Chapter 1767: Fifteen. Aphrodite (11)

Has the war hit the capital? Which country's army? How did you come in?
Anyone who witnessed the destruction of the Winter Palace by artillery at midnight will have such a question. No one will think that this is caused by terrorists or revolutionaries. How can they get the cannon and deploy it under the eyes of the military police. The location where you can shell the Winter Palace is beyond the limits of terrorists. No one thinks this is a rebellion by the Principality Army. Anyway, the military’s performance in these days is obviously loyal to the Tsar, and there is no reason to go against each other at this time.
It could only be a foreign army. Which country's army? Lapland? Empire?
Everyone thinks so, but the fact is that a group of revolutionaries are shelling the Winter Palace.
"The sailors of the cruiser "Aphrodite" mutiny, killing officers to the warship, and now shelling the Winter Palace?! What the Navy is doing!"
Stolypin slammed the table hard, and the unexpectedly admiral Andrei Aleksandrovich Popov, the first-level admiral, was slobbered in the face of the wrathful finance minister, "half "Prime Minister", the Navy Secretary did not dare to refute, even dare to reach out and wipe his saliva.
The navy minister was not born on the right track, and has never held any front-line military positions, let alone command the fleet, not even command warships. His military experience was entirely a technical officer, that is, a technical bureaucrat who designed and supervised the planning and construction of warships. As usual, being able to hang the Admiral's epaulet and become the head of a technical department is the limit for such people. If you are lucky, you will be nominated by the nobility and given to the territory. As for the Secretary of the Navy or something, just look at it, and you don’t have to think about it.
But this man became the first navy minister in the Principality's history to be a technical officer and climbed to the top of the entire naval system.
There are many reasons for this, including the former Navy Minister Konstantin Nikolayevich, who has liberalism and reform tendency, does not invite the court to see him, in order to eliminate its influence, it is necessary to find someone who is not his faction, who understands the navy and Obedient people are responsible, and at the same time, they must balance the power balance of various factions, consider the amount of bribery of each person, the big man behind... In short, driven by interests, such a speechless personnel arrangement has finally emerged.
Such a person can manage the day-to-day administration of the navy system is already valuable, and he is expected to grasp the ideas of the grassroots officers and soldiers in a turbulent situation, implement ideological work, and be able to be first in terms of popularity and ability when emergencies occur. Time to contain or eliminate the situation-this is obviously too much thinking.
Stolypin wanted to take the pistol out of the drawer and kill the idiot gun in front of him, but in the end, reason overcame the urge.
It's easy to shoot a stupid, but if the replacement is also a stupid or even worse, it makes no sense, not to mention the need to go through a lot of administrative procedures and waste precious time. At this moment, the most crucial point is that one second is precious and decisive. Where is the time to do things that are not there?
"I don't care what the cause of this matter is, what role you play in it. If you can't quickly press things down, His Excellency Popov—"
Stolypin grabbed the navy minister's collar, saying one by one:
"Before the Revolutionary Party hangs me, I will send you to the stake of the fire. If you don't want to be a barbecue, it is best to act for me!"
Death threats are always the best means of pressure. The Navy Secretary, who was scared at a loss for the first second, seemed to have been whip, and hurried out of the office after the hurried salute.
"waste."
As soon as the navy minister's back disappeared, Stolypin sighed.
He was very clear that Popov was not the right person to deal with mutiny. In order to stop the dissatisfied sailors from shelling, it must be possible to have a well-respected senior general come on the field. This general does not need to have outstanding achievements, nor does he need excellent military talent, but at least he can share the same pains with the soldiers and make The soldiers convinced what he said.
Admiral Makarov and Rear Admiral Kolchak may be such people, but now they are accepting responsibility for the investigation of the defeat of the Battle of Yamliza, and it is impossible and impossible to keep up. What's more, the "Avrora" was originally a ship affiliated to the Amliza resident fleet. At this time, it was difficult for the two best candidates to act, whether it was to avoid suspicion or to prevent it.
So whether you like it or not, now you can only let Popov deal with it. I believe he will work hard with a whip on his butt.
There is nothing wrong with His Stolypin’s ideas, and any bureaucrat in his position will do the same.
But reasonable thinking is one thing, wishful thinking is another.
Under the threat of death, Popov will indeed handle the incident of the rebel ship with unprecedented vigour. For his status and life, he dare not slacken. However, it is a little disturbing to seriously think about where the direction of its efforts will be, and what kind of consequences and influence this kind of seriousness and energy will have under the current situation.
The most unneeded right now is the unpredictable elements of unrest.
As I said before, Popov is just a speculator who is greedy for power and wealth. How to invest, how to make profits, how to steal his credit, how to exclude potential competitors, etc. are his specialties. From this point of view, he is more like a businessman in uniform, military positions, supplies, but his commodities. How to legalize the greedy Mexican assets like a magic, and promote the promotion of bribery officers to be justified is his area of ​​focus. The "Avrora" mutiny, and even the act of shocking the world such as shelling the Winter Palace, was precisely caused by Popov's "management" behavior.
"Because the food caused mutiny?"
Earl Schulenburg snapped the report onto the table, his face unbelievable.
For the Imperial Army, which has excellent logistics support capabilities, this is indeed quite unbelievable. The Imperial Army’s food is under the notoriety of "dark cooking overlord", but it never let soldiers endure hunger. The naval system is also known for its diverse food sources and rich nutrition.
The fact that the warship uprising shelled the palace due to the food mutiny did indeed exceed the imagination of the imperial officials.
The reasons for the mutiny in history are strange, but carefully comparing the various mutinies, most of the mutinies have no political demands, simply because they can't wait for the military pay and can't put on leave. Such indifference to the soldiers' basic treatment should trigger the soldiers' rebellion. According to conscience, the standard of military personnel’s demand for material desires and treatment is not high (some civil servants with the title of
military
in other countries say otherwise), and it will cause rebellion. Caused by the abuse of pawns, more than half of the ultimate goal of the mutiny is not to treason but purely to improve treatment.
In this mutiny, the food problem is actually just a fuse. Since the battle of Yaliza, I have suffered bitterness and discrimination, and the seeds of dissatisfaction planted in my mind witnessed by the "Neva Riding and Cutting Event" have already been in the sailors. There was too much dissatisfaction in my heart. Since entering the St. Petersburg military airport and waiting for rational maintenance, all kinds of tangible and invisible discrimination and differential treatment have weighed on the sailor of the "Aphrodite", and the morale of the soldiers almost fell to the freezing point.
Repeating the dull and boring life every day, but also tolerating the cold eyes of sailors and officers of other battleships, the excessive and excessive food distribution gap between officers and soldiers from the ship even made them strongly resentful of officers and discipline. Since entering St. Petersburg, the daily recipes for sailors are the same: 400 grams of wood chips mixed with flour Leba (bread to be cut with a logging saw), turnip and beet stalks, dried salted fish and potato skin soup. In the officer’s canteen on the same deck are baked potatoes with sour cream, sturgeon caviar, grilled meat, borscht, white bread rolls, sugar cakes, and black tea.
Such a huge difference will of course arouse the resentment of the sailors, and the officers on the ship turned a blind eye to it, or did not care at all, so that when they received an order, they not only did not discuss how to do the ideological work of the soldiers, but opened the treasure. Good wine celebrates. It was this action that completely angered the soldiers who drank cold soup and bubbled Leba, and decided to take action.
At that time, the Admiralty issued a command to all ships anchored in the military port of St. Petersburg, requesting the fleet to sail towards the frontline of Lapland. For the sake of confidentiality, this order was issued in several parts. The most critical part at the end, that is, what missions to perform after going to Lapland must be issued after the fleet has set sail, which gives some officers room for imagination. Some officers on the "Aphrodite" who were fed up with grooviness opened champagne and sang to celebrate. One of the officers took advantage of the wine and raised his glass. He said solemnly: "We should put all the shells in the ammunition library. Hit the enemy position and sink gloriously! Cheers to the death journey of the'Aphrodite'!"
Obviously, these officers decided that the goal of this mission was the final decisive battle, and they decided to wash the shame through the battle. Let’s not mention the real purpose of this mission is to replace some of the ships that are in urgent need of repair and maintenance~EbookFREE.me~ did not consider any form of combat against Lapland at all. The truce negotiations have already taken place, and the fanatical statements made by the officers based on vanity and self-satisfaction are a threat to the peace negotiations themselves, not to mention that this idea is more about fighting for honor than for yourself. Privately pulled a ship and died. The warships that had been highly antagonistic and split up suddenly became daggers. At this dangerous and delicate moment, the food problem became Mars thrown into the gunpowder barrel.
The cause of the incident was a batch of cans distributed to the "Aphrodite". The soldiers who had been looking forward to improving the food suddenly exploded when they saw severe swelling, and the sour and smelly canned food burst. Especially when they learned that the cans distributed on other ships were completely normal, resentment and anger reached their climax in an instant.
The angry sailors would not know that this canned food should have been disposed of as early as a few months ago. In order to wipe out the book deficit and cover up the truth of reselling military materials, some people sent these canned goods to the unspoken "Aphrodite".
Admiral Popov was not directly involved in the reselling of military materials, but it was an indisputable fact that he accepted bribes, appointed corrupt officials, and enjoyed the tribute of the relevant parties. Now that the seeds planted by the Admiral finally bear fruit, no matter whether he likes it or not, he must swallow this bitter fruit.