Struggle in Russia

"Aren't you afraid that they will use this to criticize the reform and say that all the troubles are caused by the reform?" Li Xiao asked.

Count Rostovtsev did not answer his question immediately. He quietly looked out the window in a daze.

After a while, just when Li Xiao was about to ask again, he suddenly said: "So what? Without the chaos in Ukraine, they would give up and let us reform?"

Li Xiao stopped talking because what he said made sense. The broom will not run away until it is dusted. In the face of these ultra-conservative guys, expecting them to awaken themselves and agree to reforms is tantamount to wishful thinking.

So gotta pick up the broom, no! Brooms don't work, because they are not light dust, but deep-rooted old silt that has accumulated for hundreds of years. You have to use a shovel or even a chisel, otherwise you will just watch them continue to lie there and control everything. , until it leads this country to destruction!

"Do you think the Ukrainian chisel is useful?" Li Xiao asked again.

Before Count Rostovtsev spoke, Li Xiao said again: "Ukraine is our granary. Once farming is affected, big things will happen next year!"

Count Rostovtsev replied calmly: "I believe that your Majesty knows this as well as you do. You know the seriousness of the matter!"

The implication is that Alexander II will either make up his mind to start reforms immediately, or watch Ukraine and the entire Russia be destroyed together. He should figure out clearly how to proceed.

Li Xiao sighed and said, "What if he can't figure it out clearly?"

Count Rostovtsev glanced at him and said contemptuously: "He is not an idiot, he can calculate clearly. What's more, if he can't figure it out, someone will help him figure it out!"

Will there be anyone?

Li Xiao was not surprised at all, because didn't he just have such a person in front of him? However, he felt that this person would not appear until the most critical moment. If those conservatives really couldn't even calculate this clearly, they wouldn't have been able to control Russia for so many years.

The only question is how quickly they wake up. You must know that time waits for no one. Once it really affects Ukraine’s farming in the coming year, the consequences will be disastrous!

Li Xiao is different from Count Rostovtsev. He is not as hard-hearted as the latter and dares to sacrifice everything for his ideals and goals. He is more sympathetic, and he knows one thing very well, that is, if the country falls into chaos, the people will suffer the most.

Let’s take a look at which times in the past and present, it was not the common people who suffered the most from the great chaos in the world. Especially in Europe, an extreme society where the law of the jungle is at its peak, the common people suffer even more in the chaos.

Although the reform aims to steal food from conservative vested interests, except for a small number of vested interests that will be wiped out as a result, most of the rest will at best lose part of their vested interests. At most, you can't spend as much as you used to.

For them, their quality of life has only declined, and their wealth, life, and livelihood are actually not major problems.

But the barefoot people are different. They can't bear it very well. If something goes wrong, the whole family may die!

Li Xiao agrees with reform, but he never wants to sacrifice thousands of innocent poor people for the sake of reform. That's why he specifically reminded Count Rostovtsev to pay attention to the reaction of conservatives.

It's just that Count Rostovtsev obviously doesn't care. He even wishes that the country would be a little more chaotic. The more chaotic it is, the more he will beat up the conservatives, and maybe even root them out in one fell swoop!

Of course, this is more likely to be a dream. If a country like Russia wants to carry out thorough reforms and subvert the ruling order of vested interests, it is impossible to expect a few enlightened and sober people among the rulers to carry out some top-down reforms. It's possible.

That would have to be like the French Revolution, which would turn the world upside down with great vigor.

It's just that that kind of action is too big and the price is extremely high. What's more, Li Xiao is also one of the vested interests, so he certainly can't ruin his own job.

In other words, all Count Rostovtsev did was reform at best, distributing a little national dividend to the poor serfs, eliminating some of their resentment, and suppressing their surging dissatisfaction. Let them, these carnivorous parasites, continue to live freely and happily.

So although Count Rostovtsev seems to be a reformer, what he really wants to maintain is Russia's ruling order. He's just more sober than the more conservative guys.

Naturally, the plan he came up with was unlikely to take too much into account the life and death of the common people. To put it bluntly, the tens of millions of common people in Russia were like two-legged sheep to him. In order to prevent these sheep from rebelling and eating people, He tried hard to get the farmer Alexander II to slightly improve the living standards of the sheep.

As for how many sheep would die to achieve this goal, he actually didn't care too much and didn't care. To him, those are just a few sheep!

Li Xiao is a little more conscientious than him. After all, he used to be like a sheep, and no matter what, he would consider issues from a sheep's point of view. Naturally, I have objections to Count Rostovtsev's desperate approach.

If there is a problem with Ukraine's harvest next year, many people in Russia will really starve to death!

"I advise you to be cautious. It is best to resolve the opposition of those conservative elements as soon as possible. Ukraine is not an ordinary small problem. If you don't want the world to be in chaos and Russia to be in ruins, you'd better cut the chaos with a sharp knife!"

Count Rostovtsev looked at him and asked with interest: "You seem to care about this! Don't tell me that you care about the country. Such words can be used to deceive children, but they are of no use to me. !”

Li Xiao replied calmly: "I just don't want too many people to die, especially too many poor people living at the bottom."

Count Rostovtsev sneered and said: "It's a joke, in this world where the jungle eats the strong, if you want to live a better life, you have to work hard. If you don't pay, there will be no gain. If the people you mentioned want to live like human beings, Then you have to fight with your life, otherwise it will be like a puddle of mud for others to step on!"

Li Xiao frowned. He was not opposed to desperate efforts. What he was opposed to was that bastards like Count Rostovtsev wantonly used the bottom class's will to live a better life and used their desperate determination to achieve their own goals, and in the end Not much benefit has been given to these people who have paid a huge price.

This is a serious disproportion between effort and reward, and this is what he objects to!

But Count Rostovtsev replied contemptuously: "I won't use them. They don't even have the qualifications to fight hard. It's already very difficult to gain anything. What else do you want?"