in the campaign “Forcing Chechnya into submission after the fall of Akhulgo and suppression of the general uprising of 1840 (1838-1840)”
In 1839-1840 the imperial troops burned dozens of Chechen settlements. In the May 1839 invasion of Ichkeria (mountainous south-eastern Chechnya) the imperial officer Milyutin, a participant of the march, recorded day by day: "The nearby aul of Balansu was found abandoned by its inhabitants and given to the flames", "All the auls lying on either side of the road (Nake-Yurt, Tsezyn-Irzau, Doba-Yurt) were found abandoned by their inhabitants and given to the flames", and of the rout on 12 May of Sayasan, the residence of sheikh Tashu-Hadji (in 1834-1836 the imam of Chechnya, leader of the Chechen resistance): "The fortification was devastated, and the village given to the flames"[1]. In the January 1840 march the troops of general Pullo, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), wiped out two auls: the imperial historian Yurov - "the auls of Kazbek-Yurt and Batash-Yurt, populated mostly by relatives and namesakes of Shuaib-Mulla, which met the detachment with weapons in hand. After a minor skirmish both villages were levelled to the ground"[2]; historian D. A. Khozhayev adds: "The Russians burned the Benoy hamlet of Gurzhiyn-mokhk and the neighbouring auls of Zandak-Ara and Genderghen, and retreated"[3]. In summer 1840 the detachment of general Galafeyev, who had taken over the troops of the left flank, burned the auls of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya): historian D. A. Khozhayev lists the destroyed Bolshoy Chechen, Dudu-yurt, Akhshpatoy-Goyta, Chunguroy-yurt, Urus-Martan, Gurak-Roshni, Khazhi-Roshni, Taib and Achkhoy - the troops marched on, "leaving behind them destroyed and burned villages"[3]; the detachment's journal of military operations confirms the route and adds Peshkhoy-Roshni[4]. In autumn the same detachment burned Greater Chechnya (the lowland eastern part of Chechnya): the imperial survey of 27 October 1840 records - "on 3 and 4 October the troops... burned both villages" (Shali and Germenchuk), "on 7 October the detachment burned 5 hamlets attached to the aul of Shali", and of Said-Yurt, the hamlet of Ersenei and the village of Avtury on 10 October: "gave them to the flames and annihilated the houses and all the property of the inhabitants"[5]. Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi, Shamil's chronicler (Shamil - the imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest), recorded that the inhabitants of Shali and Germenchuk abandoned and burned their own villages on Shamil's order long before the troops came: "Shamil ordered them to burn those ancient, well-settled and beautiful villages. It was hard for the lower Chechens, but they did it nonetheless" - part of the imperial burnings went through villages already empty; of Said-Yurt he gives the mirror version of the fight: the murids (the imam's disciples and warriors) "fought them and slew a great number of them. The murids put the Russians to flight"[6]. In the November marches of general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line, Gekhi and the auls along the Sunzha were devastated - historian N. I. Pokrovsky: "On 27 October Grabbe marched into Lesser Chechnya, devastated Gekhi, on 4 November laid waste the auls situated along the Sunzha"[7]; the imperial historian Yurov recorded: "During the rearguard action general Galafeyev managed to take by fighting and annihilate to its foundations the village of Mirti-Irzau", then on 13 November Germenchuk with its hamlets was destroyed, on 15 November - Lachi-Yurt and Indi-Yurt, on 17 November the troops seized and burned Batash-Yurt, the home of Shuaib-Mulla (naib - the deputy of imam Shamil in Greater Chechnya)[2].