First Russian eyewitness account of China (Petlin expedition)

There is a natural tendency to view Sino-Russian relations the perspective of the past twenty years, when Communist regimes have ruled in both countries. In historical fact, however, the greatest proportion by far of the Sino-Russian relationship has fallen in the imperial stage of the two countries, during the respective rules of the Manchu (1644-1912) and Romanov (1613-1917).

First direct contact of Russia with China dates back to the beginning of the 17th century, when Mericke, the English representative of London's Moscow Company became interested in the Ob (Russian Siberian river) as early as 1611. He requested, in addition to general privileges for English merchants in Russia, specific permission for Englishmen to travel to Persia through the Volga and to seek a route to China and India through the Ob. The Russians refused him but offered to ask the Siberian voevodas (commanded the troops, supervised the construction and defense of the new towns and blockhouses, and administered both civil and military affairs) to obtain information concerning the Ob.

On April 6, 1617, Tomsk voevodas under the direction of Ivashko Petlin were send on this mission, its expenses came from the state fur treasury. Ivashko Petlin left a detailed account of his journey and his impressions of China written in 1619. The expedition followed the Great Wall for ten days, during which it met no one. Peking impressed him most of all. He reported that it was a very great city, white as snow, around which it took four days to travel.

More important was Petlin's de????ion of his activities in Peking and of the diplomatic and court ceremonial he observed. Although he had been given no political tasks and was merely to travel and observe, he appears to have been received by the Chinese as a tribute-bearing mission. This supposition is supported by the fact that he was lodged in the "Great Embassy Courtyard" (may have been the court of the Li-pu - The Board of Rites - were tribute missions were traditionally lodged), and that the question of yasak(tribute - definition) was raised in his discussion with various Ming officials, whom he failed to identify.

Four days after his arrival at Peking the court approached him as to the purpose of his visit. He claimed that he had been sent to China by the tsar "to make inquiry as to the kingdom of China and to see the tsar (the Chinese emperor)". Since his statement was unsupported by his written instructions, which he had certainly read, one can only suppose that it was curiosity, not policy, that prompted his request for an audience with the emperor. Nevertheless, his inability to present "gifts" from the tsar to the emperor as "tribute system" of China required prevented his admission to an imperial audience. The lack of "gifts" or tribute goods can be explained in two ways. First, although he had received furs enough for wages for two years and supplies enough for one, he may not have been given sufficient furs for use as gifts since his nondiplomatic status did not require them. Second, as an interpreter along the frontier, Petlin was undoubtedly acquainted with Central Asian diplomatic usage and the tribute system. Aware of the significance of such gifts, Petlin may have refrained on his own volition from presenting any to the Chinese court.

Although charged with no diplomatic tasks and excluded from imperial audiences, Petlin's mission had one curious political by-product: receipt of an invitation to the tsar to trade with China, written in the form of a letter allegedly by the Ming emperor Wan-li, but more likely penned by a minor official in the emperor's name. Although Petlin brought the letter to Moscow, the Russians were unable to find anyone to translate it until 1675: in the meantime its contents remained totally unknown. (This letter with three others was given Milescu to take back to China for translation. Of the four letters, two were in Chinese, which he was able to have translated at Tobolsk, while the other two, in Manchu, remained untranslated until he arrived at Peking). The letter appeared to be a clear expression of the tributary relationship. The author of the letter used the words "up and down" to describe the exchange of communications between Russia and China. The expression meant "the exalted station of the Chinese emperor and the inferior one of the tsar". Whereas the opening phrases of the letter referred directly to trade, the writer continued, "bring the best you have, and I in return, will make you presents of good silk stuffs". These comments, together with remarks concerning China's custom of never sending ambassadors abroad and the inability of her merchants to travel to foreign markets, gave a close de????ion of the tribute system , which reached a high point of development in the late Ming.

The First Sino-Russian Conflict:

The territorial dispute between the former Soviet Union and China in 1960's was an extension of a long existing conflict, that can be traced back to the 17th century. It broke down when in 1628 the Russians invaded the territory inhabited by the Buryats, a Mongol People living west of Lake Baikal. A series of expeditions established blockhouses, while other expeditions were drawn further into eastern Siberia, beyond the lake, by rumors of fur, gold, and silver, Fur was in fact quite plentiful in eastern Siberia, and gold and silver could be had from Mongolia in exchange for pelts, but climatically the area was inhospitable, and the Russians were sorely pressed for food. The earliest arena for Russo-Manchu confrontation was the Amur River Valley. The appearance of the Russians there in the 1640's was a logical development in the rapid expansion of Russian power across northern Asia. It posed the problem of Russia's relation to the Ch'ing tribute system. The result was determined partly by the aims and methods of Russia's eastward expansion.

Poyarkov Expedition

The colonists received their first definite information about Amuria (the Amur watershed) after the establishment of Yakutsk in 1632. Using the new settlement as a base of operation hunters followed the Lena River to its mountainous source and at the same time discovered the Shilka and the Zeya, two streams lying beyond the mountains and outside the Lena river system. On the banks of these rivers they met natives who told of fertile grain fields along the Amur to the south. Maxim Perofilliev, an early expedition leader, made one of the first such reports to Yakutsk in 1641. He had met a Tungus, a member of an eastern Siberian mongoloid people related to the Manchus, who had visited the country of the Amur, observed its population, and noted its agricultural and mineral resources. But no one reported that the inhabitants of this distant unknown region had already been drawn within the power penumbra of the Manchu international order in East Asia.

The first attempt to collect direct information about the rumored riches of the Amur was made in 1643. The voevoda (war worrier) of Yakutsk was in perpetual need of outside grain supplied. He appointed Vasily Pyarkov leader of a new expedition. According to Poyarkov's instructions, he was to proceed up the Lena, the Aldan, and one of its branches, whence he would cross the mountains to the source of the Zeya and sail down it to the Shilka. He was also to inquire into the relations between the natives and China, determining whether and for what purpose Chinese officials visited the region.

The Poyarkov expedition was significant in several respects. First, it provided the first Russian eye-witness information about the Amur and its resources. Second, it alienated the local inhabitants along the Amur and warned the Manchus of the Russian approach, enabling the Manchus to take steps to stop the barbarian invasion. Third, the expedition demonstrated that the Aldan-Zeya route was not suitable for mass Russian immigration to, or grain transportation from, the Amur region. If the resources of the area were to be exploited, the problem of geographical access had to be solved.

The second important attempt to conquer the Amur was made by Erofei Pavlovich Khabarov. First expedition from Yakutsk, he followed the Olekma route and reached the Amur with little difficulty in May, 1650. By the summer of 1650 Khabarov had equipped a new expedition and returned to the Amur. For four days the expedition passed through destroyed or deserted settlements, until they reached a village named Guigudar. Here, evidently for the first time, Khabarov encountered several Manchus, who refused to fight, claiming that they were under strict orders to avoid conflict with the Russians. On September 7, Khabarov Boarded his boats and sailed out of the country of the pastoral Duchers and Dahurs, who were vassals of the Manchus past the mouth of the Sungari River, and into the country of the Achans, a fishing tribe. The Achans at first appeared friendly, but a combined Achan-Ducher force numbering between eight hundred and one thousand men attacked the Russians on the night of October . Superior arms gave the Russians the victory. The Manchus apparently understood neither the nature of their enemy nor the fact that the campaign was not simply a raid on their territory but the forerunner of a concerted Russian colonization attempt.. Khabarov himself reported that his men had killed 676 Manchus; he lost only ten Cossacks (Russian army troops) killed and seventy-eight wounded.

The battle at Wu-cha-la was only the first step in the development of a Manchu military response to Russian incursions into the Amur River basin. The initiation of an active Manchu policy changed the situation in Amuria, forcing the Russians to develop new tactics and concentrate on a concerted approach to actual settlement. Reports to voevodas began to state that the presence of Manchu troops in a given region prevented the Cossacks (Russian army troops) from venturing far into hostile territory. The effects of the withdrawal of the Manchu forces before achieving victory were mitigated, it would seem, by the restrictions that the new situation placed on Cossack movements.

Khabarov's departure marked the end of the period of raids on the Amur and the beginning of a period of attempts at permanent settlement, based on the realization that only thus would the Amur be incorporated into Russia's territories. But the situation in Amuria in the forties and fifties of the seventeenth century was significantly different from the situation in Siberia fifty or sixty years earlier. The defeat of the Khanate of Siberia between 1579 and 1584 had eliminated any element capable of opposing the spread of Russian power from the Urals to the Pacific Coast of northeastern Siberia. In the Amur Valley the situation was more complex. To the south of the river was the Manchu Empire, just reaching the height of its power, whose domains included, even if only nominally, those areas occupied by the natives of the Amur basin. The tactics employed by Poyarkov and Khabarov, which had earlier worked so well in Siberia, could only rouse the Manchus to further action to protect their subjects and their interests. Attempts for Russian settlements at Amur basin:

The Manchus now made further preparations to push the Russians from the Amur. Peking's preparations for the struggle continued apace, and on June 30, 1658, a conflict took place on the Amur just below the mouth of the Sungari. The Manchu victory was due largely to their use of water forces and the evacuation of the natives, which increased the supply difficulties of the Russians at Kumarsk. The Manchu victory of 1658 cleared the Amur of official Cossack bands as far as Nerchinsk (See the map).

The Russians were at first reluctant to return to the area from which they had been expelled, and their inactivity in Amuria encouraged the Manchus to sink back into inaction. Thus, a favorable situation was created for the return of the Russians in greater force with ideas of a more permanent settlement.

The influx of outlaws further strengthened the Russian hand. The most significant outlaw group was established in Albazin. In late 1665 Polish exile in Siberia killed their guard voevoda and to avoid punishment, the Pole crossed the mountains to the basin of the Amur. There they reached Albazin, the former capital of Albazi. Albazin was build in the form of a square: each side was 120 paces long, with one side facing the Amur. The settlement prospered as a gathering place for Russian adventurers and outlaws. In 1671 Ivan Olukhov was sent from Nerchinsk to take command at Albazin.

Despite their initial success, the Manchu inability to carry their campaign through to its logical conclusion - complete destruction of the Russian presence in the region, including Nerchinsk - enabled the Russian government to reestablish its authority in the Amur. Expansion in the Ussuri and Sungari regions, made further conflict between Russians and Manchus inevitable.

The Manchu withdrawal after the battle of 1660, their failure to garrison the Amur, and their reluctance to push for total victory in the mid-sixties were the results of lack of proper preparation and consequently a shortage of supplies.