Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796

Chapter 383 025  Huge Serbia Drink More Water

After the Russian army set out from Odessa, it quickly entered Wallachia and marched towards Bucharest.

The strange thing is that the Ottoman Empire at this time, although their army was closer to Bucharest, did not send a single soldier.

This made Miloradovic, who had already entered Wallachia, feel a little strange. He was ready to fight with the Ottoman army.

Until the vanguard of the Lancers he sent arrived in Bucharest, they only saw this scene: the bureaucrats sent by the Ottoman Empire were expelled by the locals in Bucharest.

When the messenger came back, Miloradovic also knew what to do. He must capture Bucharest. The Ottoman army was either not assembled or was dawdling on the road. It was really a golden opportunity.

Considering that Miloradovic's ancestors ran away from the Balkan stage to join the army in Russia, they were good at rebelling against the Ottoman Empire and fighting against the Sultan, Pasha, and Bey. They were stronger than Hoja like Afanti. The latter only used their brains, while Miloradovic's family was really willing to take action.

His luck was also very good. He controlled Bucharest without losing a single person and was warmly welcomed by the locals.

And when he arrived here, the mayor and elders of Bucharest came out to greet him.

"Sir, please allow us to pay our highest respects to you. As the new protector of Bucharest, we hope you can accept the key to this city."

"Thank you for your hospitality, but why do you want to do this?"

The mayor looked up and saw that Miloradovic did still have some Serbian characteristics, which was different from his cousins ​​who spoke French in Russia and had become Russian nobles.

"Excuse me, General. Are you a descendant of Miloradovic from Herzegovina?"

"Yes."

Miloradovic was surprised that he knew the origin of his family in Bucharest.

Although there was a problem, that is, Miloradovic's family seemed to have been unable to survive in the Balkans during the time of Tsar Alexei, so they went to Russia and were settled in the Ukrainian steppes.

His great-grandfather Mikhail Ilyich Miloradovic served Peter the Great, but was later imprisoned and tortured for getting into trouble. Fortunately, he did not die and was released by Catherine I.

"That's good. Do you know what happened in Serbia?"

The elder continued to ask, and Miloradovic was confused. After all, when he took office as the governor of Kiev, his family was in Poltava.

But he was not very clear about the situation in the Balkans.

"Please tell me about the situation in Serbia, sir."

"Okay."

However, he also wants to play the accordion accompaniment, I don't know what's going on.

If someone else comes, they may feel that the Balkans are strange, and even the style of the painting suddenly turns to 200 years later.

From Bihać to Petrović, the whole of Serbia was attacked.

Karageorge will lead all Serbs and tell them that we are fearless.

The Ottoman Janissaries are waking up, don't touch our country.

Karageorge will lead us Serbs and tell them that we are fearless.

Wolves are coming from Krajina, be careful of the Janissaries and Turkey.

Karageorge will lead all Serbs and tell them that we are fearless.

In the resistance of the Serbs, we fought for freedom and honor.

Karageorge will lead the Serbs and tell them that we are fearless.

"What's going on?"

When Miloradovic was confused, the Serbian who came over gave an explanation: "Sir, your ancestors were also Serbian earls and nobles from Herzegovina, and you should know what Serbia is like."

Miloradovic began to try to recall the deeds of his great-grandfather. In addition to being whipped in prison, he was previously in Zaporizhia, and before that he was active in Montenegro, leading the locals to resist the Ottoman Empire.

Speaking of which, Karageorge's ancestors really came from Montenegro.

But what Miloradovic thought of was that in Serbia, the resistance around Belgrade was not very fierce. Many of them were tall and strong, but they were obedient.

On the contrary, the mountain people in Montenegro were extremely fierce in combat, and together with Albania next door, they kept the Ottoman Empire from stopping for a long time.

And there is another point, that is, Montenegro is different from Albania. There are still many people in Albania who follow the Ottoman Empire. Even if Montenegro finds a fake Peter III, it will still fight against the Ottoman Empire.

The situation in Serbia is different. Later, the mayor of Bucharest also found a Serbian to explain to Miloradovic.

"General, after the Turkish Janissaries arrived in Belgrade, they killed the local Haji Mustafa Pasha and began to levy heavy taxes everywhere. We couldn't stand it, so we submitted a petition to the Sultan of Constantinople, but the domineering Janissaries slapped our representatives with a big slap."

"Then what?"

"Then His Majesty the Sultan allowed us to fight the Janissaries, but these Circassian bandits who deserved death killed many of our upper-class people, and then George Petrovich led us to expel the Janissaries."

Miloradovich's brain was not bad, and this kind of "rebellion under orders" was strange enough. He had never heard of it before.

But in the Ottoman Empire, this happened, and Selim III actually acquiesced to this behavior.

But in the future, he had no choice.

"So what are those Janissaries doing after that?"

"Although we drove them away, Sultan Selim did not allow us to choose whether to be autonomous or a vassal, but to launch a 'jihad' against Belgrade."

"I know about this matter. What is the Sultan going to do now?"

"General, they want to eliminate the Serbs around Belgrade, so we also urgently need the support of the Russian army. This is not just like in the past, making a statement. We need definite support. Sultan Selim is not trustworthy. We still recognize that we are his subjects and are willing to accept his protection, but now he does this."

Speaking of it, the Sultan is a Turkish devil! .

If you look deeper, it is the famous reply of the Zaporizhia Cossacks.

After hearing about the war, Miloradovic also had his own ideas, but he had to appease the envoys of the Serbian uprising army first.

"I hope your leader, George Petrovich Karageorge, will be patient. This matter is of great importance and needs to be reported to our emperor."

Whether it can be passed is also a question.

But the envoy was very happy to see that Miloradovich agreed to report to him.

"Thank you for your support, General!"

"It's too early to thank you now. How many of you are here?"

"General, there are four people besides me. We crossed the Danube before arriving in Bucharest, and were originally going to Odessa."

"Thank you for your hard work. It's not easy to go out and ask for help and risk crossing the Turkish blockade. So, before you send someone back, someone needs to go to Odessa to meet the Governor-General, Duke Richelieu. Take this letter with you. After knowing your purpose, General John von Michelson, who is there, will send someone to escort you to St. Petersburg to meet His Majesty Alexander."

Miloradovic did not make diplomatic decisions on his own. One reason was that he did not have the arbitrary power granted by Alexander, and on the other hand, General Michelson was the commander-in-chief of this expedition.

However, he could still do something.

Although these Serbs came with a small number of people, considering the close distance between Wallachia and Serbia, when arming the local people in Wallachia, the old weapons and some old-fashioned artillery in the Ottoman arsenal could be used to support the Serbs.

Anyway, these things were considered lost. After all, corruption and empty salaries were the characteristics of the Ottoman Empire.

And Miloradovic's sneaky throwing away of more than a dozen cannons was not without a solution.

The Wallachians had always been oppressed by the Ottoman Empire. They also knew that if they could not attract the Russians and Austrians to resist the rule of the Sultan, they would often face cruel retaliation and be killed.

Therefore, when the Grand Duke of Wallachia fled to Russia, he also told the ministers who stayed in Bucharest that they could help the Serbian rebels.

By the way, although the Ipsilantis ruled Wallachia, they were Greeks in terms of ethnic composition. In the Ottoman Empire, they were still relatively noble Phanariotes, Greek nobles in the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire.

The only problem was that they still maintained their original Greek Orthodox faith, and Constantine Ipsilantis himself had the idea of ​​unifying the Greeks and some Slavs in the southern Balkan Peninsula to establish an independent country.

Therefore, it was not strange for them to do something to dig a hole behind Sultan Selim.

So, with Miloradovich's tacit approval, this temporary army of the Principality of Wallachia quietly abandoned 12 heavy artillery on the other side of the Danube and greeted Karageorge.

After Karageorge received the news from Wallachia, he sent people to secretly transport the heavy artillery back.

This is good. The Janissaries in the city should not have had a problem holding on, and they also had 300 artillery pieces of various types. It was just that they were outnumbered, and the Serbians' small artillery pieces were not suitable for opening the city walls. At most, they could be used as suppressive firepower.

But now the Serbs have obtained heavy artillery, although the accuracy is not very good. With the poor accuracy of the Ottoman artillery and the poor shooting skills of the Serbian artillery, they cannot pose any threat to the walls of Belgrade.

But the Serbs suddenly had a large number of heavy artillery pieces of the Ottoman army, which meant that they had the ability to attack.

If they couldn't attack Belgrade, they could still do a lot in Užice and Visegrad. Although this area had long been controlled by the rebels, there were always a few strongholds still under the control of the Ottoman army.

Now, Karageorge finally got his chance.

Since the siege of Belgrade was likely to be fruitless, he now asked part of the rebels to attack Užice and Sabak with cannons.

The current situation was not as favorable to the Ottoman Empire as it was in 1805.

A year ago, the Russians' focus was mainly on the anti-French alliance, and they wanted to unite with Britain and Austria to oppose France. Although Czartoryski declared support for Serbia as foreign minister, such a statement was more like all support except help.

What the Poles said was indeed often unbelievable.

But this guarantee made the Ottoman Empire feel like a lump in the throat. You know, the grandmother of the "little tsar" now, the pressure is like asking the Ottoman sultan to meet their grandmother.

Now, the Russian army has entered Bucharest, and the Principality of Wallachia has sent cannons to support the Serbs, which makes the situation slightly favorable to Serbia.

Even a few weeks after Miloradovic secretly "sent" the cannon to Karageorge, although Sabak was still in the hands of the Ottoman garrison, Užice had been captured by the rebels.

Now, in the deep mountains and old forests of Montenegro, those mountain folks who had always been against the Ottoman Empire now came out with weapons to support the Serbian brothers in the war with the Ottoman Empire.

However, in another place, Sarajevo in Bosnia, the Serbs have always called them "Turks" directly. They still support the Ottoman Empire here. Although there are only more than 20,000 residents left in the city and the number of organized militias is limited, they still send troops to support Belgrade.

But the Ottoman Empire's taxes are getting heavier and heavier. I don't know if they can still bear this kind of rule.

As for other problems, these are not visible now.

As for the envoys sent by Karageorge, they will soon go to St. Petersburg.

Just before Miloradovic suggested that the Serbs who came to Bucharest for help go to St. Petersburg, Karageorge sent a second team of envoys to Bucharest, this time in a very formal way.

The one who arrived in Bucharest was Karageorge's capable general Athanasije Rajic, who was already over fifty years old, but looked like a tough guy.

Miloradovic also had to entertain Rajic well and learn about the situation of various forces in the Ottoman Empire.