Chapter 1158: The Tsar's New Policy
Ever since Paul I ascended the throne, the quality of life for the Russian nobility had plummeted. Military officers bore the brunt of this decline, facing steep tax hikes while their incomes were slashed.
Take the expeditionary force bound for India, for instance. Because officers could no longer embezzle the soldiers' pay, they were forced to cut costs elsewhere—primarily in logistics. The biggest casualty was the oats intended for the cavalry mounts.
After all, horses didn't carry muskets; no matter how hungry they got, they wouldn't stage a mutiny.
This shortage of supplies caused the already weakened animals to perish in droves.
General Bakhov's corps was still forty kilometers from the Afghan border, yet nearly nine thousand of their fifteen thousand horses had already succumbed.
The following morning, a stroke of good fortune finally drifted into General Bakhov's tent along with the frigid desert wind.
A major, his face and hair caked in grit, snapped a salute. "Commander, we’ve brought water and flatbread."
Bakhov lunged for the tent flap and kicked the man to the ground in a fit of rage. "You scoundrel! Those supplies were due four days ago! I’ll have the military police investigate exactly how much vodka you lot swilled back in Bukhara!"
The officer scrambled to his feet, spat out a mouthful of sand, and shouted his defense. "You’ve got it wrong, sir! We’ve come from Guryev!"
Guryev was Russia's southernmost city. Per the Tsar's decree, a thousand infantrymen had been dispatched from there to join Bakhov's corps.
"Major Michkov?" Bakhov glanced at the identification, nodding awkwardly. "Ah... my apologies for the rough welcome. I mistook you for the Bukhara logistics regiment. They’re four days overdue."
Michkov shook the dust from his uniform. "We encountered a camel train yesterday. They mentioned bandits prowling the southern Karakum Desert lately. Perhaps they’re the reason the logistics regiment is running late?"
"Bandits?" Bakhov scoffed with a look of disdain. "What petty thieves would dare strike a military column?"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a Cossack rider galloped up in a state of sheer panic. "General!" the man croaked, his voice dry as bone. "The supply convoy from Bukhara was hit! We found the wreckage of the wagons near Sarakhs!"
Bakhov stood frozen.
His logistics regiment consisted of at least four hundred Russian soldiers and over fifteen hundred laborers from Bukhara. What kind of bandit force could possibly wipe them out?
He couldn't have guessed that the "bandits" were actually the forces of the Persian Shah—the very man who was supposedly Russia's ally.
Since the Persians were intimately familiar with the Russian army's movements, these soldiers, disguised as outlaws, had been able to lie in wait near the Afghan border. They struck at the exact moment Bakhov's corps was most vulnerable, struggling through the desert, delivering a devastating blow.
If Michkov hadn't arrived with those meager provisions, half of Bakhov's men would likely have perished from thirst in the Karakum.
Indeed, Fath-Ali Shah had struck a secret bargain with the British government five months prior.
The British provided two thousand flintlock muskets and tens of thousands of pounds sterling in aid; in exchange, the Shah promised to renew the offensive against Georgia. Reclaiming Transcaucasia had been the dream of Persian monarchs for generations; British support merely accelerated the process.
As for the attack on Bakhov's corps, it was merely a bonus thrown in by Fath-Ali Shah.
Every Russian life lost now meant less pressure on the Georgian front later.
In the shadow of a towering dune, Lieutenant Colonel Muravyov carefully swallowed a mouthful of water as if it were a vintage wine. Beside him, an orderly handed over a piece of flatbread wrapped around cured meat.
The Lieutenant Colonel raised the bread toward Michkov. "Thank God you arrived. This skin of water is more than I’ve had in the last two days. Once this war is over, you must visit Pokrovsk. I’ll treat you to the finest vodka."
"I’ll hold you to that," Michkov replied, taking a bite of his bread. Something clicked in his memory. "Your home is in Pokrovsk?"
"Indeed. I have an estate in Sanetsky. It’s covered in wheat and sunflowers..."
Michkov hesitated before leaning in. "Well... before I left, I heard rumors of a serf rebellion breaking out in Pokrovsk. I hope your household hasn't been affected."
Muravyov froze for several seconds. Suddenly, he lashed his riding crop against the sand with a violent crack. "Damn them! Those lowly wretches! When I get back, I’ll whip every last one of them to death!"
"Ahem," Michkov cleared his throat, glancing down. "You aren't allowed to kill serfs anymore, remember?"
Muravyov's fury only intensified. He lashed out at the air blindly with his crop. "Damn it! Damn it all!"
According to Paul I's latest decree, nobles were forbidden from mistreating or killing their serfs on a whim. Violators faced the confiscation of their lands.
Once the Lieutenant Colonel had exhausted his rage, he turned back to Michkov. "So, why are those 'sub-humans' rioting? Has the army moved in to crush them?"
'Sub-humans' was the derogatory term favored by the nobility for their serfs.
"It seems to be related to His Majesty’s Three-Day Corvée Manifesto," Major Michkov explained.
"As you know, everyone is being squeezed for local taxes now. We don't have the spare coin to hire help. Are we supposed to haul our own water and collect cow dung? Our own matters are enough trouble!
"And as for the crops, we can barely manage them as it is, yet we’re expected to carve out time so the serfs can tend their own plots first!
"Then you have those fool Liberals wandering the villages, acting as inspectors for the new law. Those spineless wretches think they have backing now, so they’ve started making trouble. I heard two or three hundred people are already dead..."
Noticing the grim look on the Lieutenant Colonel's face, he quickly added, "But the Governor has already called in the troops. He even borrowed the Serebryakov Corps from Uralsk. The riot has likely been suppressed by now."
The so-called Three-Day Corvée Manifesto was a prime example of Paul I's impulsive, slap-of-the-head style of governance.
The decree stipulated that Russian landlords could only demand four days of labor per week from their serfs—excluding Sundays—leaving the remaining three days for the serfs to work for themselves.
It was a project he had taken great pride in since his days as Crown Prince. He believed it was a masterstroke: it lightened the burden on the serfs without the need to seize and redistribute noble lands like the French had done. It was, in his mind, perfect.
However, he had failed to consider one thing. If you try to take a slice of the pie from the nobility before the pie itself has grown, and you fail to establish a strong oversight body to enforce the rules, chaos is inevitable.
Why would the nobles respect such a law?
Meanwhile, the serfs had been given a glimmer of hope that could not be realized. With the slightest nudge from an agitator, the entire system went up in flames.
In fact, following the proclamation of Paul I's Three-Day Manifesto, the frequency of serf uprisings in Russia skyrocketed from a dozen or so a year to over sixty.
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