Russian–Manchu border conflicts

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Russian-Manchu border conflicts
Qing Empire forces storming the fort of Albazin
Date 1652 - 1689 Location Heilongjiang and Priamurye Result Qing tactical victory, Treaty of Nerchinsk
Belligerents
Qing Empire Joseon Dynasty	Tsardom of Russia Cossacks
Commanders
Qing: Hai Se (海色) Shi Fu (希福) Mingandali(明安达理) Sarhuda Joseon: Byeon Geup Shin Ryu	Yerofey Khabarov Onufriy Stepanov Afanasy Pashkov Alexei Tolbuzin Afanasy Beiton
Strength
Qing: several thousand(estimated) Joseon: less than 400 (est.)	Several thousand
Casualties and losses
Qing: several hundreds (still debated) Joseon: less than 40 (est.)	estimated at 800[1]

The Russian-Manchu border conflicts (1643-1689) were a series of intermittent skirmishes between the Manchus and the Cossacks in which the Cossacks tried and failed to gain the land north of the Amur River. The hostilities culminated in the Manchu storm of the Cossack fort of Albazin (1685) and resulted in the Treaty of Nerchinsk, concluded between the Russian Empire and the Qing Empire in 1689.

Contents 1 Short timeline of the conflict 1.1 1639-1643 : Campaign led by Qing Empire against the indigenous rulers of the region 1.2 1643-1644 : Vasili Poyarkov 1.3 1649-1653 : Yerofey Khabarov 1.4 1654-1658 : Onufriy Stepanov 1.5 1654-1658 : The Manchu/Korean expeditions against Russians 1.6 1685-1687 : The Albazin/Yakesa Campaign 1.7 The Nerchinsk Treaty 2 Russian Point of View 3 References and Bibliography

[edit] Short timeline of the conflict

[edit] 1639-1643 : Campaign led by Qing Empire against the indigenous rulers of the region

• December 1639-May 1640 : 1st battle - the natives and the Qing : Battle of Gualar (Russian: селение Гуалар) : between 2 regiments of Manchu and a detachment of 500 Solon-Daurs^[2] led by the Solon-Evenk leader Bombogor (Chinese: 博木博果尔 or 博穆博果尔 pinyin :Bomboguoer) while the second native leader Bardači (Chinese: 巴尔达齐 or 巴尔达奇) kept neutral.
• September 1640 : 2nd battle - the natives and the Qing : Battle of Yaksa (Russian: Якса): between the natives (Solon, Daur, Oroqen) and the Manchus.
• May 1643 : 3rd battle. The native tribes submitted to the Qing Empire.

[edit] 1643-1644 : Vasili Poyarkov

• Winter 1643 - Spring 1644 : a detachment of a Russian expedition led by the Cossack Vasili Poyarkov explored the stream of the Jingkiri river, present-day Zeya and the Amur rivers.

[edit] 1649-1653 : Yerofey Khabarov

• 1650-1651 : Occupation of the Daur's fort Albazin by Khabarov after subduing the Daurs led by Arbaši (Chinese: 阿尔巴西).
• March 24, 1652 : Battle of Achansk

[edit] 1654-1658 : Onufriy Stepanov

• March-April 1655 : Siege of Komar
• 1655 : Russian Empire has established a "military governor of the Amur region".
• 1657 : 2nd Battle of Sharhody.

[edit] 1654-1658 : The Manchu/Korean expeditions against Russians

In the following operations significant Korean forces were included into Manchu-led troops. The campaigns became known in Korean historiography as Naseon Jeongbeol.

• January 1654 : the first time a Korean contingent arrived to join a Manchu army near Ninguta.
• July 1654 : Battle of Hutong (on lower reaches of the Sungari at the present-day Yilan) between a joint Korean-Manchu army of 1500 men led by Byeon Geup (Hangul: 변급 Hanja: 邊岌) against 400-500 Russians.
• 1658 : Sarhuda's Manchu fleet from Ninguta, including a large Korean contingent led by Shin Ryu sails down the Sungari into the Amur, and meets Onufriy Stepanov's smaller fleet from Albazin. In a naval battle in the Amur a few miles downstream from the mouth of the Sungari (July 10, 1658). The 11-ship Russian flotilla is destroyed (the survivors flee on just one ship), and Stepanov himself dies.^[3]

[edit] 1685-1687 : The Albazin/Yakesa Campaign

• May-July 1685 : The siege of Albazin
• July-October 1686 : The siege of New Albazin.

[edit] The Nerchinsk Treaty

• 1689 : Russia accepts the terms of the Nerchinsk Treaty and abandons the banks of the Amur.

[edit] Russian Point of View

This section mostly retells the story from the Russian side (or rather from a Scots and American reading of Russian sources); the sources, unless otherwise indicated, are Forsyth^[4] and Lincoln.^[5] Note that this section differs slightly from the top half of the article and that several of the linked articles contradict each other. This section follows the two cited sources. The Bruce Lincoln book is known to have errors.

Russian expansion into Siberia began with the conquest of the Khanate of Sibir in 1582. By 1643 they reached the Pacific at Okhotsk. East of the Yenisei River there was little land fit for agriculture, except Dauria, the land between the Stanovoy Mountains and the Amur River which was nominally subject to the Manchus.

In 1643 Vassili Poyarkov traveled from Yakutsk south to the Zeya River where his brutality provoked native hostility. He sailed down the Amur River to its mouth and then north along the Okhotsk coast, returning to Yakutsk three years later.

In 1649 Yerofei Khabarov found a better route, sailed down the Amur and established a fort at Achansk (known in Chinese accounts as Wuzhala (乌扎拉)). The exact location of Achansk remains has long been controversial among Russian historians, but it is generally believed to have been located somewhere not too far from present-day Khabarovsk, where the Ussury falls into the Amur and the post-1860 Russo-Chinese border makes a sharp angle. Again there was fighting and the natives called in their Manchu overlords. On 24 March 1652, Achansk was attacked by a large Qing force (600 Manchu soldiers that had arrived from Ninguta, and about 1500 Daurs and Duchers), led by the Manchu general known is Chinese as Haise (海色),^[6] and in contemporary Russian accounts as Izenei (Изеней or Исиней).^[7] Qing troops were defeated after a battle which lasted from the early morning till sunset, but once the ice on the Amur broke a few weeks later, Khabarov withdrew up the river.^[8] Haise was later executed for his poor performance against the Russians.^[9]

In late 1653 the Russian forces got the reinforcement of more than 150 soldiers which came with Czar's envoy Dmitry Zinoviev. D. Zinoviev arrested Khabarov and substitued him with Onufriy Stepanov. Khabarov was escorted to Moscow for investigation. He was accused in crimes against the interests of Russian Czar.

Onufry Spepanov went on raids along the Amur valley and in 1655 he even reached the mouth of Bikin (the tributary of Ussuri river) and island of Sakhalin. The Cossaks could easily plunder the natives and defeat local Qing troops. Qing emperor Shunzhi has recently appointed his General Shaerhuda (Chinese: 沙尔虎达) (who himself was from the Nierbo village from the mouth of Sungari) as the garrison commander at Ninguta, to strengthen the defence in the region. In 1657 Shaerhuda built more than 40 men-of-war in the village of Ula (modern Jilin).^{[citation needed]} Onufriy Stepanov marauded up and down the Amur until in 1658 a large Qing fleet under Shaerhuda caught up with him and killed him and about 220 Cossacks. By 1658 the Chinese had wiped out the Russians below Nerchinsk. The Chinese forces withdrew, taking the Daurians with them, thereby ending the grain production that had attracted the Russians in the first place. The deserted land became a haven for outlaws and renegade Cossacks for the next fifteen years. In the 1670s the Chinese attempted to drive the Russians away from the Okhotsk coast, reaching as far north as the Maya River.

In 1665 a group of Ilimsk Cossacks under N. Chernihovskyy revolted and set off for the Amur where they built a fort at Albazin, far upstream from the old fort at Achansk, on the northern loop of the Amur, which became the center of their unofficial colony. In 1672 the Albazin Cossacks received the Czar's pardon and were officially recognized. They continued to elect their own ataman until 1684 when a voivode was appointed by Moscow. The Chinese attacked the fort unsuccessfully in 1670 and took it in 1685. The Cossacks returned in a few months and rebuilt the fort. From June, 1686, the Chinese again besieged it (the Cossacks had 800 men, a dozen cannon and enough food and water for a year). After four months the Russians asked for a truce (the two sources mentioned do not explain what happened next).

In 1689, by the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the Russians abandoned the whole Amur country including Albazin. The frontier was established as the Argun River and the Stanovoy Mountains. In 1727 the Treaty of Kyakhta confirmed and clarified this border and regulated Russo-Chinese trade.

In 1858, almost two centuries after the fall of Albazin, by the Treaty of Aigun, Russia annexed the land between the Stanovoy Mountains and the Amur. In 1860, with the Convention of Beijing, Russia annexed the Primorsk down to Vladivostok, an area that had not been in contention in the 1600s.

[edit] References and Bibliography

1. Page 133 -152 China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia By Peter C. Perdue Published by Harvard University Press, 2005