Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

But it was still some time before the snow fell, and Pierre did not sleep well that night.

It wasn't because of anything else. Sergeant Martial, who was guarding them, was sleeping even more soundly.

But he was definitely an old soldier who had done nothing wrong. After getting up the next day, he chatted with Pierre for a while during the march, and then returned to his team with satisfaction.

Ney's Third Army also included troops from Württemberg, who would take over the prisoners in a few days.

Although they were the Empress Dowager's family, and even some of their princes were generals in the Russian army, these people were not so friendly to the Russian prisoners.

It can be said that after Ney called away those French soldiers, the living environment of the Russian prisoners became even worse.

Although the French liked to rob and rob people, and loved other people's sisters and daughters, they still had some basic policies on prisoners. After being captured, Austrians who did not want to go home could stay in specific areas of France to work.

If it were the Austrians or the British, they might be a little more particular.

After all, the British still have Wellington. Although he basically relies on squatting and micro-management to fight wars, he is always generous to the enemy.

There's nothing wrong with this matter. The Spanish hate the French as invaders, so there's nothing wrong with that.

But what about Württemberg, Baden, Saxony and Bavaria?

All of these families have some relatives with the Russian royal family. The only two weak branches that are related to Russia are Saxony, and they are not so particular about Russian prisoners.

They didn't see Pierre, a tall and strong man wearing glasses, coming to blackmail him.
Of course, if you look at it from someone else's perspective, you might think that the Germans have a tradition of abusing prisoners.

The British were relatively better, but why did the Americans abuse their prisoners so much?

Probably, possibly, perhaps, this result is caused by the large number of Germans in the United States.

After all, the one with the English character has great shortcomings and virtues, and that will only appear when you come up with some clever ideas in the future.

The greatest shortcoming of the Germanic people is their virtue, which is the direct adoption and development of the ideology.

Therefore, on the way of the French retreat, these prisoners, who had not suffered much at first, now had to be forced to walk with rifle butts and whips every day. If they showed any resistance or fell behind due to exhaustion, they would be forced to walk.

What awaits them is being stabbed to death by the German bayonets. The French would even rather find a firing squad or one or two soldiers to shoot you to death, rather than this.

The discipline of these men cannot be maintained now, and the French probably won’t be able to keep it for long.

At the same time, the main force of the Russian army, which was also preparing to follow, was advancing on a parallel line.

After leaving Maloyaroslavetsky, Solovyov suddenly developed a high fever. He thought he had to leave the army and rest for a while, but after the doctor prescribed him some oral medicine, he got much better.

Among the traditional Western medicine, the least reliable ones are probably bloodletting therapy and some strange topical medicines. On the contrary, oral administration is much more reliable.

Besides, Solovyov himself had some skills in herbal medicine, and the herbs used on him were those recently imported from China.

During their march, Alexander, in addition to corresponding with Kutuzov and Bennigsen, actually wrote a letter to him.

It is mentioned here that Alexander will send a second delegation to China in the future.

Since his good friend Czartoryski, the neighboring country of Little Poland, is too unreliable, this time Alexander wants to seek the advice of experts.

Solovyov was a very career-oriented man. No matter whether he was fooling around with women or doing serious work, this matter made him excited.

Although the medicine will definitely work, it is obviously a good thing if a person has a stronger desire to recover or survive.

It’s just that twenty years have passed since the Macartney Mission’s visit, and the Chinese emperor has changed from Qianlong, who stamped the country’s documents, to Jiaqing, who lost the country’s documents. This is a huge change.

Solovyov even took advantage of the few days when he was accompanying the army and recuperating from illness to write down his suggestions in the carriage, and he would also submit them to the Tsar himself through Moscow.

As for the other reason, his sister-in-law Sophia was about to reach the age where girls could get married, and the Dolgorukov family was quite favored by the Tsar, so Alexander naturally mentioned the need to arrange a marriage.

Although he was Prince Vasily the Younger's brother-in-law, he was older, so when Alexander asked Solovyov's mother-in-law for her opinion, he also asked him.

Solovyov wrote about his family affairs separately from the main business.

Regarding the issue of visiting China, Solovyov believed that the mission should be carried out during the anniversary celebrations of the Chinese emperor's accession to the throne.

You have to know that Jiaqing had been in power for almost twenty years. Although China’s rules were different from those of Tsarist Russia, there must always be a reason.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs can do this well, and it can even be directly managed by Prince Saltykov, who can drown people with letters as soon as he opens his mouth. It is a fall from favor for him to be assigned to manage Asian affairs that are not urgent, but it is indeed not a good idea to not have such a professional official of noble origin to take care of this job.

For this purpose, Solovyov even tried to recite the passage about butchering an ox from Zhuangzi's "The Art of Preserving Health".

At least no one has been able to talk to me actively for all these years. Apart from being a little slow, the incision sounds a bit strange, and there is a bit of Shen Gongbao's heavy breathing, there is probably nothing wrong.

It doesn't seem to be a big deal, everything seems to be going well.

At least when he goes there, there shouldn't be any diplomatic incidents like those people did before. He knows what will happen if he leads these people to Qing. After all, there is evidence in Russian archives that Ma Zhongtang accepted Russian silver rubles.

Then again, the Russian army was now pursuing Napoleon along several roads, just to give him no chance to catch his breath.

According to the confessions of recently captured French soldiers, their army had limited rations and many soldiers were falling behind.

If he had not been ill, Solovyov would probably have suggested to Kutuzov that he should send troops directly to fight Napoleon before he reached Vyazma.

But at this time there were other people who proposed this suggestion to Kutuzov, but it was obvious that the commander-in-chief would not allow it.

As they continued to move forward, General Caulaincourt saw that the weather was beginning to get colder, so he asked Napoleon a question he had asked many times.

"Your Majesty, we have a limited number of horses, and it is unlikely that we can obtain any supplies from here. Your Majesty, I suggest again that we make a temporary reinforcement for the horseshoes. At least this will be very useful before winter comes."

"Mr. Caulaincourt, you think too much. We will settle in Smolensk and get sufficient supplies there. At least the damage in Smolensk is not as serious as that in Moscow, and there are still some city walls. The Russian army retreated from there on their own initiative, not after we opened a gap." Napoleon still ignored his ideas and believed that the quartermaster in Smolensk had already arranged the supplies he needed.

Caulaincourt was also helpless. Perhaps the Emperor himself was commanding some armies that did not seem to exist on the map. French soldiers were falling behind every day, and the reinforcements could not keep up at this time.

Moreover, he knew, and the emperor himself knew, that a supply convoy departing from Smolensk had been attacked by the Cossacks and suffered heavy losses. This happened before they retreated. From then on, it would even be very difficult for Smolensk to send supplies to Moscow.

It seems that it is actually impossible there.

And what was Napoleon doing at this time?
He seemed to be stubbornly believing that he could do anything, and probably thought he was the center of the universe.

Here he once again rejected Caulaincourt's opinion.

Collancourt looked at Lauriston beside him and wanted to say something to him.

Both of them and Savary had served as ambassadors to Russia, and had lived in St. Petersburg in the winter and had been to Moscow. Naturally, they were more familiar with this aspect than Napoleon, who had never been to Russia.

"Your Majesty, it seems that you don't believe what the Russian winter will be like."

"Armand, we can't say anything. I was born a soldier and have known the emperor for a long time. It is difficult for us to change his character. He wants to change the world, but he is only willing to listen to what he wants to hear and stubbornly follows his way. What else can we do? What can you and I do? Your brother died under that fort."

"Sir, you are going to say this again."

When mentioning his younger brother August, Caulaincourt's eyes immediately dimmed.

When he returns to Paris, he will probably have to take care of his brother's funeral affairs, including his wife, lover and illegitimate child.

The French called the Battle of Borodino the Battle of Moscow, and their victory there now seemed meaningless.

For the retreating French army, their morale was getting worse and worse, and the troops on the Old Smolensk Road soon passed the battlefield of Borodino.

The bodies here were not buried. Napoleon hurriedly pursued the Russian army, leaving behind this tragic scene.

Two months have passed, and the place is filled with the stench of rotting corpses, and it looks extremely disgusting.

A human corpse will start to stink after a while, and this is unavoidable.

Just the smell is even more unbearable than the stinky abalone in Qin Shi Huang's carriage. If it turns into bones, it would be considered fast.

The French soldiers were now walking here, and it was obvious that they had no intention of caring about the dilapidated fortifications and the tragic scene of bones exposed in the wild. They could only continue to advance silently.

Napoleon himself didn't seem to care about it.

But after passing Borodino, the weather began to deteriorate and there were signs of frost. Although it came later than in previous years, it still came.

At this latitude, it is probably just a matter of time for General Winter to arrive early or late.

After this "glorious" battlefield, the order of the French army became worse and worse, and some people had begun to eat dead horses.

If they were not modern and civilized people now, probably all the French expatriates would have become like that. This is even more extreme.

At least as long as they are alive, they are still civilized people, but if they are dead, then it may be a different matter.

The Russian army has been following in parallel from the south, so the French also know that they will not be able to get any rations in the south.

Because supply was so difficult, among Napoleon's army, only the Guards were able to maintain sufficient rations. Even in the army behind, some officers began to go hungry. It became a consensus that the dead horses would become rations.

They have not yet started to actively kill horses, and they are already the last line of defense to maintain discipline.

By the way, there was a bald army that was forced to kill horses when they were forced into a corner.

It’s just that the French army was not surrounded, and probably there was no “imperial village” like Tsanovo-Zemische to serve as a base for them to wait for supplies.

Soon the Russians were about to recapture the place where Kutuzov took over the army. Even after the local villagers came back, order was quickly restored. However, some villages had been burned down by the French who passed by.

Some Russian soldiers who fell behind were also gathered here. If they really couldn't catch up, they could help build a supply line and then ride on the supply carts that caught up later to return to the front line.

The Russian army still had order at this time, but for the French, it was gradually being lost.

By the time it starts to snow, the food supplies will surely be gone.

At this time, Pierre's luck was not bad. Their prisoner team was somewhat separated from the main force, and the Württemberg infantry were not very vigilant. When they were so lax, they would always be caught up by the commandos.

So he was rescued by Dolokhov, his former enemy and former friend, with whom he had finally reconciled before the Battle of Borodino.

But many people who were with him will never come back.

Some Russian prisoners who walked slowly were killed by the French and puppet troops on the way and abandoned on the roadside.

For these commandos, the French soldiers who fell behind, the French soldiers lying on the roadside, those who died of disease and hunger, and the Russian prisoners with blasted heads were the best tragic coordinates.

After walking a little further, when Dolokhov, Figner, Fyodor Tolstoy and other "heroes" met up, they also saw a large number of corpses, as well as burning churches and villages.

"These French guys always say we are barbarians. In my opinion, they are the barbarians, otherwise why are they so willing to duel?"

But what Fyodor said was not convincing, as he himself was a good duelist.

But now, seeing the church in the village burning, the rangers, who usually have poor discipline and are always causing trouble, decided to go and put out the fire.

There might still be some food stored in the church and the villagers' homes, but the French were not locals, so they probably would not search the cellars and under the floors for everything.

When they get closer, many people will be surprised. (End of this chapter)