Chapter 750 Blast them all
Ekaterina was the last core member of the royal family in the era of Alexander II. The kings and queens of her generation have all passed away.
On February 6, George escorted Catherine's coffin to the Peter and Paul Church in St. Petersburg. From Peter I onwards, except for Peter II and the missing Nicholas, all the tsars were buried. Here it is.
Although Catherine did not want to make anything grand during her lifetime, more than 200 members of the royal family rushed to St. Petersburg from all over Europe.
On February 11, Catherine's coffin arrived in St. Petersburg, and hundreds of thousands of St. Petersburg residents spontaneously poured into the streets to see Catherine off.
The Patriarch posthumously recognized Catherine as queen, and Catherine's tomb is next to Alexander II.
Ekaterina's funeral was not over yet. Guchkov received reports that in some areas of Warsaw, people were secretly celebrating Yekaterina's death.
Guchkov did not report to George and ordered his subordinates to directly charge him with treason.
Just after Catherine's funeral, Werther suffered a stroke and was taken to the hospital.
George went to the hospital to visit Werther. Werther was paralyzed on the right side of his body and could no longer speak. He could only use his left hand to communicate with George.
Witte was also the only remaining high official from the time of Alexander II.
Witt was born in 1849, two years younger than Catherine.
George had no time to be sad. Even if Witte recovered, he would not be able to handle government affairs. George decided to hold an immediate election.
Not a universal suffrage, but a vote in the State Duma.
The two people with the highest voices were Felix and Guchkov. Felix was successfully elected with a slight advantage.
Guchkov was disappointed, but not surprised by the result.
During Guchkov’s tenure as Minister of Justice, Russia improved the Criminal Code and increased the number of crimes punishable by death to 82, which frightened countless people.
The Russian judicial system under the leadership of Guchkov prefers to handle cases with the highest standards. The rule of 3 to 7 years is generally 7 years. No matter how many lawyers are hired, it will not work.
Compared with cruel officials like Guchkov, the philanthropic Felix is a great philanthropist.
Felix has indeed done a lot of good deeds, and the Yusupov family has also established a foundation. Last year, the Yusupov family's foundation donated one million rubles each to drought and snow disaster.
But if you think that Felix is a good person because of this, you are really ignorant.
The first thing Felix did after taking office was to restrict foreign capital investment in Russia.
In order to promote the development of Russia, Witte was open to the introduction of foreign investment and formulated many favorable policies to attract foreign capital to invest in Russia.
Felix’s reason is that Russia does not need to give up profits to foreign capital, love will come or not.
Russia itself is not without capital. Yuriev, Yusupov, Dolgorukov, plus the too-big-to-fail Romanov, any one of them is powerful. When Rockefeller came to Russia, he had to go to the four major docks first.
Capital is profit-seeking. As long as you can make money by investing in Russia, it doesn't matter whether you give up the profits or not.
In other words, Russia has passed the most difficult stage.
As I said before, whether it is difficult or not depends on who you compare with.
After Stanley Baldwin came to power, the British economy improved slightly, but there were still many obstacles to returning to its peak state.
After the end of the world war, France fell into the quagmire of the Rif War and deployed more than 200,000 troops in Morocco.
The price of bread in Berlin is still rising, successfully exceeding 1 trillion marks in January this year.
What’s even worse is that bread in Berlin is not only more expensive, but also smaller, shrinking by at least one-third compared to the year before.
Think about 1912, when Germany built four new Bavarian-class battleships at a total cost of only 230 million marks. In just ten years, it seems like a lifetime ago.
Due to the presence of the United States, the Russian economy cannot be said to be unique, but it is definitely far ahead in Europe.
Russia’s 180 million people are Felix’s biggest support.
Russia is different from India. Common people in India have no spending power. The upper castes who have spending power only account for less than 10% of the total population.
Russian farmers have very strong spending power. Since every household owns a large amount of land, Russian farmers’ demand for agricultural machinery is constantly increasing. Many Amur farmers have even begun to purchase second vehicles, which is very important for the development of the Russian economy. The effect is huge.
On April 15, the Grand Duchy of Yuriev once again invited Alexander to be king, and this time George did not stop him.
During Catherine's lifetime, the Grand Duchy of Yuriev invited Alexander to be king many times, but George never agreed.
Ekaterina clearly mentioned in her will that she hoped to see the Yuriev family spread throughout the world.
George asked Alexander for advice, and Alexander was eager to try. He also wanted to become the king of a country like Polis, and did not want to live under George's wings all the time.
Then try it.
Since you have chosen to be a king, you must bear greater responsibilities. Think about the turmoil caused by Alexei's health problems, and it was time for Alexander's personal problems to be resolved.
As king, Alexander did not have the freedom to choose his spouse.
In Europe nowadays, marriage with the British royal family seems to be Alexander's only choice. If Alexander proposes to a British princess, even if the princess herself does not agree, the British will tie up the princess and send her to Constantinople. Dinburg.
Anne still preferred to marry the Hohenzollern. Although William II abdicated, the Hohenzollern and the Romanovs still had a huge influence on Germany.
Anne's reason was that now that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been destroyed and the source of conflict between Russia and Germany disappeared, it was time to repair relations with Germany.
Alexandra reported that Alexander had recently been having a hot relationship with a female military doctor at the Constantinople Military Hospital, and the two had dated many times.
Anne was pleasantly surprised and went to the hospital with Alexandra under the pretext of seeing a doctor to observe this girl also named Ekaterina.
The girl is of Chinese descent, Ekaterina is her Russian name, and her Chinese name is Shen Jun.
Anne knew the meaning of "jun" and thought that Shen Jun was from a noble family in Dongda University.
After learning about Shen Jun’s specific situation, Anne learned that Shen Jun came from a civilian family in Vladivostok.
Anne was very disappointed that the common people did not conform to the royal blood theory.
Because Ekaterina was not of royal origin, she was posthumously recognized as the queen after her death and was eligible to be buried next to Ya Er. Shen Jun is not even a noble, and he is of Chinese descent. He is not from the right family and does not conform to European tradition.
"The four great empires that are most in line with European tradition have perished, so why should we cling to tradition!"
George doesn't care about tradition.
There are more and more Chinese people in Russia. In Amur, the number of Chinese people has exceeded that of Russian people before the outbreak of the world war.
The academic performance of Chinese students in Amur is generally better than that of Russians. Their jobs and remuneration after graduation are also generally better. As a group, Chinese have an increasing influence on Amur.
This situation has caused some controversy in Constantinople, and some members of the State Duma have proposed some restrictions on naturalization.
If Alexander must sacrifice his own marriage, George would rather let Alexander marry Shen Jun, which would directly promote the integration of Amur.
“Yes! We want to break the tradition!”
Alexandra raised her arms and shouted.
“Shut up!”
Anne took action directly and slapped Alexandra on the forehead.
The reason why Alexander is still single is mainly because he loves to play and has not grown up yet.
Alexandra was the real deviant, causing Anne and George a lot of headaches.
"Just wait, I will find a beggar to marry tomorrow -"
Alexandra still dared to challenge.
“Okay, I’ll bring all the beggars from all over the world and let you pick whatever you want.”
Anne was as cold as ice.
Alexandra rubbed oil on her soles and quickly ran away.
"Whatever I look at, it's all your fault!"
Anne doesn't like anyone now, not even the God of War.
“I still have a meeting to hold, and I won’t be back for lunch at noon——”
George will escape.
“Never come back if you can!”
Anne was so angry that no middle-aged woman could afford to offend her.
George called Alexander over and asked what Alexander meant.
“I was just about to tell you that Katya is pregnant——”
Alexander still lost his life.
Anne immediately forgot about tradition and took Shen Jun into her home to take care of him personally.
"Katya is a doctor, we can take care of ourselves."
Alexander has strong wings and wants to fly solo.
“Heh——”
Annie looked around for a weapon.
Alexandra handed Anne a feather duster.
Anne took it and tried it, and accidentally hit Alexandra.
"I'm sorry, but I did it on purpose!"
Anne was confident that spanking the child on a rainy day was nothing but idleness.
"Okay, okay, as long as it doesn't bother you, take care of her if you want."
Seeing that the situation was not good, Alexander threw the elder sister down to prevent the disaster.
On June 18, Alexander took a train to Vladivostok, and then took a ship to East India.
The canal dredging work has been extended and will not be completed until the middle of next year.
This aroused strong dissatisfaction from the Rothschild family, who believed that the Dolgorukov family responsible for the construction was suspected of deliberately delaying the construction schedule.
Sergey felt aggrieved. He also wanted to complete the dredging work as soon as possible and collect the money while sitting on the ground.
Americans are not in a hurry.
After the closure of the Suez Canal, freight rates for European and East Asian colonies skyrocketed, which was very beneficial to American exports to Europe.
Halfway through the dredging of the canal, the construction team discovered a suspected pharaoh's tomb at the bottom of the canal.
“Even if God’s tomb is wherever it is, blow it up for me!”
William spoke eloquently to the board of directors, demanding that the project progress be accelerated.
What William didn’t expect was that his plan to blow up God’s tomb would be exposed by The Times the next day.
The question is, how did the reporter learn about this?
(End of this chapter)