Chapter 622 Chess Game in Eastern Europe
Potemkin ripped off the hot towel covering his head and immediately coughed violently.
He contracted a serious fever in Iasi, and recently he no longer even handles official duties in person, but at this time he managed to come to the table and picked up the quill with a trembling hand. .
As the de facto prime minister and defense minister of Russia, he could see at a glance what Stanislaw II wanted to do.
Poland has been integrating the country in the past two years, gradually straightening out the previously chaotic ethnic conflicts and political factions. It promulgated a constitution a few months ago, and its national strength has been further enhanced.
If Poland is allowed to continue to develop, it will be difficult for Russia to take advantage of Poland in five years at most.
So he has been mobilizing troops since more than half a year ago to prepare for war against Poland.
At this time, the King of Poland encouraged the Tsar to use troops against the Ottomans in the south, and Poland even sent troops to assist.
If the Tsar really agrees, Russia's military focus will be on the Balkans for a long time.
At the same time, Poland, as an "ally" that has fought alongside Russia, makes it more difficult for Russia to find excuses when it attacks it in the future.
This will seriously disrupt Russia's strategic deployment.
Of course, Stanislaw II did not have such a powerful political strategy at all. Everything was fabricated by Zubov, who was familiar with Russia's strategic plans.
And for Potemkin, in addition to national-level issues, he also personally hated Stanislaw II.
Although he has not served Catherine II for a long time, he has always been the head of her harem. Any lover of the tsar must be approved by him before he can be "employed" safely.
And this Polish guy used to just sing to the Tsar and forget about it. Now he dared to climb into the Tsar's bed without his permission.
This is a complete challenge to his authority and must be punished!
More than an hour later, Potemkin finished writing two letters with difficulty, handed them to his confidant Popov, and gave detailed instructions.
The above letter was written to Zubov, asking him to arrange for a young woman to approach and seduce Stanislaw II, and to design for the Tsar to see the two being intimate. It didn't matter if the Pole didn't take the bait, as long as the woman kissed him at the right time and then claimed to the Tsar that they were in love.
Given the control Potemkin and Zubov had over the Winter Palace, it was not difficult for the servants around Stanislaw II to confirm this.
Another letter was written to General Mikhail Kachowski, ordering him to speed up preparations and must be ready to attack Poland before the end of the year.
After Popov left, Potemkin began to cough violently again, and the blood spurted from his nose dyed less than half of the sheets red.
Several servants hurriedly came over to support him, only to find that he had passed out.
……
Eastern Poland, the town of Tagovica.
More than a dozen Polish conservative nobles, including Francesco Branitsky and Gorsakovsky, walked out of Count Potocki's manor one after another, all with solemn expressions.
At the meeting just now, they agreed to secretly gather troops loyal to them and jointly requested Russia to send troops to intervene in the situation in Poland.
If it hadn’t been for Joseph’s reminder, the Poles would never have imagined that it was not the Slavs in Poland who betrayed the country and attracted the Russian invaders, but the Polish and Lithuanians with pure blood and long family heritage. Descendants of nobility. In fact, they were already dissatisfied from the moment the Polish Constitution was promulgated.
The new constitution took away their veto power. And political bribery is strictly prohibited, and both giving and receiving bribes will be serious crimes.
In the past, bribery could be done openly. In order to achieve their own political intentions, Russians or Prussians often spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of zlotys to buy the votes in their hands.
With the enactment of the Constitution, they could no longer make this kind of money.
In the following period, the Polish Parliament successively abolished the privileges of the nobles such as executing serfs, recruiting private soldiers, and taxing trade activities in the territory, on the grounds that they "violated the principle of harmlessness."
As a result, the angry conservative family, led by Potocki, made the decision to use the power of Russia to abrogate the constitution.
This is the notorious traitorous organization in Polish history - the Tagovica League.
However, under Joseph's suggestion, Prince Poniatowski has removed radical clauses from the constitution such as "complete abolition of serfdom" and "increasing tithes on nobles to strengthen armaments", which made The Tagovica Alliance was formed more than half a year later than in history.
This gives Poland more than half a year of preparation time.
Blanicki returned home and immediately summoned family members to begin preparations for the rebellion.
However, just as they secretly recalled their former private cavalry and contacted closely related local armies, agents of the Committee for Freedom and Security arrested six core members of the Branitsky family. .
Due to the year-long investigation in advance, the evidence in the hands of the Polish intelligence organization was very sufficient. A week later, these six people were prosecuted by the Polish Procuratorate for "organizing riots."
At the same time, a large number of people from the Tagovica Alliance, such as the Potocki family, the Ankevich family, the Zabieuwo family, and Archbishop Masalski, were purged by the intelligence services. .
There were more than 70 indictments on the desk of the Polish Supreme Court, and it was as busy as ants moving before a heavy rain.
Of course, some people in the Tagovica Alliance acted extremely cautiously, which led to the Freedom and Security Committee being unable to obtain tangible evidence of their crimes.
For example, several members of the Lewsky family immediately huddled in their manor in northern Ukraine after the accident, but they kept trying to send people to contact Russia.
Half a month later, three fanatical believers of the Bar Alliance sneaked into Lewski's house, killed all the people named Lewski, and then committed suicide by taking poison.
At this point, the Tagovica Alliance, one of Poland's biggest hidden dangers, has been basically wiped out.
However, one morning, two members of the Potocki family were kidnapped by a group of gunmen on their way from a Warsaw prison to the Polish High Court for trial, and their whereabouts are unknown.
In the west of Warsaw, in the British Embassy in Poland, Stanislaw Potocki looked at the British Ambassador Daniel Jason with a pale face, and bowed with fear:
" Thank you for your helping hand. The Potocki family will always remember your kindness."
Jason handed two cups of tea to him and his second son respectively, and said with a sad and angry expression:
"I can't sit back and watch a political persecution take place. Your family has inherited great glory, and now you have to be accused by a group of despicable people."
(End of this chapter)