The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 365 Georgia and India

At the end of October in the twenty-second year of Ming Dynasty, winter had already arrived in northern Russia.

After suffering for nearly two months, Russian Tsar Alexander finally received good news this winter.

"General Bagration's strategy was successful. After a large number of refugees moved south to the south, the local Ming army accepted these refugees.

"The Ming army quickly slowed down its advance and is now close to a complete stop."

Alexander was overjoyed after hearing the report. His spirit, which had been depressed for a long time, became particularly excited:
"That's great, this is really great, we in Russia are saved..."

However, as the proposer of the plan, Bagration himself did not look relaxed, and after reading the specific report, he showed a look of obvious worry.

After Alexander's excitement subsided, he was about to praise and reward Bagration again, but when he turned around, he saw his expression:

"What's wrong? Our plan was successful, but our hero doesn't seem happy?"

Bagration said with a very serious expression:
"The Ming army accepted Russian refugees, which did slow down their offensive, but the delay was only temporary.

"In the long run, it is even beneficial to the Ming army.

“This is weakening our potential strength while strengthening the potential strength of the Ming army.

"With these refugees as guides, when the Ming army continues its attack next year, they will be more familiar with the Russian interior..."

Before Bagration could finish his words, Alexander stopped him with a wave of his hand:

"The general had already reminded us at the time, but the choice in this matter lies with the Ming Dynasty, not us in Russia.

“The Ming Dynasty chose an option that is in their long-term interests and in our short-term interests, which is not the worst outcome for us.

"The Russians have no other choice. Let us enjoy this last bit of independence and freedom for now."

Alexander knew what the Ming Dynasty would do in the future, but he had basically recognized the reality and knew that Russia could not maintain its independence under the attack of the Ming Dynasty.

Now Alexander has reached the state of "every second counts", and he no longer cares much about the future and long-term matters.

But what Bagration was thinking was even more complicated.

The Bagration family is not traditional Russians, but Georgians from the Caucasus Mountains and descendants of Georgia's former royal family.

The Bagration family ruled Georgia for nearly a thousand years.

Georgia's geographical location is extremely awkward, being located on the border between the Ottoman Empire, Persia and Russia.

Both the Ottomans and Persians sought to gain full control of the Georgian region, but Bagration's ancestors chose to rely on Russia to maintain their rule.

Although Georgia was eventually destroyed by the Ottoman Empire, the Bagration family fled to Russia and received relatively good treatment.

Bagration's father still held the title of Georgian prince, and the Bagration family was integrated into the Russian aristocratic circle.

The three generations of Bagration now grew up in Russia, became wealthy in the Russian army, and have long since completely come to regard themselves as Russian.

Bagration himself had never previously entertained the idea of ​​leaving Russia.

If Alexander, as the Russian Tsar, still has the courage and will to continue fighting, Bagration may fight with them to the end.

But now Alexander was visibly decadent and no longer cared about his own fate or the fate of Russia.

When Bagration began to think about his future destiny, his "hometown", which had no practical significance, now became a little meaningful.

The Ottoman Empire is now brain dead, Russia is also slowly dying, and Persia does not dare to take any special actions now.

Now is probably the safest time to be around Georgia.

So do I have a chance to use the name of the Bagration family to rebuild the Georgian state?
Even if it was a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty...

Bagration hesitated and considered for a long time, and finally stayed alone after the meeting.

After everyone else left, Bagration expressed his thoughts tactfully without waiting for Alexander to ask:
"Your Majesty, I want to go back to my hometown before the last moment..."

Alexander was stunned for half a second, then suddenly realized:
"Your hometown... By the way, you are talking about Georgia...

"I shouldn't stop you, but Russia needs you now."

Bagration said:

"There's nothing we can do, and there's nothing I can do if I stay here.

“If I don’t go back now while I’m still relatively free, I may never have the chance again in the future.

"And according to what has been revealed so far, the Caucasus region is the deepest inland, and the Ming army cannot reach it directly.

"If Your Majesty wants to continue the resistance, you can actually move your army to the Caucasus region in advance."

Alexander thought about the current situation, and more importantly, his own mentality, and finally sighed helplessly:

“Well, I will appoint you as the Prince of Georgia and the Governor of the Caucasus.

"Lead the officers and soldiers currently under your command and organize a resistance army with the Caucasus region as a base."

Bagration accepted the order and asked in return:

"Your Majesty, are you not going to go?"

Alexander waved his hand insincerely and said:
"There's no rush for this, let's wait until next year..."

Bagration vaguely understood Alexander's mentality, so he did not continue to persuade him, but bowed again to thank him and accepted the order.

Bagration then began to prepare for action and ordered his soldiers to move to Georgia, asking them to pack up and get ready to leave.

Finally, we set off for Georgia before the coldest time arrived.

Before that, at the end of October in the Ming calendar and the end of November in the Western calendar, the Ming Dynasty's bombing of the Russian interior had basically stopped.

Because the supplies that the people could destroy had been almost destroyed in the autumn.

However, the environment in inland Russia is becoming increasingly worse, or it can be said that the local situation in inland Russia has deteriorated rapidly because the air strikes have completely stopped.

Because the Ming Dynasty continued its air raids, the surviving Russians did not dare to run around, and many of them tried to hide alone as much as possible.

Only after the Ming Dynasty's bombing is truly over will they be able to leave their existing shelters and participate in activities everywhere.

The hunger that began in the autumn and the cold that began in the winter, the double damage continued to accumulate and overlap, and it became increasingly unbearable for ordinary people without savings.

The old and weak members began to die of starvation and freezing on a large scale, and the young and strong refugees began to gather together in increasing numbers.

More and more refugees began to run to the front line of the Ming Dynasty battlefield.

The news that there would be food and survival in the Ming Dynasty had turned from a deliberately spread rumor into reality, spreading rapidly among the refugee group.

This did relieve the pressure on the Russian court, but it was not enough to completely relieve the pressure, and the situation in Russia continued to become increasingly chaotic.

Small groups of serfs were rioting everywhere, snatching the little remaining food. The Russian Tsar and the main members of his bureaucracy were now hiding in the small town of Kovrov, and they had no ability or conditions to control the situation in Russia as a whole.

Alexander and his officials were becoming increasingly decadent, and it would be nice to know what big things were happening in Russia.

Compared with previous years, this winter in Russia is not particularly cold.

But this year's winter food reserves and large amounts of fuel were destroyed, as were a large number of cold-resistant buildings and clothing as well as fuel.

The court's management system also gradually collapsed in reality.

More and more doomsday scenes appeared in the interior of Russia, which was slowly turning into a huge hell on earth.

When the ground in northern Russia froze, the Ming army in the European theater officially stopped advancing and began to hibernate in supply points.

At the same time, a large number of aircraft are arranged every day to go deep into the Russian interior to observe the situation.

Fighting on Russia's southern front and in the Ottoman region also slowed down with the arrival of winter.

At the same time, the operations of the main forces of the Ming Dynasty in the Western Regions were also suspended.

Only India and surrounding areas, which have the hottest climate, are still implementing the anti-scorched earth strategy step by step.

After the ground forces captured all coastal ports and controlled India's coastline, they started from the main coastal ports and advanced inland by building railways.

At the same time, the Air Force and carrier-based aviation crossed the front line and dropped various bombs and experimental weapons on the Indian interior.

The Shun State's institutions in India could be considered a newly established dynasty, a new and powerful dynasty that had just unified most of India.

Emperor Li Celing can be regarded as a great ruler, and his rule in India was originally very stable.

But now India's interior is rapidly becoming more chaotic than Russia's interior.

Shun State's capital, Delhi, is located deep inland, with a straight-line distance of more than 800 kilometers from the nearest coastline.

This is already the limit of the combat radius of small aircraft. It is difficult for the Ming Dynasty's largest number of small attack aircraft to participate in the bombing of Delhi.

They could only rely on a small number of large and medium-sized aircraft for bombing.

Although in the early stages of the war, directly bombing a capital deep inland like Delhi did not directly improve one's own naval control.

But the impact of bombing the capital was still huge and could significantly undermine the enemy's morale.

According to the plan, most of the bombs dropped on the inland of Shunei were still traditional high-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs.

Responsible for destroying and sabotaging Shun State's basic industrial facilities.

Including the handicraft factories specially set up by Shun State, as well as various warehouses storing large amounts of grain and various materials.

But some of the bombs are specially made, which are both technological and ruthless in this era.

The Ming Air Force's first bombing of the Shun Kingdom's capital took place the day after the direct war explosion.

For ordinary residents of Delhi, this day really felt like the end of the world.

A large number of huge twin-propeller bombers appeared over the streets of Delhi, directly blocking the sun in the sky.

The moment they appeared, they caused countless exclamations.

Ordinary Shun countrymen had no idea what an airplane was, so many people who had stayed at home ran out to watch the excitement after hearing the screams outside.

I don’t know how many people looked up at the sky together, and then the tragedy happened.

Countless citizens looked up, looking at those magical machines, which were considered huge in that era, and dropped two ellipsoidal objects on them on the ground.

Then came the blinding flash of fire and the deafening sound of explosions, drowning out the extremely curious citizens of Delhi.

I don’t know how many people died at that moment, and I don’t know how many people were burned to death by the incendiary bombs dropped by planes.

But those who died on the spot or died immediately were actually lucky.

The day after the first round of bombing, a strange epidemic began to appear in Delhi, and a large number of citizens began to fall ill at the same time.

The governor of Delhi, who was busy fighting the fire, was very surprised and confused when he heard his subordinates' report on the epidemic:

"I understand that a great disaster will be followed by a great epidemic. The Ming Dynasty's flying machine bombing can indeed be considered a great disaster, but isn't this great epidemic coming a little too early?"

Normally, natural disasters create a large number of corpses, which are prone to produce a large number of bacteria and viruses after decomposition, and if they are contacted by humans again, they may cause plague.

But corpses take time to decompose, and bodies soaked in water are usually the most lethal.
The disasters nowadays are explosions and fires. Both explosions and fires can kill most bacteria and usually do not cause epidemics.

The governor of Delhi reported the situation to Li Celing, who was also wondering why the plague broke out suddenly at this time.

However, Li Celing felt that the top priority at the time was to control literature and art, so he directly arranged for central court officials to handle it.

But Li Celing, the governor of Delhi, and the officials responsible for controlling the plague soon discovered that there was nothing they could do.

The treatment of Delhi was similar to that of Moscow. The Ming Dynasty specially arranged a large number of planes to carry bombs here every day to drop them, and did not care about anything else.

Under the continuous bombing, order in Delhi quickly collapsed and the court's decrees could not be implemented at all.

The plague spread rapidly, quickly infecting more than one-third of the population in Delhi, and many court officials were also infected at the same time.

Li Celing had no choice but to take his most trusted officials and the most important officials of the court and temporarily leave Delhi to hide in a small town in the suburbs.

Li Celing has palaces outside the city of Delhi, but these palaces are also the main targets of air strikes by the Ming Air Force, and now there is no way to use them.

However, Shun State is different from Russia. As a court based on the traditional Shenzhou Empire model, Shun State’s organizational system is very stable.

Unless the enemy's army directly attacked the city, the imperial court was usually able to continue to maintain basic operations and to a certain extent continue to control the entire country even if it encountered a plague or fled the capital.

When Delhi was attacked, news from Shun State could still be sent to Delhi City. These news made Li Celing and his officials feel desperate.

The destruction caused by the bombing itself was horrifying. The countless bombs and incendiary bombs invested by the terrifying flying machines could be considered weapons of mass destruction in the eyes of people of that era.

What’s even more terrifying is that these messages always show a very obvious pattern.

Wherever the Ming Dynasty bombed, large-scale plague soon broke out. These two things are highly overlapping.

And in all cases, there was bombing first, and then the plague appeared immediately.

A very reasonable conclusion was about to emerge, but the Shun State's senior officials, led by Li Celing, found it difficult to accept such a judgment:
"The Ming Dynasty was able to control the plague so accurately? How is this possible? How did they do it?"

"As we evacuated the coast, we contaminated the local water supply with rotting bodies as part of our shoring up of the country."

"So the people of the Ming Dynasty held a grudge against this, and therefore took a more direct revenge?"

"The plague is controllable, but this is really troublesome. What should I do?"

(End of this chapter)