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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: but what he did not know was, that the lieutenant of these
barbarous chiefs was Ivan Ogareff, a Russian officer whom
he had himself reduced to the ranks, but with whose person
he was not acquainted.
First of all, as we have seen, the inhabitants of the prov-
ince of Irkutsk were compelled to abandon the towns and
villages. Those who did not take refuge in the capital had
to retire beyond Lake Baikal, a district to which the invasion
would probably not extend its ravages. The harvests of
corn and fodder were collected and stored up in the town,
and Irkutsk, the last bulwark of the Muscovite power in the
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