(Cossack Woman with Traditional Saber)
For the "Cossacks", every Chinese should know.
Around the beginning of the Qing Dynasty and the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Cossacks rushed all the way from Europe west of the Ural Mountains to the northwest coast of the Asia-Pacific, and there were once pilots who recorded in the sky: each line of cavalry was eight people and eight horses, wearing a cylinder curly top hat, wearing a black dagger, carrying a rifle, hanging a saber at the waist, tens of thousands of horses galloping across the road, tens of thousands of knives staggered, marching in a mighty way, rolling up the dust.
Cities founded by the Cossacks outside the Northeast included heisenberg, Burli, Hylandsk, Irkutsk, and others that are familiar today.
(Cossack girl under the harsh winter)
The above places originally belonged to China, but for the Qing Dynasty at that time, it already had the Central Plains and Jiangnan, with a pleasant climate, a large population, a flourishing literary style, rich products, and a very comfortable life.
They felt that the land of their hometown was a barren land, the climate was harsh, uninhabitable, far inferior to the Central Plains and Jiangnan, it was better to give it to the Cossacks, let the Muskets of the Cossacks suppress the nomads in the north, and they could also benefit a lot.
This is the limitation of historical vision, and the value of land cannot be seen, including geography, mineral deposits, depth and so on.
(Cossack Maidens of the Eastern European Steppes)
The name Cossack is derived from the Turkic language, meaning "free and free people", equivalent to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, some of the poor and displaced people of Slavs migrated to Russia and the southern steppes of Ukraine to settle, mainly Russian and Ukrainian Slavs, they are a group of restless and self-respecting people, very much hate to be disciplined, advocating a free attitude to life, by the local Turkic rich people named "Cossacks".
These people established tribal groups based on the river area, including the western Dnieper (Zaporozhia group), the Don river group, the Caucasus group, the Ula river group (Zak group), the Wowa river group, the Dnieper river group and the Volga river group, a vast grassland, sparsely populated, fish and grass, birds and animals everywhere, where Cossacks began to breed, and by the beginning of the 20th century there were 4.4 million people.
(Slavic "Liangshan Green Forest")
The cossacks' origin factors determine that they despise wealth, are unrestrained, have a bold personality, are heroic and good at war, despise education, emphasize righteousness, pay attention to the blessings and enjoy the same hardships, are drunk in this day and night, and from time to time rob the caravans of the past, or sneak up on Polish farmers, beat and bully the Jewish butlers hired by the Poles, and are extremely similar to the liangshan green forests in China, but the Cossacks are larger in scale and more authentic.
This wandering Cossack community gradually grew, and gradually learned the Art of Horse archery of the Turks, and once attacked the Tsarist towns several times, the Tsar's whip was beyond reach, there was no choice, only Huairou, because the Ottoman and Persian attitudes towards these Cossacks in the south were extremely ambiguous.
It is precisely the factors of this cracked living environment that have created the Cossacks' wandering, vague, wall-riding attitude, and the protagonist of Sholokhovri's "Quiet Don" Gregory is the most typical example, one will join the H Army, the other will join the White Army, so the Cossacks will eventually be divided and used by the Tsar.
(Cossacks moving east)
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, with the return of Peter I from the Netherlands and other Western European countries, his appearance was renewed, his strength increased, and he also began to play the idea of fighting Cossacks bravely and well, just like the Liangshan Song Jiang was recruited to conquer Fangla, the Tsar bribed the Cossack upper class, granted titles and land divisions, and also issued Feng Lu to encourage the Cossacks to march eastward.
It was also during this time that the Cossacks went all the way to the east, conquering Siberia, Central Asia, the Outer Northeast, and reaching the Pacific coast, where the Cossacks' cavalry hooves went, and their reputation was terrible.
(Modern Cossacks living in northern Heilongjiang)
At present, there are still about 7 million people who call themselves Cossacks, still not recognized as a nation, more often considered a group, but also retain a distinct traditional culture, such as the dance style of squatting and kicking with rapid and cheerful music, etc. Cossacks have also looked forward to the future and tried to revive traditional memories, but due to their own limitations in various aspects, coupled with various reasons, it is difficult to restore the free and happy life of the past.