It was the end of the year 1825, and we were still at Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, in the Kingdom of Prussia, we had successfully returned from the gala party in the Kingdom of Hanover, and we were preparing for our journey back to Moscow when an urgent message arrived from my uncle, the Tsar. We were instructed to divert our journey and head to St. Petersburg, as my uncle's health had rapidly deteriorated, and he was bedridden.
With the Emperor's summons, we traveled urgently to the capital, upon arriving at the Winter Palace, we were greeted by Prime Minister Count Pyotr Andreyevich Pahlen. The palace was in chaos due to the Tsar's deteriorating health, and it was up to my father, the Tsarevich, to organize the palace and stabilize the government, with the formal appointment of my father as the heir, the process unfolded much more smoothly than in the history I knew.
I didn't know my uncle very well, only from family gatherings, he was a quiet man, unlike my father, who was a loud and boisterous giant, my uncle was composed and melancholic, and his state of health worsened after the death of his beloved wife.
He never remarried, and the lack of a male heir didn't bother him much, he deeply loved his only daughter Elizabeth, but her death in the 1824 flood in St. Petersburg caused his already fragile health to deteriorate significantly, he died suddenly from typhoid fever on December 1, 1825, in the capital, at the age of 47.
My uncle was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in the capital, my father declared a week of mourning in the empire, and he scheduled his coronation for the middle of the year 1826 at the Cathedral of St. Basil in Moscow. He was already the new Czar, and the coronation was merely a ceremonial event to introduce him to the other powers, with emissaries and diplomats from all over attending to congratulate and present gifts to the new ruler of the country.
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The December Uprising was a small revolt in the capital, where some army officers sought to take advantage of the power vacuum created by the society's lack of information about the new ruler, I resolved this issue by exposing to everyone the letter of renunciation from my uncle Constantine, forcing the Czar to publicly announce my father as his new heir.
However, this uprising was an event that I planned to use to my advantage, now, the liberal and radical factions were compelled to come together to initiate the revolt, I secretly aided them and provided financial support for their uprising.
My plan was to use this small revolt to undermine the authority of the nobility over the army in the eyes of the new Czar, highlighting their lack of organization, loyalty, and control over the armed forces, with this setback, which was the uprising on December 26th, swiftly suppressed, I aimed to discredit their leadership.
My father was furious and somewhat paranoid about the small revolt, this presented a great opportunity to initiate one of my reforms. After discussing with my father, we decided to reform the army and, to appease the discontent of the nobility, we would also establish several ministries responsible for different sectors of public administration.
The nobles saw this change with favor, thinking they would not lose much influence in the government with the ministries, however, this was another one of my ploys. Now, any government mistakes could be blamed on the ministers, shielding the emperor from criticism. All the newspapers were under my control, and these unsuspecting nobles were about to fall into my trap.