Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

There are no clear boundaries here on the ranch.

However, the Circassians came and stole sheep more than once, and the local herders also went to lasso horses quite often.

This mutual harm can sometimes lead to small-scale battles.

Solovyov didn't have many followers, but the hundreds of Tatar herders following behind him made the Circassians realize something was wrong.

However, since the Russian herders used firearms more often, iron armor was not very useful.

Keep in mind that there might be Russian troops behind them.

Solovyov was a terrifying name to the Ottoman Empire. He annihilated hundreds of thousands of Ottoman troops on the banks of the Danube, fought his way through the defenses into Greece, and made the children in the Ottoman Empire afraid to cry.

Although he is the kind of person who especially loves children in other places.

It was during the fighting that the Ottoman Empire was severely defeated, leading to its current state.

As for the Circassian commander, he didn't dare to make any big moves.

Solovyov was clearly clever; he had learned from his previous experience dealing with Ottoman officials who had betrayed their word and killed Russian officers, so he brought a considerable number of men with him.

Even if the chieftain of the Circassians were to really go after his head, he would have to consider the sabers and muskets of these herdsmen.

The former Russian governor-general was different from Solovyov.

Solovyov was still very popular among the herders, and he made public the financial power that had been taken from the Tatars and the Kalmyk Khanate. As a result, the number of cattle and sheep that the lower-level herders could keep increased, and the leaders above also benefited.

This kind of governor, in stark contrast to those who came to exploit him, was bound to gain his support.

Furthermore, many Kalmyks and Tatars, while fighting alongside him in Sweden, made a small fortune through permitted looting, and naturally knew that Solovyov was more like one of their own.

This appeasement policy is indeed very useful for herders.

In addition, there are also Solovyov's men on the Circassian side, who are also capable of handling matters.

So the two sides quickly demarcated the boundaries of the pastures and stipulated that they should not steal each other's cattle, sheep, horses and camels, and that they could exchange them when needed at the bazaar market.

However, Solovyov also played a trick: the settlement currency had to be silver rubles or paper rubles at the official price set by the bazaar officials. If the Circassians needed to make a transaction, they also had to exchange their Ottoman gold and silver coins for paper rubles and silver rubles.

There is always some profit to be made here, due to the exchange rate difference between the Akçe and the ruble.

In reality, the Circassians had already been unknowingly incorporated into Russia's currency trading system.

Solovyov's nibbling tactics left even the Ottoman Grand Vizier speechless.

Moreover, in addition to setting up currency exchange offices in the bazaar, Solovyov himself also specially appointed officials to inspect them, and there were officials to supervise the inspectors. He himself also regularly listened to reports to understand the situation in the market.

Therefore, both parties expressed their satisfaction.

Although Solovyov's wars instilled fear throughout the Ottoman Empire, he was fair in his judgments, and this currency exchange resolved many problems. In fact, due to the devaluation of the Ottoman currency, the Circassians were eager to sell their Akche silver coins.

Solovyov examined some of the Akche silver coins. In fact, the silver content marked on them was not low, but due to the Ottoman Empire's brutal management, the currency had depreciated drastically. They were melted down and used to mint a batch of silver rubles, which might have been more useful.

In addition, Solovyov also demanded that the Ottoman Empire cease the slave trade in Anapa.

Because it's not worthwhile; it's not even as profitable as the Circassians selling horses to ranchers.

Solovyov also had his explanation for the issue of slaves: they could be bought from the Persians, who also ran a talent market in Yerevan.

However, Solovyov planned to beat them both up later.

Then, in the Middle East, after sweeping away these reactionary regimes, the slave trade was also abolished.

He personally supported the abolition of serfdom and also had strong opinions about the more backward form of slavery.

It must be said that when he took in Mihrima, he already disliked the strange system of the Ottoman Empire.

However, many Greek Hui people still called themselves "Rom," and slavery was a characteristic inherited from Rome that they had to experience, even though they didn't trade on Delos.

After dealing with this matter, he completed his work on the steppes of the lower Don River, but still returned to the Kalmyk camp.

"Your Excellency, why don't you choose to go to war?"

"Although I am a soldier, I have no intention of fighting. If my wife hadn't been summoned to St. Petersburg by the Empress Dowager to raise Grand Duke Alexander, I would probably be living a peaceful family life in Simferopol or Bakhchisarai. War is a last resort, and the time is not yet ripe. We don't have 300,000 well-trained troops in the south, so we can't launch a two-pronged attack on the Ottoman Empire. What we can do now is to gradually erode their power."

"You are truly an eagle, soaring in the sky, only swooping down when you see a rabbit."

"That's right. When the time is right, I will send people to each department to ask you to gather your troops."

In addition, Solovyov was also considering how to better control the various Tatar tribes through appeasement.

Moreover, this was also aimed at the steppe tribes on the Russian border.

What he saw was that the Crimean Tatars had long since converted to Islam, and the Kalmyks, these Oirat tribes, also practiced Lamaism.

However, the herders still retain a lot of the belief in the Eternal Heaven, especially the Kalmyks, and the Kazakhs who live near Xinjiang and Mongolia probably retain even more of it.

In addition, there's something even more outrageous: the Kazakhs there also include the Kereit and Naiman tribes, though they don't believe in Jesus like Wang Khan, who had a 100-person band.

They still believe in Nestorianism. If possible, we could go to the Assyrian church and find some people to arrange for them.

After all, these churches are from the same source.

This is due to religious reasons, and also because living conditions on the grasslands are relatively backward.

Solovyov has always noticed that shamanism is still practiced here, and there are even more Mongolian doctors than there are Batel on the grasslands.

Then, the skill level of these people is, well, hard to describe.

After returning to Crimea, Solovyov sat in front of the map and looked at it. He checked into the Crimean Khanate Palace in Bakhchisarai, which was nothing unusual.

The furnishings here are in the Persian and southern Black Sea style after the Khanate accepted Islam, making it more convenient for him to receive Tatar leaders here.

The Russians' manipulation of the Kurultai was rather crude; it should have been complemented by other elements. Solovyov thought of missionaries and doctors, who sometimes shared common identities.

In addition, intermarriage between the chiefs of these Tatar tribes was a common practice in the past.

Before the Dzungars were eliminated by Emperor Qianlong, the four major Dzungar tribes frequently intermarried, and the Kalmyks and the Dzungars even had kinship ties in this regard.

However, due to Russia's regulations, intermarriage is not as convenient as it used to be.

But Solovyov did open up new avenues. He thought of the many young officers in the Russian army who came from the German princes. They were all nobles, and some were even wealthy and brought their own entourages.

Apart from a few cunning "Qilinletuhei", the tribesmen on the grassland all knew who had been kind to them and who had been their enemies.

Moreover, compared to some who only know how to freeload, they won't do anything excessive when they lack the ability to do so.

After all, on the grasslands, the stronger party still calls the shots.

Solovyov also thought of mixing some people into their scheme, such as recruiting some Russian nobles to become their sons-in-law.

After all, Yermolov was a general, and he's still single, just like many retired officers who have returned home.

However, Solovyov also knew that there were still differences between the customs of the Tatars and the Russians regarding this game.

Not everyone is Prince Yusupov, or the Naryshkin family, Peter the Great's maternal relatives, who have Tatar blood. The former was simply a Tatar prince who was promoted to Russian prince.

Before Ubashi moved eastward, many people in the Kalmyk Khanate had already converted to Orthodox Christianity, so the difference in this respect was relatively small.

At that time, we can also introduce the Russian legal system and regulate it from a legal perspective, specifying which cases should be handled according to Tatar and Kalmyk law, which according to the Great Zasa law, and which according to Russian law.

Some become sons-in-law, some are arranged marriages, and there will probably be girls who marry into these tribes in the future.

Alexander recently summoned the Kazakh Khan of the Lesser Horde, leaving him in Moscow and arranging for him to marry the daughter of a wealthy merchant, thus settling him down in Moscow.

There are many ways to do things. If you can gradually assimilate the other party, there is no need to use force to solve the problem.

Moreover, the Kazakh Khanate itself was fragmented. A Khan had to use 600 men to fight against a 20,000-strong Dzungar army because although his troops were there, the troops from various tribes had not yet arrived.

After Ablai Khan, the power became even more dispersed.

Solovyov's plan, which he told the Jiaqing Emperor, to divide Kazakhstan between the Qing Dynasty and Tsarist Russia, was actually quite feasible.

He now also had to write to the Tsar to express his opinions.

If we could bring some sons-in-law to these tribes, it would actually help develop the local tribes and win over their hearts.

If Solovyov did this, even the tribal chiefs wouldn't rebel as much; in fact, they would be more compliant.

Even during the reign of the Empress, she probably wouldn't have been so averse to it.

After all, the Russians used them as cannon fodder in the past. Governor Solovyov was different. He even avoided war and wanted to give the herders more cattle and sheep and develop the local pastures.

This is a debt of gratitude that the governor owes us, and it's good that Solovyov is now going to various tribes.

If there are many more acts of kindness in the future, it's hard to say what the situation will become.

Alexander himself neglected state affairs, leaving everything to Arakcheyev. After seeing this, the count couldn't figure out what Solovyov was up to.

After all, his methods always seem strange, but they always manage to achieve remarkable results.

As a close confidant of the Tsar who had long been in charge of military reforms, Arakcheyev was fortunate to be an artilleryman by training, and thus knew to some extent the importance of technological development.

But the one from Solovyov is quite strange.

Even though he couldn't understand these practices, he sent a private messenger to Crimea.

Seeing this, Solovyov could only shake his head.

Count Arakcheyev, as expected, could only be a loyal henchman of the Tsar, lacking any innovative abilities.

So he wrote a long letter to Alakcheyev, recounting the story of Timur's rise to power.

Timur was a Turkicized Mongol from the Barlas tribe. To the Western Chagatai Khanate, he was "Gulegan," meaning son-in-law.

Intermarriage with these tribes allowed them to become lower-middle-class nobles in Russia, with a small number becoming upper-class nobles. This was clearly a traditional Russian tactic, but these people have completely forgotten it now.

In fact, during the later period of the Romanov dynasty, they had forgotten many of the tricks they used in the past, and only knew how to thicken the iron rod, forming a path dependency. This was also because these pro-German guys were on the throne, or because the Tsar had German blood.

They completely fail to understand that there are many other methods available besides iron bars and carrots.

Solovyov's approach was also to bring these nomadic peoples on the steppe under Russia's more effective control over the next fifty years through various means.

In Russia, the idea of ​​creating a nation-state might only lead to Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Christian identity; anything else is just a pipe dream.

There was a Tsar there, which was acceptable in all aspects.

The Cossacks had an object of loyalty, the steppe tribes had a common emperor and Khan, and the Orthodox Christians and other Christians also had protectors.

Nationalism, due to the complexity of its constituent elements and the vastness of Russia's territory, is less feasible.

Controlling grasslands sometimes requires a multi-pronged approach; iron rods and forceful manipulation can actually backfire and cause resentment.

Solovyov was quite confident in his actions, but he didn't know if others could see through his tactics.

In the blink of an eye, summer is almost over.

The military fortress to be built in Crimea has now broken ground.

Even Turkish merchants passing through Crimea were baffled as to what the Russian governor was up to.

If sending a general who had decisively defeated the Ottoman army was for an offensive purpose, then why did he continue to build fortresses? (End of Chapter)