and Bordered Yellow Banner armies were led by cavalry, followed by neatly arranged infantry, each with cannons imported from Russia and France behind them.

Moreover, although Emperor Daoguang was stingy with himself and even lowered the meal allowance for entertaining foreign envoys, he still managed to earn money from trade between the Qing Dynasty and Russia. He did not shortchange the Beijing Garrison at all, and their weapons and equipment were comparable to those of some second-rate European countries.

Especially the powerful Unicorn Cannon, which was trained by specialized Russian instructors.

Even those marching in the Plain White Banner formation included what resembled a European "Foreign Legion," meaning soldiers recruited from Europeans.

Solovyov was unaware of this. If he had known, he would probably have thought that Emperor Daoguang, that country bumpkin, was really willing to spend money, and that once he saw something good, he had to get one for himself too.

Moreover, the troops recruited through proper channels were far superior to the Persian conscription of deserters from the Russian army. This "Foreign Legion" was also recruited by General Drouot with reference to similar units in the French army.

This included Dutch lancers and grenadiers, Swiss infantry, Italian light infantry, Austrian light cavalry and dragoons.

If it weren't for the distance, it wouldn't have been a problem to bring in people from France to form branches of cuirassiers and queen dragoons.

For many single veterans and junior officers in Europe, serving in the Qing Dynasty's Foreign Legion, under the emperor, meant not only timely pay but also the possibility of marriage if they were lucky, and even the possibility of being assigned a wife.
This might seem strange to modern people, but it wasn't a big deal in the Qing Dynasty. Back then, Russian captains were guaranteed to find wives, even if they were young female prisoners.

Moreover, thanks to Irish immigrants, finding a strong and healthy Irish woman in the far East isn't a problem; it's just that her red hair is quite noticeable.

The Qing army cleverly arranged these "foreign legions," "various banner commanders," and "naturalized troops" within the Eight Banners.

Those from Russia were all assigned to the Bordered Yellow Banner. Since the Kangxi era, there has been the 17th Russian Zuo Ling under the Fourth Canling. These people were established because the Russian prisoners captured in Yaksa and other places just made up enough for a Zuo Ling.

Now we have a much better manpower.

There must be at least two thousand Russians in the Eight Banners now, and they are all newcomers.

The French are all within the two white flags, so it makes sense to think about the Bourbon bedsheets.

Following behind the Qing army of the Plain Red Banner were red-haired Irishmen. They were recruited purely because of the hair on their heads; they were truly "red barbarians."

Moreover, these people are the most numerous, and several regiments can be formed from Irishmen. They even bring their families, so there is no shortage of soldiers.

However, this outfit might look rather awkward to the French; their attire under the two red flags doesn't look much different from that of the British.

It makes sense, considering that Irish people often served in the British Army, so it's not surprising that these Irish officers appeared.

Even the tunes they used each had their own local characteristics.

The marches were all tunes from their original countries, including the Irish tunes used for firing squads, which were not unfamiliar to Anton.

My older brother always said that those British were all defeated by them and not worth mentioning.

It was the tune these people played, and it was even the Grenadier March.

It seems quite absurd that such things could occur within the Qing army.

That's because Anton hadn't seen the current situation of the Qing Dynasty navy. The fact that they could put pickled vegetables inside the cannons was due to the use of space.

These are the two blue banners, and no foreigners have been incorporated into them yet. They still look like the original Qing army.

Of course, given that they were unwanted and unloved from the very beginning, it was already a miracle that they were allowed to incorporate new weapons.

The Eight Banners originally consisted not only of Manchu, Mongol, and Han troops, but also included some scattered banners of other ethnic groups, such as some Korean banners and one Russian banner, in the past.

In this current form, the types of troops are actually more diverse.

Even a year ago, Drouot received a letter from Napoleon, which made him a little envious, because Bolívar had almost driven the Spanish away, and he was itching to fight back in Port-au-Prince.

But the idea of ​​the abdicated French emperor becoming a first-rank general in the Qing Dynasty seemed outrageous, which is why Napoleon felt jealous and couldn't help but feel envious.

These instructors from Russia and France all worked under the head instructor, Drouot. After reviewing the resumes of both Drouot and Orsufiev, the Qing court ultimately chose Drouot, who was proficient in artillery, as the head instructor.

Napoleon's wish was to transform the Qing army, trained by European instructors, into an army capable of deterring the British.

It seems that after several years of training, the Qing army has finally become quite formidable.

At least their performance in drills and shooting was decent, but Drouot was not without concerns.

He believed that the Chinese emperor's local army was hardworking and performed well during long marches, as well as in archery duels.

However, if they were to get close to the "Foreign Legion" and the Irish "Red Barbarians" during the exercise, even if it wasn't a real fight, many people would choose to retreat. This aversion to close combat could indeed cause trouble in the future.

He saw all the potential problems, but he still believed that the Qing army, whether the Eight Banners or the Green Standard Army, would become an excellent modern army after effective training.

This "modern" refers to the 19th century.

As for the evaluation criteria, Drouot also took into account the situation of European armies.

At least the Qing army wouldn't be like the Prussian army of 1813, where entire regiments and battalions would flee before even engaging in major battles.

To give a hard assessment, under the guidance of European instructors, their fighting ability was weaker than that of the Austrian army, but stronger than that of the Ottoman and Persian armies.

In that case, Europe could be considered weak among second-tier and strong among third-tier. (End of Chapter)