Peter was just leaving Vienna to go to Venice when he received intelligence that a rebellion had broken out in Moscow. His ambitious sister Sophia, who had been placed with a shaven head in the cloisters of a monastery, took advantage of the tzar's absence to make another attempt to regain the crown. She represented that the nation was in danger of being overrun with foreigners, that their ancient customs would all be abolished, and that their religion would be subverted. She involved several of the clergy in her plans, and a band of eight thousand insurgents were assembled, who commenced their march towards Moscow, hoping to rouse the metropolis to unite with them. General Gordon, whom Peter had left in command of the royal guard, met them, and a battle ensued in which a large number of the insurgents were slain, and the rest were taken prisoners and conducted to the capital. Hearing these tidings Peter abandoned all plans for visiting Italy, and set out impetuously for Moscow, and arrived at the Kremlin before it was known that he had left Germany. Peter was a rough, stern man, and he determined to punish the abettors of this rebellion with severity, which should appall all the discontented. General Gordon, in the battle, had slain three thousand of the insurgents and had taken five thousand captive. These prisoners he had punished, decimating them by lot and hanging every tenth man. Peter rewarded magnificently the royal guard, and then commenced the terrible chastisement of all who were judged guilty of sympathizing in the conspiracy. Some were broken on the wheel and then beheaded. Others were hung in chains, on gibbets near the gates of the city, and left, frozen as solid as marble, to swing in the wind through the long months of winter. Stone monuments were erected, on which were engraved the names, the crimes and the punishment of the rebels. A large number were banished to Siberia, to Astrachan, and to the shores of the Sea of Azof. The entire corps of the _strelitzes_ was abolished, and their place supplied by the new guard, marshaled and disciplined on the model of the German troops. The long and cumbersome robes which had been in fashion were exchanged for a uniform better adapted for rapid motion. The sons of the nobles were compelled to serve in the ranks as common soldiers before they could be promoted to be officers. Many of the young nobles were sent to the tzar's fleet in the Sea of Azof to serve their apprenticeship for the navy. The revenue of the empire had thus far been raised by the payment of a stipulated sum from each noble according to his amount of land. The noble collected this sum from his vassals or bondmen; but they often failed of paying in the amount demanded. Peter took now the collection of the revenue into his own hands, appointing officers for that purpose.