The Last Frontier of Fire and Sword

Chapter 615



In short, the policy of Polish kings towards Cossacks is to "eliminate the strong and support the weak", or pull one faction and fight another faction.

King Jan kazimiz or the successive Polish kings before him showed a Cossack like style. They all regarded Cossacks as a force that can be used to clamp down on aristocratic power and strengthen kingship.

Therefore, it is inevitable that the kings\' Pro Cossack attitude will be undermined and obstructed by the Parliamentarians who want to limit the royal power and turn the Cossacks into serfs and the great nobles behind them.

This in turn made the Cossacks more and more resentful and hostile to the great nobles.

For example, at the battle of hoddin in 1621, one of the conditions for participating in the war put forward by Pedro, the then Cossack leader, was to ask Poland to recognize the restored Ukrainian orthodox teaching level. But afterwards, some great nobles obstructed it, and the Polish government did not abide by its promise. Moreover, the Eastern Catholic Church in Poland (i.e. the Orthodox Church merged with Catholicism) has increasingly excluded the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Moreover, after Poland made peace with Turkey, the then polish government no longer asked for Cossacks. The parliament ignored the livelihood of 40000 Cossacks removed from the battlefield and did not make any pension for the disabled (any appropriation by the king must be approved and approved by the parliament). The quota of more than a thousand people could not solve the problem of 40000 Togolese sarks at all. The hope of non registered Cossacks to be included in the book was dashed, and those who were used to the life of licking blood at the edge of the knife would not be willing to go back to being serfs again.

Therefore, some of the non registered Cossacks went to zaporoze camp, some went to the wasteland in the downstream area to make a living, and most returned to towns or villages. These non registered Cossacks have once again become restless and disobedient mobs in Ukrainian society in the Republic of Poland and Lithuania. Naturally, they have to find ways to change their situation. They repeatedly violated the contract between the Republic and Turkey and began to attack the suburbs of Constantinople from the sea. They were also invited to intervene in Crimean affairs and support the forces of Crimean Khanate that are unwilling to be Turkish vassals. What\'s more, some Cossacks supported a man who called himself crown prince Alexander, who tried to seek the throne of Turkey. More and more daring Cossacks even wanted to unite Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks and Albanians to revive the Orthodox Eastern Empire.

Externally, the Cossacks also seriously damaged the interests of the Polish aristocracy. In a document on the analysis of the situation in Ukraine written to the king and parliament by the great Polish king gatmanmikowai pototsky at that time, it was written as follows: the phenomenon of doing whatever we want at home prevailed, which not only caused us many difficulties, but also made us hostile to our powerful neighbors. They completely forgot their faith and their subordinate relationship, and created a special country for themselves. Endanger the lives and property of innocent people. The whole of Ukraine is at their command. The little nobles are like slaves in their own homes. In the cities and towns of the Wang family, the Cossacks dominated everything, and all power was in their hands. They mastered the jurisdiction and issued decrees.

Of course, the great nobles were not reconciled to the damage of their power. They called the private nobles and the regular Polish army in various noble territories to brutally suppress the Cossacks. But every time, when the Polish army was about to wipe out the Cossacks, the successive Polish kings would timely accept the surrender of the Cossacks, hang the rebel leaders and pardon most of their followers, and then support the moderates to come to power. This made the Cossacks always revive and regard the king as their protector and benefactor. Over time, the Cossacks formed a concept of "anti aristocracy, not anti king". They targeted all their hatred at the Polish aristocrats.

Even Bogdan hemelinitsky, when he first encouraged zaporoze\'s Cossacks to resist the Republic, he targeted the uprising at the Polish nobles of Ukraine, such as vichnewski, rather than the king.

Because of this, from the beginning when Jan kazimiz became king, he was the largest moderator in the Republic from beginning to end. He advocated using gentle means to treat the Cossacks, as before, in order to quell the uprising, weaken the nobility and expand the kingship.

As soon as king Jan kazimiz ascended the throne, he sent a letter to Bogdan hemelinitsky telling him that he had been elected king, and assured him that he would give Cossack gatman and improve the treatment of all orthodox believers. In February 1649, King Jan Kazimierz sent a Polish delegation represented by Adam kisher to pereyaslav to meet Bogdan hemelinitsky. As a gift and show sincerity, kisher gave the round staff symbolizing gatman\'s power to the former, indicating that the Polish government had recognized his status as the chief of zaporoze Cossacks. However, khmelinitsky, who was victorious at that time, had no intention of permanent peace. He held talks in a very rude and inefficient way. At the end of the negotiations, the two sides signed an armistice agreement for less than four months.

Thus, King Jan kazimiz\'s first goodwill did not receive the response he hoped. After that, because of the victory of the battle of zbalari and the battle of berestecko, as well as the subsequent events that changed the historical process of Eastern Europe, the king and the great chief of Cossacks finally drifted away.

At this time, Stanislaw pototsky finally understood why King Jan kachmidge took ugovsky away and left himself. Because the king had heard from ukovsky\'s words that he was the advocate of tooth for tooth and blood for blood against the Cossacks. The king himself, in fact, wanted to take advantage of the short life of Bogdan hemelinitsky to try again to solve the Ukrainian problem by bloodless means. After all, relying on the force to recapture Ukraine, the land and cities belong to the nobility, and the king can\'t get any benefits. If zaporoze Cossacks are brought into his command again, Jan kazimizh can not only get tens of thousands of fighting Cossack infantry, but also put his own people in charge of Ukraine.

Unlike King Jan kazimiz, who wears an extremely obvious label of moderation, few people know that Stanislaw pototsky, who has always been tough with Cossacks, actually holds the same opinion as the king.

Stanislaw pototsky is also a moderate.