Peace with Japan and the radical new land decree did not bring tranquility to the Russian Empire; they simply changed the nature of the war. The battlefront shifted from the fields of Manchuria to the gilded salons and shadowy corridors of St. Petersburg. Mikhail, now Chairman of the State Council, found himself engaged in a new, more insidious conflict.
Captain Orlov's daily reports began to paint a picture of a new front opening against Mikhail. The dispatches were no longer about revolutionary cells, but about the conversations taking place in the city's most exclusive officer's clubs and salons. Orlov had recorded the words of nationalist generals and aristocrats who, having lost land in the reforms, were now gathering around the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Their new rallying cry was 'the traitor's peace,' a phrase being used to brand Mikhail's treaty with Japan as a stain on Russia's honor.
"Their next move is predictable," Mikhail said to Orlov, reviewing a report. "They will try to find a personal scandal to discredit me."
"They are already trying, Baron," Orlov confirmed. "Our sources say they are attempting to make contact with the disgraced supervisor, Kazimir Volgin. They believe he holds the key to your downfall."
A cold smile touched Mikhail's lips. "An excellent idea. Get to him first. Every man has a price. Find his."
Orlov was ruthlessly efficient. He intercepted Volgin before the Grand Duke's men could reach him, presenting the bitter, retired bureaucrat with a simple choice: a futile loyalty to a losing faction that would see him ruined, or a final service to the new power in Russia in exchange for a generous state pension and a quiet, permanent retirement to a Crimean estate. Volgin, a pragmatist to his core, chose the sun. He met with the Grand Duke's men and told them nothing of value about Mikhail. But he told Mikhail everything about them. He provided a detailed account of the Patriotic Union's inner circle, including their financial dealings and personal vices—information he had obsessively collected during his time in the ministry.
Armed with this new intelligence, Mikhail found exactly what he was looking for. The Grand Duke himself was untouchable, but several of his key lieutenants—decorated generals and high-ranking nobles—were not. Volgin's information revealed a pattern of corruption: these men had been embezzling from military charities and using their positions to secure lucrative, no-bid contracts for their own failing businesses.
Mikhail compiled the evidence into a neat, undeniable file. He did not leak it to his own newspapers; the move would be too obvious, a political attack. He needed the information to come from within the court itself, a scandal that would rot the Patriotic Union from the inside out. He gave the file to the one person who could deploy it with surgical precision: Princess Sofia.
Using her impeccable standing and her access to the Dowager Empress's social circle, Sofia began her own, far more subtle whispering campaign. She didn't make accusations. She simply expressed "grave concern" to a notoriously gossipy countess about "rumors" she had heard regarding a beloved military charity. She mentioned a general's suspiciously lavish new mansion to a rival's wife. She planted the seeds of scandal in the fertile ground of the court's own jealousy and intrigue.
The seeds she planted in the fertile ground of court gossip sprouted with astonishing speed. It began as concerned murmurs in the Dowager Empress's drawing-room, then erupted into a full-blown scandal as rival noble families, sensing weakness, demanded an official inquiry to protect the "honor of the nobility." The Patriotic Union found itself disgraced, its pious claims of saving 'Holy Russia' undone by the grubby reality of its leaders' greed. The movement's moral authority evaporated. The Grand Duke, while personally untouched, was left politically isolated, his movement crippled and humiliated.
Mikhail had won, and his hands were perfectly clean.
He and Sofia stood on the balcony of his residence, watching the first snow of winter begin to fall on the capital. "They tried to fight you with daggers in the dark," Sofia said, a note of wonder in her voice. "And you defeated them with accounting ledgers and gossip."
"The most effective weapon is the one your enemy doesn't even recognize," Mikhail replied. He looked out over the city that was now, effectively, his. He had pacified the revolutionaries, neutralized the reactionaries, and controlled the levers of industry, finance, and information. The board was clear. All that remained was the final, symbolic piece. The man in the palace who still, for now, wore the crown.