in the campaign “"Constriction of Chechnya from all sides": blockade, secret war, punitive expeditions and the Sunzha Line (1840-1846)”
The bribery of the highland elite the empire put on a programmatic footing. War minister Chernyshev, in a secret letter to general Golovin, commander of the Separate Caucasus Corps (head of the empire's troops and administration in the Caucasus), of 19 July 1842, proposed adopting the experience of British India: "The English knew how to establish their dominion in India by political means... Should not we too try this system?"[1]. Golovin, in a reply of 28 August 1842, drew up a list of candidates for buying over from the circle of Shamil (the imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest) and requested a fund: "By inclining to our side some of the above-mentioned persons, one would greatly weaken the union of muridism... I consider it necessary for the chief authority here to have at its disposal up to 15 thousand chervonets in ready money" (chervonets - a gold coin of the empire; muridism - in the imperial lexicon, the highlanders' resistance movement)[1]. On 1 February 1844 emperor Nicholas I approved the fund above the request: by an official service letter of Chernyshev to general Neidhardt, who had replaced Golovin at the head of the empire's troops in the Caucasus, "concerning your designs for secret dealings with the highlanders" it was commanded "instead of the 10 thousand chervonets you requested for this purpose, to assign to your charge 15 thousand chervonets"[1]. For the Dargo expedition of 1845 (the imperial army's march on Shamil's residence, the aul of Dargo) historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov record a separate fund: "for the bribery of influential persons from among the highlanders, 45 thousand rubles in silver were allocated"[2]. On the Sunzha Line under construction (the chain of imperial Cossack stanitsas and fortifications on the Sunzha river) the empire bought the loyalty of individual Chechen elders. Vorontsov, viceroy and commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, wrote in a report of summer 1846 about the elder of the aul of Natkhoy-Kezhu: "I turned my particular attention to attracting Aldumov to our side. For the losses borne by him and his 4 comrades... I would consider it just to assign a reward"[1].