Ch.4The Saint of All Russia (2)

* * *

Clink!

As if to prove that even bullets don’t kill when they hit gently, the bullet crumpled and rolled on the floor.

Whether this was actually a bullet or some worthless object born of military supply corruption, I couldn’t tell. But those watching witnessed another miracle.

“Oh…ohhhh! Truly a saint!”

“Is this what they call a genuine miracle?!”

The citizens who had followed me in the confusion were shocked.

Honestly, to completely win over Yekaterinburg to our side, I need to put on shows like this for a while.

Of course, in other regions they’ll hear these rumors and say the Grand Duchess is filming propaganda, but at the very least, I need to turn Yekaterinburg into fans of Saint Anastasia, who has received God’s desperate blessing.

“Despite such clear miracles existing, some still wish to kill me.”

“Wh-what kind of trick is this! Y-you’re a witch!”

“How pathetic. Does that mean you’re even lower than a witch?”

“Comrade Lenin is the true hope of Mother Russia! You should be dead and in a coffin!”

Of course, there are still some who spout nonsense until the end.

But most had no choice but to acknowledge me.

They saw with their own eyes—a bullet fired at my head, yet I didn’t die.

Instead, the bullet crumpled and simply fell to the ground.

Whether they were young Bolsheviks swayed by propaganda or genuine Bolsheviks who received orders to kill me, once they saw it with their own eyes, they were helpless.

It means these Reds are weak against persuasion.

Such reed-like people will inevitably waver again during this civil war.

“I cannot help these poor souls who refuse to believe in me. How pitiful that God has commanded me to save them through death.”

One command was all it took.

Those who refused to accept reality until the end became execution targets.

And some Bolsheviks, after seeing the bullet crumple, defected to our side.

“What do you mean by salvation through death?”

“It’s a simple principle.”

“Pardon?”

“We must tell even the Red Army that if they surrender to us now, they too can receive the Lord’s protection.”

These broken-headed people will follow any order.

Especially an order from a saint who performs miracles.

So I intend to give a truly terrible command.

“Therefore.”

“Hang the Bolshevik corpses on crosses.”

This will provoke one of two reactions.

Either furious Bolsheviks will come charging in.

Or terrified Bolsheviks will keep their distance.

I’d like to bet on the latter.

Trotsky hasn’t personally intervened with the Red Army yet. They won’t be able to attack this place in full force.

So even if they forcibly gather troops and come here, they’ll want to avoid ending up like laundry hanging on crosses themselves.

Originally, I could have evacuated with the citizens, but…

Yekaterinburg is the central point dividing European Russia and Asia.

It absolutely cannot be lost.

For White Army leaders like Pyotr Wrangel to properly exert their power, they need to coordinate from here.

The White Army is already poorly unified, and if they lose the European Russian region, the remaining Siberia has too small a population, making their forces inferior to the Red Army.

In the end, the Bolsheviks who failed to receive the Lord’s blessing were forced to receive it while hanging on crosses.

After going this far, I wonder how the Bolsheviks will respond.

* * *

Just as Anastasia had predicted, Bolsheviks outside Yekaterinburg were observing the city’s situation.

And they clearly saw crosses erected on the city’s outskirts.

Yes, more precisely, the corpses of their comrades hanging on crosses.

“Aren’t those our comrades?”

“What’s written there? ‘Traitors to the Empire who defied God’s will’?”

“There are also words saying ‘For the Romanovs once more!'”

“The Empire fell long ago. How dare they!”

“Comrades, it’s dangerous to go now. What does this mean? It means Yekaterinburg has already fallen into the Grand Duchess’s hands.”

“Are you saying we should just leave the Grand Duchess alone?”

“If we go in, we’ll end up like that.”

“No, why do they resist the liberation of workers? After suffering so much under the Tsar, they still believe in the Romanovs?”

Who in their right mind would still believe in the Romanovs?

The Bolsheviks gritted their teeth.

Why are there so many obstacles to the revolution?

“If the city responded to us, it would be different, but we’ve completely lost contact with our other comrades in Yekaterinburg.”

“That means…”

“We can’t take that city with just our forces.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be impossible to forcibly target the city alone.

But most of our troops are conscripts.

How would they react seeing such a sight?

Poorly trained conscripts won’t fight properly.

With the Czechoslovak Legion around and reactionaries running wild everywhere, we can’t commit all our forces to capturing one Grand Duchess in Yekaterinburg.

So for now, we can only grit our teeth and plan for the future.

* * *

Soviet People’s Commissar Vladimir Lenin bit his lower lip at the news from Yekaterinburg.

Yekaterinburg had fallen into the Grand Duchess’s hands.

What this meant was simple.

Yekaterinburg still had fools who longed for the Tsar, and now reactionaries could gather around the Grand Duchess to confront the Soviets.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have captured the Romanovs from the beginning.”

“They needed to be eliminated eventually, Comrade Lenin.”

Trotsky was a hardliner regarding the Tsar’s family.

Only by sweeping away the imperial family could the revolution be completed.

“But things are taking a strange turn. Haven’t you heard? Yekaterinburg has fallen into the Grand Duchess’s hands!”

“They are foolish people who still believe the Romanovs have a future. Our Red Army must recapture it later.”

Leon Trotsky clenched his fist and shouted with an angry voice.

And Stalin, noticing this strange current, curled up the corners of his mouth.

He had come from Tsaritsyn because of the urgent matter.

Things were turning out quite interestingly.

“Perhaps it would have been better to convert them.”

“Stalin, what are you saying?”

“If we couldn’t kill them all, we should have kept them alive and converted them. Or killed them earlier. Why kill them now when reactionaries are running wild?”

“Are you changing your tune now?”

“We need to think differently. What do you think the Grand Duchess will do now? What will the reactionaries do? They’ll spread the word everywhere that the Soviets killed their parents and siblings. Even though they’re enemy countries, all imperialist nations with monarchies are related to the Tsar’s family. Isn’t it obvious how they’ll react?”

The British royal family and the German imperial family are both related to the Tsar.

They might try to intervene somehow.

“The war between those imperialists isn’t over yet! They absolutely cannot intervene!”

“Well, that remains to be seen.”

Direct military intervention might be questionable.

But at least as long as the Grand Duchess survives, this civil war will drag on.

And the longer the civil war continues, won’t the Soviet unity crumble?

“What are you saying!”

“It means a long civil war has begun that will drain the workers’ blood.”

“Enough! Are we in a position to fight among ourselves? Quickly organize the Red Army. If Yekaterinburg is in that state, who knows about the cities under our influence!”

This is the workers’ nation they’ve established through all kinds of struggles.

They cannot return to the Tsarist era.

“Yes, comrade. And we don’t know how the generals from the imperial era will react. We should persuade them if possible, but if not, they must be killed.”

“It can’t be helped. Do so. What will you do about Yekaterinburg?”

“We must gather the Red Army and attack.”

Gather the Red Army and attack.

That means conscripting more soldiers.

Stalin was excellent at reading the situation.

In actual history, that’s how he rose to the position of General Secretary and established his dictatorship through bloody purges.

So the battle for Yekaterinburg that Stalin now observed didn’t look promising at all.

“And if we fail?”

“We must attack Yekaterinburg even if it’s reckless. If we leave it alone, Yekaterinburg will become the center of anti-communism!”

Attack Yekaterinburg even if it’s reckless.

Unlike actual history, the Grand Duchess had survived and was resisting in Yekaterinburg, so this was something they had to do whether they liked it or not.

If left alone, the White Army would certainly rally around Yekaterinburg.

Somehow, they had to recapture Yekaterinburg, even if it meant enduring public resentment for a while.

“Yes, comrade. And Comrade Stalin must defend Tsaritsyn.”

At Trotsky’s report, Stalin’s eyes widened.

This was truly a checkmate.

‘This bastard?’

At this point, it seemed deliberate. Stalin thought Trotsky was intentionally pushing him aside.

Of course, defending Tsaritsyn was important, but to send him there now when they needed to gather forces to attack Yekaterinburg…

As Stalin headed to Tsaritsyn, he pondered deeply.

Comrade Lenin and Trotsky were stimulated by the Grand Duchess’s actions.

No matter how he looked at it, the attack on Yekaterinburg didn’t seem promising.

Even if they desperately targeted Yekaterinburg as if being chased by something, occupation was another matter.

The Czechoslovak Legion was reportedly helping the Grand Duchess.

They could be confident of victory.

‘Well, in that case.’

If handled well, couldn’t he gain an advantage over Trotsky?

Yes, Tsaritsyn might be better than Yekaterinburg.

It would be enough to just conduct a defensive battle there.

It would be sufficient to wait until Trotsky, that vicious man, collapsed on his own.

Stalin headed to Tsaritsyn with such dirty ambitions in his heart.

* * *

The former Bolsheviks dispatched by Anastasia also spread the story of the Tsar’s family’s execution and the surviving Grand Duchess everywhere.

And Anton Denikin, one of those who heard this news, was greatly outraged and called for the person who spread the rumor.

“So the Bolshevik bastards finally killed the Tsar and his family?”

“But uniquely, the Grand Duchess survived.”

“What? The Grand Duchess is alive?”

“Yes. The Grand Duchess is Russia’s saint. She survived countless Bolshevik bullets without dying.”

It was ironic for a former Bolshevik to say this.

This former Cheka agent informed Anton Denikin about the misfortune that befell the Tsar’s family and Grand Duchess Anastasia’s survival.

“So she’s alive anyway?”

“Yes. By now she should have taken control of Yekaterinburg, and she earnestly asked us to somehow inform each country about this matter.”

The man who was once a Cheka agent didn’t mention that they had killed the imperial family.

In a situation where the Grand Duchess had already forgiven them, there was no point in saying that now—the man before him would kill him.

Upon hearing this news, Anton Denikin briefly suspected it might be a Bolshevik trap, but soon abandoned that thought.

Something had clearly happened in Yekaterinburg, and unless the Bolsheviks were insane, they wouldn’t openly announce that they had killed the Tsar’s family.

Anton Denikin decided to inform the European countries at war about this news.

Surely, with the Bolsheviks having killed an entire family except for one Grand Duchess, monarchies would feel threatened.

“The Tsar’s family is dead and only the Grand Duchess survived?”

Naturally, the Czechoslovak Legion, which had come close to Yekaterinburg to observe the situation, could also hear the news of the Grand Duchess’s survival.

At this time, the Czechoslovak Legion was wandering along the railways in Siberia as an independent army, neither here nor there.

In actual history, they were one of the reasons why Eastern Siberia and the White Army could be maintained, posing a threat to the Bolsheviks by controlling the Trans-Siberian Railway and using the armored train Orlik.

In the original history, the Bolsheviks killed the Tsar’s family out of concern that the Czechoslovak Legion would hand them over to the White Army, but with Anastasia’s survival, the situation took a strange turn.

General Radola Gajda, commander-in-chief of the Czechoslovak Legion, who could have secured a retreat by handing Kolchak over to the Bolsheviks in the original timeline, found this news very interesting.

“The Tsar’s family is dead and Grand Duchess Anastasia is the only survivor. Hmm.”

In terms of practical benefit, securing the Tsar’s family and handing them over to the White Army would have been advantageous, but according to the information received, the Grand Duchess had already taken control of Yekaterinburg and even hung Bolshevik corpses on crosses.

“Well, she can’t be merciful to those who killed her family. Still, that young one has quite a backbone.”

So what should be done?

Should the Grand Duchess be handed over to the White Army?

Or should another path be considered?

For now, it might be good to contact Grand Duchess Anastasia directly.

If she’s different from that incompetent Tsar, it would be good to increase options.