"Mr. Naresh, I still firmly believe in my opinion. If you don't go out of the city to fight the Chinese, that is not a good choice." Pidelov said solemnly to Count Makatol Naresh.

The Count put on the armor left by his ancestors, patted the neck of the war horses beside him, and said to Pidlov: "Dear Pidlov, I admit that you have brought a lot of wealth to our family in the past few years, especially after the decline of the fur trade, the tea, silk and porcelain you bought from China made us profitable!

But, my friend, you don’t understand war and even politics.”

Seeing that the Count still insisted on fighting, Pidlov looked around the castle, there were less than 7,000 soldiers, many of them were just armed serfs, and the main force was some alien mercenaries. Pidlov knew that this was not an opponent of the Imperial Expeditionary Force at all. For his personal interests, he also wanted to organize Naresh.

The Naresh family is now at its peak in Russia because their family women served as the empress dowager in Moscow and were the successor wife of the former Tsar. Pidlov made a fortune after obtaining the franchise trade rights in Pingbei City. However, as the illegitimate son of the Stroganov family, his wealth gathered up hatred by other brothers in the family, and even his father Oleg. In order to preserve these wealth, Pidlov participated in the Naresh family, which was troubled by the shrinking fur trade, and leaned on a thicker tree, but he was also entangled with the family and could no longer be separated. Now, in order to dissuade the earl from taking risks, Pidlov could only say: "Earl, I can tell you a secret!"

The Count smiled and said, "Well, tell me, I know you merchants always have some secrets that others don't know, and these are all about your wealth and survival, tell me."

After everyone retreated, Pidlov said: "Sir, I can be sure that outside the city is very dangerous. This time the invasion was the entire Chinese army in Western Xinjiang, with an army of more than 150,000, and many of them were cavalry more professional and difficult than the Cossacks. It is very dangerous for you to leave the castle."

After hearing this, the count nodded slightly: "It is indeed dangerous, but Pidlov, my most sincere friend, I still have to take risks, because it is also a rare opportunity. Do you know that His Majesty the Tsar gathered all representatives of the powerful nobles to Moscow, saying that it was to expand the Duma Conference, but he sent Prince Ivan, Princess Sophia, the annoying Miloslavsky, and the dirty piglet to Novgorod.

Do you know what this means? If this war fails, or if there is a situation where His Majesty cannot control it, His Majesty the Tsar will maintain Russian unity by destroying our Naresh family. My father has no soldiers in Moscow, and I must take a soldier to limit His Majesty's ambitions and adventures."

After hearing this, Pidlov understood that it also involved the throne and the future of Russia. What the Count had to do was not as simple as he said. As long as he acted fast enough to enter Moscow, it would be a force to change the situation. Perhaps after the war, His Majesty of Russia's Tsar would be Peter, who had the blood of Naresh.

"Sir, let me go with you." Pidlov suddenly said loudly.

Earl Naresh glanced at Pidrov. His usual impression of this guy was that he was timid and smart. If Pidrov said that for the status of a future Tsar's privileged merchant, Pidrov would take some adventures, but he would dare to risk his life. He did not expect that Pidrov explained: "You rescued me from the prison in Ufa back then, and I should repay you."

"Well, dear Pidlov, you can go with me, but I really don't know how you can repay me." Naresh smiled.

Pidlov touched the license certificate that was sewn in his robe and said in his heart: "I hope this thing is really useful."

The Naresh family's army left the territory and headed towards Moscow. It has to be said that as an ancient family, the Naresh family's private army was still somewhat elegant. The only regret is that the number was too small. The main force in the army was the alien cavalry, Tatars and Tungus people employed on both sides of the Ural Mountains. The serfs made a wooden stick, sharpened and roasted it into a spear. This army was advancing on the vast plain, but found that the cities passing along the way were on guard. No army was allowed to enter, nor did they provide any food supplies. Some villages and towns had been looted.

Earl Naresh finally knew that the danger Pidlov mentioned did exist. When he ordered the speed to move forward, he did not know that he had entered the encirclement arranged by Chen Ping.

After surrounding Kazan City, Chen Ping had a deeper understanding of the current situation in Russia, because the war against the Ottomans had lasted for four years, and the main force of the Russian army fought with the Cossacks on the banks of the Dnieper River. The whole country was empty. Even though the Tsar had known that the Empire would march into Russia this year, it was hard for a good cook to cook without rice, and he really could not draw more troops to defend.

The vanguards of the three armies were all elite cavalry and were not responsible for sweeping. The cities had received the orders from the Tsar to close the city and defend themselves, and they were firmly cleared the fields. Chen Ping simply dispersed most of the elite cavalry and ambushed at the critical intersection around Moscow, surrounded the points to fight for reinforcements, and specifically attacked reinforcements to Moscow. However, this move did not work because the Tsar did not order any reinforcements to rescue Moscow. Now, except for thousands of elite guard shooting troops in Moscow, they are mobilized armed citizens.

But Count Naresh, who was eager to use war to change the political situation in Tsarist Russia, became the only target, so the first cavalry team appeared beside Count Naresh's army, which was a 400-man cavalry team, which continued to harass along the way, consumed the horsepower of the Naresh army and delayed their advance speed, which was just like the hunting of wolves on the grassland, and the Naresh family became a group of lambs to be slaughtered.

The marching speed of Count Naresh's command was getting slower and slower. When Count Naresh was difficult to decide whether to give up the infantry, he found that there were more and more cavalrymen around him. Less than a hundred miles away from Moscow, more than 6,000 cavalry had gathered around him, surrounding the Count's army on flat farmland.

The Count, who was a soldier, refused Pidlov's suggestion of surrender and set up a formation to fight with the cavalry of the empire. As a result, his mercenaries only had a little contact and were killed by the carefully selected Sagittarius from the Junggar and Khalkha. In the end, they even surrendered directly.

The position of attacking the Earl's Army was simpler. Each cavalry drove forward and dismounted, and there were flintlock guns shooting at a distance of 100 to 200 meters away from the enemy. From time to time, the cavalry was advancing. In just two days, the army under the Earl's command completely collapsed. The serfs faced the cavalry advancing like a wall, not to mention forming a formation to defend, they could not even stand firmly.

"Don't kill the Count. I am Pidelov, my friend of Lord Chang Adei, and my partner of General Chen Ping." Pidelov protected the Count and fulfilled his promise. His righteous Chinese language also made the general who led the cavalry team temporarily put down his knife.

"Do you have anything to prove?"

Pidlov tore open his robe, revealing the parchment inside, and said, "I have a trade charter issued by the Secretary-General in Xinjiang. You see, in the Western Xinjiang region, all empires officially recognize this document."

The general glanced at it and said, "This is true. Unfortunately, this is Russia... What a pity. I can let you live a life, but this count dares to resist us and must pay a price. I will not kill him, but I will cut off one of his hands. You take his hand to find his family, and then the ransom is for someone else."

But Pidlov's words surprised everyone, especially Naresh: "General, I am willing to give my chances of survival to the Count, please do not hurt him."

"You businessman is very affectionate and righteous. I ask you, if this count went to Moscow, would you see the Tsar?" the general asked.

Pidlov nodded quickly and said, "He is the Queen Mother's brother, and he will definitely be able to meet the Tsar."

The general nodded and asked, "Earl, do you know how many cavalrymen are attacking you today?"

Pidlov quickly translated that the Count had been in charge of the army and fought with the enemy for two days. He guessed it roughly: "More than five thousand cavalry but not more than ten thousand. You have many horses, many of them have two horses, or even three horses, but not so many."

The general smiled: "If I tell you that we now have six thousand cavalry, but there are two thousand cavalry guarding prisoners and wealth in the camp in the distance, do you believe it?"

Earl Naresh didn't know why he was asked such a question, but he nodded: "I believe that you must have stolen a lot of cattle, sheep, slaves, gold and silver, and you must send someone to protect them."

The general nodded, discussed with several other people, and said to Pidlov: "Businessman, you are very affectionate and have a licence. You can now let the Count go to Moscow, but you want to pay him a ransom of ten thousand taels of silver, are you willing?"

"I would like to write to my wife and give me 20,000 taels of money and exchange it with me. Maybe there is not enough gold and silver, can I also use fur and tea instead?" Pidlov said.

The general smiled: "Of course, you can go with us. The person comes to clean up the count and send it to Moscow."

All the valuable items on the Count Naresh were taken away, the man was pressed to the ground, and the two slaves used a branding iron to imprint a string of numbers on his white and tender buttocks. Pidlov took a look and found that it was an Arabic numeral that was common in the empire. It seemed to be a date, but it was indeed a day two days ago.

"Earl, you are a few days late, otherwise you don't have to let this merchant pay you ten thousand taels. Okay, put on your clothes now, I will send you to the city of Moscow. Remember, when you see your Tsar, tell what you see and hear, don't hide it, especially on the date on the butt. You must see it with your own eyes. This is the task assigned to you by His Highness Yu. If you don't complete it, when we break through Moscow, we will arrest the people with numbers on the butt one by one, and all will be executed by storm!" The general reminded him, and several Junggar soldiers tied the count to the horse and galloped all the way to Moscow.

It turns out that the same treatment was not only the Count Naresh, but a total of twenty people were under such punishment in the entire Russian land. They also suffered failures, either ambushed when retreating to the castle, or were broken into the city. Some were dead defenders in the surrendered city, from all over the Tsar land, but everyone concealed the fact that they were branded on their butts, and when describing the empire's army, their words were very different.

The generals intentionally exaggerated the number and combat effectiveness of the expeditionary forces in order to conceal their own failures. The lords of real power said as much as possible that the expedition forces were small and had weak combat effectiveness. They hoped that the Tsar could send Moscow troops to regain their territory and subjects. Until Count Naresh arrived in Moscow, all lies were exposed. Although Pidlov saved him, Naresh knew through the charter. What Pidlov said was 150,000 people of the Imperial Expeditionary Force said was true.

Therefore, in the Kremlin, in front of the Tsar Feodor, twenty nobles and generals all took off their pants, pressed their hands on the ground, and raised their white butts. Yaquikv personally counted the numbers above, and made a brief study to understand, and said to the Tsar: "Your Majesty, this is a date, a calendar used by the Chinese. They call it the lunar calendar. There are actually only four twenty dates, from the fourth day of the lunar month to the seventh day of the lunar month. According to their confessions and my conversion, except for the Count Naresh, everyone failed the date behind the butt.

In other words, these people were arrested within these four days.”

"At the same time, defeat these people, and send them to Moscow, tell us through their mouths how many troops were fighting against them at that time, what does this mean?" Feodor drove all the bare-ass guys out and said angrily.

Yakikov said, "Your Majesty, I think the enemy is telling us how many troops they have. You see, these people were defeated almost at the same time, that is, they were defeated by different armies. I calculated the number of enemies they had re-determined, and there were 60,000 cavalry. Obviously, this is just the cavalry that fought."

Feodor asked: "Is it a shock to tell us this?"

Yakikov shook his head, thinking about it but never thought about why. Generally speaking, he would hide his strength and army distribution as much as possible in the war, but now the enemy is revealed, which is unpredictable.
Chapter completed!