The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 360: The Tsar's March
Constantinople relied on the strait and inland sea to delay for a day, and the Ming Navy had to take most of the day to reach the battle site.

St. Petersburg was not so lucky and was captured on the first day of the war.

Even if the Ming Dynasty's battleships could not get close to St. Petersburg, the Ming Dynasty's 20,000-ton battleships were already oversized compared to this era.

The fourth-level battleships in the Ming Dynasty's combat fleet had a full load displacement of about 3,000 tons, which were considered super battleships in other countries of that era.

This type of warship was used as a miscellaneous task in the Ming Navy, and most of the time it was only responsible for patrolling the homeland and colonies. It would not participate in ocean operations unless necessary.

During construction, orders are placed for dozens or even hundreds of ships at a time, and construction can begin simultaneously at several shipyards across the country.

There are now more than three hundred level four warships registered with the Navy.

Below these, there are many small military vessels that are not called "battleships" but are still called "warships".

These include combat ships of various sizes ranging from one thousand tons to two thousand tons, from several hundred tons to one thousand tons, and from more than ten tons to several dozen tons, almost to the point of being "countless".

Those warships of one or two thousand tons can be used as battleships in other countries.

Qiu Lianggong used the fourth-level battleships of the Baltic Fleet as the main force and led a group of 2,000-ton warships across the Gulf of Finland and into St. Petersburg along the Neva River.

Small and medium-sized transport ships carrying army troops followed closely behind.

Under the direct cover of the Air Force and Navy, the Army encountered almost no obstacles and successively occupied Rabbit Island and Peter Fortress and soon took control of the city of St. Petersburg.

It doesn’t mean that the troops in the city have completely surrendered. The troops in some places are still fighting stubbornly, but the trend of Ming Dynasty to control the entire city is not affected.

The wealthy rebellious army could only hide in the depths and corners of the fortress, waiting to be directly destroyed and eliminated by the army with more weapons.

After leaving St. Petersburg on horseback, Russian Tsar Alexander and his entourage would look back from time to time at the new capital of Russia.

Watching him being attacked by a group of terrifying flying machines, with terrifying amounts of smoke and huge flames rising up.

Alexander couldn't help feeling extremely heartbroken. He closed his eyes and shook his head from time to time, then forced himself to look into the distance and imagine the situation in Moscow, the former capital of Russia.

When the cavalry left the confines of St. Petersburg and the former capital was no longer in sight, Alexander began to look out over the surrounding fields.

Looking at the wheat fields about to be harvested, the surrounding villages and the busy farmers, Alexander had mixed feelings.

Their existence and strength are Russia's only chance of victory.

But at this moment, a group of imperceptible black spots in the sky not far in front of the team were approaching rapidly.

When these black spots expanded to their limit and finally attracted the attention of Alexander's guards, a panicking buzzing sound was heard in the sky.

The sound quickly grew louder, and the black spot had turned into a huge metal bird.

"It's the Ming army's air knights—"

The general who escorted Alexander, Bagration, who was from the Georgian royal family, recognized it as the machine that attacked St. Petersburg.

Bagration thought that the Ming Dynasty had discovered Alexander and that the machines were coming to kill Alexander and his group, so he immediately reminded Alexander to hide:

"Your Majesty, hurry up. We must run and disperse to avoid their aerial attacks..."

In fact, there was no need for Bagration to remind them, as Alexander and the surrounding officials, generals, and soldiers also subconsciously ran away.

The already chaotic marching troops became even more completely dispersed.

But the attack they imagined did not happen, and the situation in the sky changed unexpectedly.

A small number of those flying machines flew towards the obviously worthless village and dropped several powerful bombs and a few incendiary bombs.

Bombs were used to attack the main buildings of nobles and landlords, and incendiary bombs were used to destroy low-rise ordinary houses, warehouses, granaries and other facilities.

The village, which was not very big to begin with, was quickly turned into a burning ruin by such a sudden attack, and the residents immediately fled in all directions.

Other machines were dispersed over the surrounding fields, dropping incendiary bombs that could start fires into wheat fields awaiting harvest and into threshing floors where large amounts of unprocessed and newly harvested wheat were piled.

It is now harvest time in northern Russia, and the wheat in the fields has begun to turn dry and brown.

Now, if a incendiary bomb is dropped, an entire field of grain waiting to be harvested, the grain for this winter and next spring, will be burned to ashes.

The serfs in the fields howled and ran out, they were panicked by the threat of fire.

The noble servants and serfs who were not affected by the fire in the surrounding area also howled along with the serfs. They were thinking about the losses after the grain was destroyed and the food for the winter.

After dropping the bombs, the planes circled around the area they attacked, as if checking and confirming their results, and then turned around and returned.

It was only then that the officials, generals, soldiers and servants in Alexander's entourage realized that the planes were not targeting them.

"They didn't see us..."

Alexander tightened the reins of his horse and stopped the "emergency evasive maneuver".

After asking his guards to gather the troops again, Alexander looked at the officials and generals around him:
"But what is their purpose? Is it just to bomb that small village? Is this some important stronghold?"

The generals and officials around were also confused, so they looked at each other and discussed:
"Militarily, St. Petersburg is surrounded by plains, and no place seems to be more important than the riverside areas."

"This place...if it's important, it's only because it's on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Most of the villages and fields here belong to the nobles of the capital..."

Bagration looked out at the villages and fields in the distance. The flames in the wheat fields were still spreading, and the serfs in the villages and wheat fields were still fleeing:

"The fire in the wheat field is difficult to control... The Ming army's direct target may be food, and it may be to destroy our supplies..."

Alexander frowned and thought for a while, then nodded slightly to approve Bagration's judgment:

"That makes sense, but Russia has a vast territory. How much impact will their handling of the food scattered across the country have on our supplies?"

Bagration said worriedly:
“If the Ming army had enough planes…if they burned enough villages, there would be a huge influx of refugees into the major cities.

"The food that was supposed to be received is gone, but the rations that the city needs to supply have to increase, and we also have to deal with supplying the troops on the front line."

Alexander thought Bagration made sense, but he still believed in the judgment he had discussed with his ministers before:

“It is indeed troublesome, but the Ming country should not have too many planes. It costs money for them to manufacture planes and bombs, and they cannot drop them all on the inland wilderness.

“They will certainly use their main forces on the battlefields at the front, and at most destroy the villages and fields around the main cities to cut off the cities’ supplies.

“Moscow has been stockpiling food for three years, and even if all the food for this season is burned, it will not affect the city.

"Besides, Moscow is more than 400 kilometers away from the border. Ming country's planes should not be able to fly that far."

Bagration was persuaded by Tsar Alexander:
"Your Majesty, what you said makes sense."

After Alexander and his party regrouped, they avoided the serfs and noble servants in the surrounding villages and continued to move in the direction of Moscow.

There was a large amount of undeveloped land in northern Russia, and at this time there were still large amounts of virgin forests growing.

When St. Petersburg was founded, it was surrounded by swamps and wilderness. After so many years of development, the surrounding agricultural development area is still only more than 20 kilometers.

Even in the 21st century, this range is only more than 30 kilometers, and there are large amounts of forests to the southeast.

Alexander and his party soon left the St. Petersburg frontier zone and entered the wilderness forest area along a specially repaired road.

However, there are also many small-scale agricultural developments scattered among the forests within these Russian territories.

Some were naturally formed around post-station-like facilities on both sides of the road, while others were developed by serfs led by nobles who were granted land.

On both sides of the main road connecting St. Petersburg and Moscow, there is a small piece of open land at regular intervals, that is, a small inhabited village and farmland.

When Alexander and his party passed this small development area, they also subconsciously observed the surrounding scenery, but the more they observed, the more worried they became.

Because when everyone arrived at these developed areas that day, they either saw Ming Dynasty planes appearing and turning villages and large fields into ruins.

Either you didn't see the planes, but you saw burned villages and fields, and occasionally you could see refugees fleeing famine on the road.

The next afternoon, when the team approached the major inland city of Novgorod, they found that the large developed areas around the city had also been completely burned down.

Large numbers of refugees have begun to appear on the main roads along the way, flocking to the ancient city of Novgorod.

However, when they actually arrived at the city of Novgorod, they found that the city had also been bombed.

As one of the oldest cities in Russia, Novgorod has existed for nearly a thousand years and has a large number of stone buildings.

This part of the buildings can be regarded as ready-made air defense fortresses, and it is difficult to destroy them by force with bombs.

However, a large number of buildings still collapsed in the indiscriminate bombing, and more ordinary wooden houses around were completely burned. The fire has not yet been completely extinguished.

A large number of residents in the city either fled to churches and other facilities for shelter, or fled directly out of the city and became urban refugees.

The entire urban organization was busy putting out fires and was unable to accept farmers from the surrounding development areas.

When the Tsar and his entourage arrived outside the city on horseback, they attracted the attention of refugees from the surrounding frontier areas and cities, among whom the nobles came forward to ask to see the Tsar.

Under normal circumstances, Alexander would have considered it, but now he simply didn't want to see them.

Went straight into the city and went to the inner city - the Kremlin.

Kremlin is actually not the name of a specific palace. Its original meaning in Russian is inner city, city wall, and castle, which comes from the Greek word for castle.

Therefore, most of the older cities in Russia have a "Kremlin".

But for foreigners, the most famous is the Kremlin in Moscow.

As a relatively new city, St. Petersburg does not have a classical castle like the Kremlin.

Alexander wanted to avoid the refugees and local minor nobles, but once he entered the city, he found that there was no way to get comfortable.

The castle had caught fire and part of the house had collapsed, with burnt items and debris piled up in the yard.

Alexander was in a very upset mood, not only because of his own enjoyment of life, but more importantly because of what the Ming Dynasty was doing.

From St. Petersburg to Novgorod, a distance of more than 200 kilometers, all the developed areas along the way were destroyed.

So were the pioneer areas and all the mature areas from Novgorod to Moscow also destroyed?

Alexander, full of resentment and worry, asked the generals and officials around him to help analyze the situation.

Seeing that the Tsar was obviously unhappy, Bagration came over to persuade and comfort him:
“Your Majesty, the open areas around Novgorod and St. Petersburg are not very large, and the Ming army may be able to launch a full-scale attack.

“But around Moscow and to the south are large tracts of fully contiguous, mature land.

"It is impossible for the Ming army to burn all the farmland south of Moscow, so we don't need to worry too much."

Even in modern times, there are large areas of wilderness and forests north of Moscow, Russia.

The farmlands around Moscow are scattered with forests. The accumulated temperature in these places is still too low, and agricultural development is difficult because of the low value.

Only in the area further south of Moscow City is there a completely connected agricultural area like the Central Plains of Shenzhou.

Russia's granary is actually in the middle reaches of the Dnieper River and the middle and lower reaches of the Volga River, where the sunshine is more abundant than in Moscow and the local soil is more fertile.

Alexander also felt that what Bagration said made sense. No matter how many planes the Ming Dynasty had, it was impossible to destroy hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of farmland.

But Alexander still knew that even if the Ming Dynasty could not completely destroy the farmland, the damage they could cause was already huge enough:

"Even so, we can't continue to let the Ming army do this. Everyone should think of ways to deal with these attacks from the air. We can't just take the beating unilaterally."

The generals and officials around looked at each other, then gave several obvious solutions and then abandoned them at the same time.

"Both rifles and artillery can theoretically fire into the air...but..."

"But even with a rifle, it's hard to hit a fixed target 300 meters away on flat ground, and it's even harder to hit a target in the air at the same distance."

"Our scholars have roughly estimated that the Ming army's aircraft can fly at a speed of at least 300 kilometers per hour, which means they can move dozens or even hundreds of meters per second. They can also turn and rise and fall relatively freely in the air. How can ordinary soldiers fight them?"

"Let alone 300 meters, even if it's 100 meters away, it's impossible to hit it. It's hard to hit it on the ground, let alone in the air."

"If the accuracy is not enough, we can try to increase the power. We can try to use small-caliber artillery for defense."

"Cannon? You stand the cannon upright and fire it? Then the speed and accuracy of the shot will be even worse. There's no chance of hitting the plane in the sky."

Alexander became even more angry after listening to these chaotic discussions, because this showed that Russia was really powerless against the Ming Dynasty's air threat. It could only stand there unilaterally and let the Ming Dynasty's planes attack freely, and could only dodge slightly at most.

But people can still hide, but cities and villages cannot hide. If cities and villages are gone, how can people live?

In northern Russia, the weather is starting to get colder and winter is coming soon. Alexander can't imagine what the weather will be like this winter.

Even if the Ming people did not take the initiative to attack, even if they simply caused sabotage like this, it was possible that the Romanov dynasty would collapse on its own.

At this time Bagration said:
“It seems that unless we also make a machine that can fly.

"Then let our soldiers use flying machines to deal with the Ming army's machines, and use guns and artillery to fight against the Ming army's flying machines in the air.

"Otherwise we will have no way to fight against the Ming army's aircraft,"

Alexander slammed the table when he heard this and looked at the officials present:
“Can we do this?”

These officials all shook their heads in embarrassment.

Alexander gritted his teeth, but had nothing to say.

(End of this chapter)