Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

In St. Petersburg, Russia had actually received a request for peace from the Turks, but in the view of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed by Badberg, this was just a way to delay time.

The Turks are unwilling to give up the land occupied by Russia, and it seems that they came up with this thing at the instigation of the British. They are really not afraid of being laughed at.

However, now is the time for Alexander's daughters. The older ones are gradually changing their teeth, and the younger ones are growing teeth, so there seems to be no problem.

"Your Majesty, how should the Ministry of Foreign Affairs respond?"

In the Tsar's office in the Little Winter Palace, Alexander had already read the documents of the Ottoman Sultan, and then opened the reports of Kamensky Jr. and Solovyov, but he had not answered Badberg.

This foreign minister was also one of his teachers. Compared with Prince Saltykov, who had the duties of a "tutor", or Prince Laharp, who had a profound influence on the Tsar himself, his identity as a minister might be more important than that as a teacher.

Speransky was sitting aside. Although he was the Secretary of State, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was relatively independent among the cabinet departments. Although he had jurisdiction, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was still relatively independent.

Moreover, he generally does not interfere in the affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is mainly responsible for Alexander's policy formulation, which is actually about institutional reform.

Unfortunately, today, among all the people present, he was the only one with a civil service background.

Badberg, Balashov, Arakcheev, Barclay and others were all military men. In fact, although Alexander's government reform abolished the committee system, it left the main departments in the hands of military men. Only one Secretary of State and Minister of Justice was a civilian, which was very abnormal.

It can be seen that Alexander attached greater importance to order, even more than Paul in this respect.

When Paul was employing ministers, it was obvious that most of them were from civil service backgrounds. Although he was always said to be a mediocre person, he behaved very normally in employing people.

What was abnormal was his temper, which made his seemingly normal administrative policies appear abnormal.

Alexander seemed to be a good person, but he attached great importance to soldiers and order. By 1810, it seemed that Speransky was the only liberal left in the core, and the people involved had a deep understanding of this.

Especially after Adela came to his house to help manage the office, Alexander actually came to his house many times just because it looked "very orderly."

Now he himself has some doubts about Alexander's actions. Others may know what their "little tsar daddy" is doing recently through the edict and the tsar's own performance in public.

As head of government, Speransky was directly responsible to Alexander himself.

He also has troubles now, but considering the support of two generations of tsars for him, he has risen from a low-level civil servant to his current position second only to the emperor.

Then, he discovered that in the main government departments, he, as the head of the civil servants, was in charge of a group of generals.

Even someone like Barclay was considered good. Arakcheev was just singing a different tune from him when he was at odds with him, and he had no intention of plotting anything against him.

That Balashov, in his position as Minister of Police, did seem to enjoy the Tsar's trust and was always looking for trouble with him.

This put him in a very delicate situation. If he wanted to remarry, Balashov would have to take care of it.

But he never worried about his situation. Instead, he tried his best to keep the government running and promote reforms.

We also need to pay attention to the affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After all, this time the letters of credence will be issued and he will sign them as the head of government.

According to Alexander's current government structure, such important diplomatic documents would probably have to be reviewed by the Tsar himself, the Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister, and finally signed and confirmed before they would be sent out.

The structure of the entire government actually still leans towards the autocratic rule of the Tsar himself, except that there is an additional stamp component.

No wonder Balashov had always said that Speransky, who had the "stamp", was suspected of being a "French spy", and he had no choice but to accept it.

"Your Majesty, if you reply, I think we should reiterate our demands. In the previous armistice, the Turks did not abide by the armistice agreement, and also accused us of violating the armistice agreement by military mobilization along the Danube River. The persecution of Christians was also very serious. In this case, the Turkish Sultan must first accept the 1791 peace treaty that Russia has the right to protect Christians in its territory, and that's all."

"Badberg, if we follow your advice, our troops have already crossed the Danube. This will only give the Turks a face, but we won't get much."

Balashov, relying on Alexander's trust, often comes out to argue.

Badberg was very calm about this. He said directly: "Instead of continuing the war to gain more land, we still have to face the French. In the last meeting, everyone present read the report. The French emperor still has his views on the Polish issue and does not intend to designate Poland as a buffer zone in the spirit of the Treaty of Tilsit and the Erfurt meeting."

"so what?"

"Compared to the weak Turks, the French threat is more serious. We need at least three corps on the front to monitor the French actions in East Prussia and Poland. If there were no French threat, we could take this opportunity to go all the way to Constantinople."

Balashov was about to speak when Speransky interrupted him.

"What Badberg said makes sense. The most serious threat we face is from France. Their emperor has always been ambitious. Many of us have seen him or fought him on the battlefield. Your Majesty, I think you can understand why we need to deploy troops at this time. Even a civilian like me is worried about the threat from France."

This is also a means of self-protection, to distance himself from the position of a pro-French person, although he will always be regarded as a pro-French element by Balashov, and no matter how he expresses his position, it will be useless.

Arakcheev and Barclay also nodded in agreement, and finally prevented Badberg from taking advantage of the situation.

It seems that there are always some "insects" in certain positions who will be disliked by everyone, no matter how much he is trusted by the Tsar himself.

There was no way to take advantage of the situation, and diplomatic affairs were not his responsibility. Badberg only allowed Barclay to get involved. After all, as the Minister of War, he had close ties with the front line.

But Alexander himself obviously let Balashov be his substitute.

On the Danube battlefield, the great victory of the Russian army had shaken the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Although it was not necessarily possible to gain a lot of territory, it was still possible to extend the sphere of influence to most of the Balkan Peninsula. The more territory, the better. Alexander had met with envoys sent by Serbia and representatives of the Phanario Greeks in exile in Russia. In addition, there were Greek subjects in places such as Balaklava in Crimea, so he always had some understanding of the Balkan issues.

He himself believed that Badberg's plan could only serve as the bottom line of this diplomatic negotiation. It would be better to allow Serbia and some other places to obtain a high degree of autonomy, and then extend its tentacles to the Balkans.

However, considering the special circumstances in the Balkans, Alexander only intended to establish a pro-Russian regime in places like Serbia and Greece, or to require them to emerge as a highly autonomous semi-independent regime within the Ottoman Empire.

On the front, there is France, which has a larger sphere of influence. Many French troops are even in Poland. Austria and Prussia have also become France's humble partners. The situation is not so optimistic for Russia.

Therefore, Alexander always wanted to solve the problem in the south first.

But there were some things that he rarely told even Speransky. Metternich and Talleyrand often wrote to him personally, and some governors and generals would secretly submit memorials to him, which was also a means of controlling communications.

Even Balashov was unaware of this news, and the communications did not even go through the Minister of Posts, but came in and out through secret channels in the court.

Alexander was indeed very good at secret diplomacy, which was also to ensure that his ministers could not block the channels of communication. He was also happy to see these people fighting each other, even Speransky, who had always only managed reform affairs, was the same in his case.

After the meeting, Alexander began to read the recent letters sent by Talleyrand. It can be said that the French emperor has been indulging in the gentleness of the flesh recently, and marrying his sister to him does not seem to be such a bad thing, but Talleyrand was also worried that this would destroy the tacit understanding they formed in Erfurt.

Alexander met Talleyrand in private and already knew the attitude of the former French Foreign Minister. If Napoleon stayed in Paris, no one could do anything to him because of the support of the soldiers and the people.

Now the war in Spain has come to an end, and the British are only in the coastal areas of Portugal, and it seems that the situation there is settled.

If Napoleon had stopped there, there would have been no problem.

But Talleyrand's letter made it clear that Napoleon, who had recently been in Paris, had privately expressed the hope that his son would inherit his empire as the Emperor of Europe.

Although it was only a private statement, it was also very dangerous, because it meant that Napoleon wanted a lot of things besides Russia, and perhaps even parts of Russia.

As for the situation on Metternich's side, Alexander had heard something about it. Diplomats are always energetic, and this is often also the case with women.

He could only accept the fact that he was so proud of recently.

But Austria's attitude does prove that after France was weakened to a certain extent, they seemed to have the idea of ​​changing camp.

It’s just that the Austrians have always been unreliable, which made it difficult for Alexander to make up his mind to trust them. When speaking to the Prussian royal family, it was only because the king was a FW.

It’s just that Queen Louise became pregnant again after she separated from the king recently, which makes people curious.

Even his gossiping spirit was aroused. Who on earth had used the weapon to do this to the queen?

After considering off-field factors, Alexander also formally added some content to the diplomatic documents.

With the Russian army already in Sofia and on its way into Thrace, this was made clear in the diplomatic note to the Turks.

1. In the European part, the area from Bessarabia to the right bank of the Dniester River was ceded to Russia, and in the Asian part, it was the eastern coast of the Black Sea under the control of the Ottoman Empire, especially some places such as the Anapa Fortress.

2. Moldavia and Wallachia broke away from the Ottoman Empire and became independent countries.

3. Serbia gained independence and designated a ruler according to the old practice of the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and the Ottoman Empire had to guarantee that it would not infringe on Serbia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

4. In the area south of the Danube, in the Rumelia region, that is, in Thrace, the safety of life and property of Christians must be guaranteed, and a certain degree of autonomy must be obtained.

5. The issue of autonomy of Greek regions, especially the Morea region on the Peloponnese Peninsula, should also be included in the diplomatic negotiations.

6. According to the provisions of the Treaty of Jassy, ​​the rights of Christians in Ottoman territory were guaranteed, and Russia continued to provide protection to these people.

7. The Ottoman Empire must pay compensation for the losses caused to Russia and the newly independent countries.

8. Limit the deployment of Ottoman troops in the Balkans and reduce the total number of troops in its European part.

It seems that the Sultan would definitely not accept Alexander's conditions.

But if you don't accept it, you can only continue to fight, and there are many issues involved.

Sultan Mahmud's biggest advantage at this time was probably that he still had soldiers at his disposal. Not only did both Britain and France hope to limit Russia's expansion in the Balkan Peninsula, so he was not without external support.

France also hopes that the Ottoman Empire will let the Turks contain Russia's flanks in any future wars. Although the Turkish soldiers are rubbish, they have a large number and can always contain part of the Russian army.

All this happened around the time when the Russian army entered Sofia, and by the time the Russian Tsar's letter reached Sultan Mahmud.

The Sultan's performance was obviously in line with expectations. His response was to tear the letter to pieces after reading it in front of his returning envoy.

The Russian generals on the front line all like the Sultan's unruly attitude. This experience pack shows such a fierce resistance attitude. It seems that there is still room for war.

Even the Ottoman Sultan mobilized his army again, ready to continue the fight.

Now, the Turks have received strong support from Britain. Even though 60,000 Turks were wiped out at one time, the British provided a large amount of weapons and equipment this time, which kept the Russians' attention on the Balkan Peninsula and prevented them from paying attention to other directions. (End of this chapter)