Chapter 4: Thrones, Lies, and Bureaucrats
The Winter Palace gleamed like a jewel carved from frost, but Mikhail knew it was hollow. Behind every gilded door and polished marble hall lay rot: mismanagement, graft, incompetence. If the Empire was a colossus, it was one standing on termite-eaten stilts.
And now, he had a key to its foundation.
Count Orlov’s intervention had paid off. Nicholas I, freshly crowned and still insecure, was eager to show he could outwit the ghost of his brother. A shadowy advisor with no factional allegiance—only results—was exactly what the Tsar needed.
Mikhail’s official title: Deputy Secretary of Imperial Economic Affairs.
Unofficially: the man quietly editing the Empire’s future, one policy at a time.
His office was a modest affair—books, charts, ledgers stacked high—but it pulsed with potential. Through a cleverly modified pneumatic tube system (an idea borrowed from his past life), he received filtered reports from Orlov’s agents and honest bureaucrats willing to play the long game.
He introduced reforms in whispers:
Audits on state monopolies.
Standardized rail tariffs.