in the campaign “Forest clearings and famine: Yevdokimov's conquest of Chechnya (1857-1859)”
General Yevdokimov, who commanded the troops of the left wing of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on Nokhchi land), recorded in the journal of military operations of the winter of 1857 that he sent General Mishchenko down the Khizy-Shavdon, "instructing him... to annihilate auls, so as to take away from the Chechens the very thought of the possibility of remaining at the site of their former dwelling"[1]. The execution is recorded there as well: "Major-general Mishchenko burned all the auls and hamlets in the area assigned to him; a multitude of those who had submitted came out to him... up to 400 households, under the cover of part of the troops... sent to Umakhan-yurt"[1]. To the report on this campaign Emperor Alexander II replied with approval "for the completely successful conclusion of the 1st period of the winter campaign"[1]. In November 1857 the same journal summed up the expedition against Salatavia, bordering on Chechnya: "Salatavia has been devastated and burned, so that its inhabitants will now have to settle at the sites of the former Salatavian auls along the Sulak"[1]. Having taken Vedeno, the capital of the Imamate - Shamil's state - the empire destroyed the fortress: "Occupied on 1 April 1859 by the tsarist troops, the Vedeno fortress was completely destroyed within five days"[2].