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Russian-Manchu border conflicts
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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.
1654-1658 : The Korean expedition to Russian (Naseon Jeongbeol)
section retells the story from the Russian side (or rather from a Scots and American reading of Russian sources): Note that this section differs slightly from the top half of the article and that several of the linked articles contradict each other.
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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.
Short timeline of the conflict
- 1639-1643 : Capaign led by Qing Empire against the Autochthones
- December 1639-May 1640 : 1st battle Autochthones and Qing : Battle of Gualar : between 2 regiments of Manchu and a detachment of 500 Solon-Daurs led by the Solon-Evenk leader Bombogor (Chinese: ????? or ????? pinyin :Bomboguoer) while the second leader of autochtones Bardaci kept neutral.
- September 1640 : 2nd battle Autochthones and Qing : Battle of Yaksa : between autochthonous peoples (Solon, Daur, Oroqen) and Manchus.
- May 1643 : 3rd battle. The autochthones tribes were submitted by the Qing Empire.
- 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.
- 1650-1651 : Occupation of the Daur's fort Albazin by Khabarov after subdueing the Daurs led by Arbaši .
- March 24th, 1652 : Battle of Achansk
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.
1654-1658 : The Korean expedition to Russian (Naseon Jeongbeol)
- January 1654 : the first part a joint Manchu army met the Korean army at Ninguta, present-day Ning'an
- 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: ?? Hanja: ??) against 400-500 Russians.
- 1658 : The second part a joint Manchu-Korean allied forces led by Shin Ryu (Hangul: ?? Hanja: ??) made an expedition against Russian explorers from Albazin. The two army met the mouth of Sungari river
- July 10th 1658 : 3rd Battle of Sharhody : Victory of the Manchu-Korean joint army and the death of Stepanov.
- May-July 1685 : The siege of Albazin
- July-October 1686 : The siege of New Albazin.
The Nerchinsk Treaty
- 1689 : Russia accepts the terms of the Nerchinsk Treaty and abandons the banks of the Amur.
Russian Point of View
This section retells the story from the Russian side (or rather from a Scots and American reading of Russian sources): 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 near present-day Khabarovsk where the present 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 and about 1500 Daurs and Duchers). Qing troops were defeated after a battle which lasted from the early morning till sunset, but Khabarov had to withdraw up the Amur. 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 Onufry 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 appointed his General Shaerhuda (as he was from the Nierbo village from the mouth of Sungari) to strengthen the defence in the region. In 1657 Shaerhuda built more than 40 men-of-war in the village of Ula (modern Jilin). Onufriy(spelling?) 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 voyevoda 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, 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.
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