Treaty of Nerchinsk
Encyclopedia
The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 (Russian: Нерчинский договор; ) was the first treaty between Russia and China. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as far as the Stanovoy Mountains and kept the area between the Argun River
and Lake Baikal
. This border along the Argun River and Stanovoy Mountains lasted until the Amur Annexation
in 1860. For background see History of Sino-Russian relations.
The agreement was signed in Nerchinsk
on August 27, 1689. The signatories were Songgotu
on behalf of the Kangxi Emperor
and Fedor Golovin on behalf of the Russian tsars Peter I
and Ivan V.
The authoritative version was in Latin, with translations into Russian and Manchu, but these versions differed considerably. There was no official Chinese text for another two centuries, but the border markers were inscribed in Chinese along with Manchu, Russian and Latin.
Later, in 1727, the Treaty of Kiakhta
fixed what is now the border of Mongolia west of the Argun and opened up the caravan trade. In 1858 (Treaty of Aigun
) Russia annexed the land north of the Amur and in 1860 (Treaty of Beijing) took the coast down to Vladivostok
. The current border runs along the Argun, Amur and Ussuri Rivers.
From about 1640, Russians entered the Amur basin from the north, into land claimed by the Manchus who at this time were just beginning their conquest of China. By 1685 most of the Russians had been driven out of the area. For this, see Russian-Manchu border conflicts
. In addition, the Manchus had, by the 1680s, completed the conquest of China and eliminated the last Ming successor states in the south. With the Manchu Qing dynasty now firmly in control of the South, it was in a position to deal with what they saw as Russian encroachment in Manchuria, the dynasty's ancient homeland.
After their first victory at Albazin
in 1685, the Manchus sent two letters to the Tsar (in Latin) suggesting peace and demanding that Russian freebooters leave the Amur. The Russian government, knowing that the Amur could not be defended and being more concerned with events in the west, sent Fyodor Golovin east as plenipotentiary. Golovin left Moscow in January 1686 with 500 streltsy
and reached Selenginsk
near Lake Baikal in October 1687, from whence he sent couriers ahead. It was agreed the meeting would be in Selenginsk in 1688. At this point the Oirats
(western Mongols) under Galdan attacked the eastern Mongols in the area between Selenginsk and Peking and negotiations had to be delayed. To avoid the fighting Golovin moved east to Nerchinsk
where it was agreed that talks would take place. The Manchus with 3,000 to 15,000 soldiers under Songgotu
left Peking June 1689 and arrived in July. Talks went on from August 22 to September 6.
The language used was Latin, the translators being, for the Russians, a Pole named Andrei Bielobocki and for the Chinese the Jesuits Jean-Francois Gerbillon
and Thomas Pereira
. To avoid problems of precedence, tents were erected side by side so that neither side would be seen as visiting the other. G.P. March remarks that there were no mandarins
with them, since the journey had to be made on horseback and few Chinese gentlemen
had mastered this undignified skill. However, there was little need for Chinese mandarins, just as there was no need for an immediate Chinese translation. The language of the Qing court remained Manchu at this time, and Manchu continued to be the "official" court language into the eighteenth century. Perhaps more significantly, Russian acceptance of the treaty required a relaxation of what had been, in Ming
(the former dynasty) times, an iron rule of Chinese diplomacy, requiring the non-Chinese party to accept language which characterized the foreigner as an inferior or tributary. The conspicuous absence of such linguistic gamesmanship from the Treaty of Nerchinsk, together with the equally conspicuous absence of Chinese language or personnel, suggests that the Kangxi emperor was using the Manchurian (and Latin) language as a deliberate end-run around his more conservative Han
bureaucracy. This was a tactic regularly used by early Qing emperors in matters which were particularly delicate or confidential.
The Manchus wished to remove the Russians from the Amur. They were interested in the Amur since it was the northern border of the original Manchu heartland. They could ignore the area west of the Argun since it was then controlled by the Oirats. The Kangxi Emperor
(i.e. the reigning Qing (Manchu) Dynasty emperor of China) also wished to settle with Russia in order to free his hands to deal with the Zunghar (= Dzungar, Junghar, etc.) Mongols of Central Asia, to his northwest. The Manchus also wanted a delineated frontier to keep nomads and outlaws from fleeing across the border.
The Russians, for their part, knew that the Amur was indefensible and were more interested in establishing profitable trade, which the Kangxi Emperor had threatened to block unless the border dispute were resolved. Golovin accepted the loss of the Amur in exchange for possession of Trans-Baikalia and access to Chinese markets for Russian traders. The Russians were also concerned with the military strength of the Manchus, who had demonstrated their capability, in 1685 and 1686, by twice overrunning the Russian outpost at Albazin.
north to its confluence with the Shilka River
, up the Shilka to the 'Gorbitsa River', up the Gorbitsa to its headwaters, then along the east-west watershed through the Stanovoy Mountains and down the Uda River (Khabarovsk Krai) to the Sea of Okhotsk at its southwest corner.
The border west of the Argun was not defined (at the time, this area was controlled by the Oirats). Neither side had very exact knowledge of the course of the Uda River. The Gorbitsa is hard to find on modern maps. Ravenstein, writing in 1861, suggested that there are two Gorbitsa Rivers. He thought that the lower Gorbitsa is the modern Almazar which enters the Amur about 25 miles downstream from the Argun-Shilka junction and that the upper Gorbitsa is the modern Chernaya which enters the Shilka about 100 miles upstream from the junction. He thought that the Almazar is almost certainly the real Gorbitsa. He then repeats a tale to the effect that about 1710 a Tungus deserted to the Russian side of the border. He evaded being sent back by claiming the upper Gorbitza was the real border. The Chinese were happy with this and moved the boundary stone.
(Note that this summary given by G. Patrick March differs from the Manchu text given the Wikisource. March may have been summarizing the Latin or Russian text.)
Argun River
Argun River may refer to*Argun River , in Georgia and Russia*Argun River , part of the Russia–China border...
and Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is the world's oldest at 30 million years old and deepest lake with an average depth of 744.4 metres.Located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast, it is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the...
. This border along the Argun River and Stanovoy Mountains lasted until the Amur Annexation
Amur Annexation
The Amur Annexation refers to the annexation of the southeast corner of Siberia by Russia from China in 1858–60. The two areas involved are the Priamurye between the Amur River and the Stanovoy Range to the north and the Primorye which runs down the coast from the Amur mouth to the Korean border...
in 1860. For background see History of Sino-Russian relations.
The agreement was signed in Nerchinsk
Nerchinsk
Nerchinsk is a town and the administrative center of Nerchinsky District of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, located east of Lake Baikal, east of Chita, and about west of the Chinese border on the left bank of the Nercha River, above its confluence with the Shilka River, which flows into the Amur...
on August 27, 1689. The signatories were Songgotu
Songgotu
Songgotu was a minister during the reign of Emperor Kangxi. He was an uncle of the emperor's official wife, Empress Xiaochengren of the Heseri clan who died during childbirth. He was the son of Sonin, one of the four regents appointed to assist the young Emperor Kangxi during his minority...
on behalf of the Kangxi Emperor
Kangxi Emperor
The Kangxi Emperor ; Manchu: elhe taifin hūwangdi ; Mongolian: Энх-Амгалан хаан, 4 May 1654 –20 December 1722) was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the first to be born on Chinese soil south of the Pass and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722.Kangxi's...
and Fedor Golovin on behalf of the Russian tsars Peter I
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
and Ivan V.
The authoritative version was in Latin, with translations into Russian and Manchu, but these versions differed considerably. There was no official Chinese text for another two centuries, but the border markers were inscribed in Chinese along with Manchu, Russian and Latin.
Later, in 1727, the Treaty of Kiakhta
Treaty of Kiakhta
The Treaty of Kyakhta :Along with the Treaty of Nerchinsk , this regulated the relations between Imperial Russia and the Qing Empire of China until the mid nineteenth century. It was signed by Tulišen and Count Sava Lukich Raguzinskii-Vladislavich at the border city of Kyakhta, August 23, 1727...
fixed what is now the border of Mongolia west of the Argun and opened up the caravan trade. In 1858 (Treaty of Aigun
Treaty of Aigun
The Treaty of Aigun was a 1858 treaty between the Russian Empire, and the empire of the Qing Dynasty, the sinicized-Manchu rulers of China, that established much of the modern border between the Russian Far East and Manchuria , which is now known as Northeast China...
) Russia annexed the land north of the Amur and in 1860 (Treaty of Beijing) took the coast down to Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
. The current border runs along the Argun, Amur and Ussuri Rivers.
History
Russian-Manchu border conflicts
The Russian–Manchu border conflicts 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...
. In addition, the Manchus had, by the 1680s, completed the conquest of China and eliminated the last Ming successor states in the south. With the Manchu Qing dynasty now firmly in control of the South, it was in a position to deal with what they saw as Russian encroachment in Manchuria, the dynasty's ancient homeland.
After their first victory at Albazin
Albazin
Albazino is a village in Skovorodinsky District of Amur Oblast, Russia, noted as the site of Albazin , the first Russian settlement on the Amur River....
in 1685, the Manchus sent two letters to the Tsar (in Latin) suggesting peace and demanding that Russian freebooters leave the Amur. The Russian government, knowing that the Amur could not be defended and being more concerned with events in the west, sent Fyodor Golovin east as plenipotentiary. Golovin left Moscow in January 1686 with 500 streltsy
Streltsy
Streltsy were the units of Russian guardsmen in the 16th - early 18th centuries, armed with firearms. They are also collectively known as Marksman Troops .- Origins and organization :...
and reached Selenginsk
Selenginsk
Novoselenginsk is a rural locality in Selenginsky District of the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, located on the Selenge River south of Lake Baikal...
near Lake Baikal in October 1687, from whence he sent couriers ahead. It was agreed the meeting would be in Selenginsk in 1688. At this point the Oirats
Oirats
Oirats are the westernmost group of the Mongols who unified several tribes origin whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of western Mongolia. Although the Oirats originated in the eastern parts of Central Asia, the most prominent group today is located in the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal...
(western Mongols) under Galdan attacked the eastern Mongols in the area between Selenginsk and Peking and negotiations had to be delayed. To avoid the fighting Golovin moved east to Nerchinsk
Nerchinsk
Nerchinsk is a town and the administrative center of Nerchinsky District of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, located east of Lake Baikal, east of Chita, and about west of the Chinese border on the left bank of the Nercha River, above its confluence with the Shilka River, which flows into the Amur...
where it was agreed that talks would take place. The Manchus with 3,000 to 15,000 soldiers under Songgotu
Songgotu
Songgotu was a minister during the reign of Emperor Kangxi. He was an uncle of the emperor's official wife, Empress Xiaochengren of the Heseri clan who died during childbirth. He was the son of Sonin, one of the four regents appointed to assist the young Emperor Kangxi during his minority...
left Peking June 1689 and arrived in July. Talks went on from August 22 to September 6.
The language used was Latin, the translators being, for the Russians, a Pole named Andrei Bielobocki and for the Chinese the Jesuits Jean-Francois Gerbillon
Jean-François Gerbillon
Jean-François Gerbillon was a French missionary, who worked in China.He entered the Society of Jesus, 5 Oct, 1670, and after completing the usual course of study taught grammar and humanities for seven years...
and Thomas Pereira
Thomas Pereira
Thomas Pereira or Tomás Pereira , also known as Tomé Pereira, was a Portuguese Jesuit and musician who worked as a missionary in Qing China....
. To avoid problems of precedence, tents were erected side by side so that neither side would be seen as visiting the other. G.P. March remarks that there were no mandarins
Mandarin (bureaucrat)
A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...
with them, since the journey had to be made on horseback and few Chinese gentlemen
Literati
Literati may refer to:*Intellectuals or those who read and comment on literature*The scholar-bureaucrats or literati of imperial China**Literati painting, also known as the Southern School of painting, developed by Chinese literati...
had mastered this undignified skill. However, there was little need for Chinese mandarins, just as there was no need for an immediate Chinese translation. The language of the Qing court remained Manchu at this time, and Manchu continued to be the "official" court language into the eighteenth century. Perhaps more significantly, Russian acceptance of the treaty required a relaxation of what had been, in Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
(the former dynasty) times, an iron rule of Chinese diplomacy, requiring the non-Chinese party to accept language which characterized the foreigner as an inferior or tributary. The conspicuous absence of such linguistic gamesmanship from the Treaty of Nerchinsk, together with the equally conspicuous absence of Chinese language or personnel, suggests that the Kangxi emperor was using the Manchurian (and Latin) language as a deliberate end-run around his more conservative Han
Han
-China:* China , an abbreviation or adjectival modifier for things Chinese* Han Chinese , the dominant majority ethnic group of China and overseas Chinese...
bureaucracy. This was a tactic regularly used by early Qing emperors in matters which were particularly delicate or confidential.
The Manchus wished to remove the Russians from the Amur. They were interested in the Amur since it was the northern border of the original Manchu heartland. They could ignore the area west of the Argun since it was then controlled by the Oirats. The Kangxi Emperor
Kangxi Emperor
The Kangxi Emperor ; Manchu: elhe taifin hūwangdi ; Mongolian: Энх-Амгалан хаан, 4 May 1654 –20 December 1722) was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the first to be born on Chinese soil south of the Pass and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722.Kangxi's...
(i.e. the reigning Qing (Manchu) Dynasty emperor of China) also wished to settle with Russia in order to free his hands to deal with the Zunghar (= Dzungar, Junghar, etc.) Mongols of Central Asia, to his northwest. The Manchus also wanted a delineated frontier to keep nomads and outlaws from fleeing across the border.
The Russians, for their part, knew that the Amur was indefensible and were more interested in establishing profitable trade, which the Kangxi Emperor had threatened to block unless the border dispute were resolved. Golovin accepted the loss of the Amur in exchange for possession of Trans-Baikalia and access to Chinese markets for Russian traders. The Russians were also concerned with the military strength of the Manchus, who had demonstrated their capability, in 1685 and 1686, by twice overrunning the Russian outpost at Albazin.
The border
The agreed boundary was the Argun RiverArgun River (Asia)
Ergune or Argun is the river which is a part of the Russia–China border. Its upper reaches are known as Hailar River in China. Its length is 1,007 mi...
north to its confluence with the Shilka River
Shilka River
Shilka is a river in Zabaykalsky Krai, south-eastern Russia. It has a length . It originates as a confluence of the Onon and Ingoda rivers. Its confluence with the Ergune on the Russia-China border gives rise to the Amur River. The river is navigable for its entire length....
, up the Shilka to the 'Gorbitsa River', up the Gorbitsa to its headwaters, then along the east-west watershed through the Stanovoy Mountains and down the Uda River (Khabarovsk Krai) to the Sea of Okhotsk at its southwest corner.
The border west of the Argun was not defined (at the time, this area was controlled by the Oirats). Neither side had very exact knowledge of the course of the Uda River. The Gorbitsa is hard to find on modern maps. Ravenstein, writing in 1861, suggested that there are two Gorbitsa Rivers. He thought that the lower Gorbitsa is the modern Almazar which enters the Amur about 25 miles downstream from the Argun-Shilka junction and that the upper Gorbitsa is the modern Chernaya which enters the Shilka about 100 miles upstream from the junction. He thought that the Almazar is almost certainly the real Gorbitsa. He then repeats a tale to the effect that about 1710 a Tungus deserted to the Russian side of the border. He evaded being sent back by claiming the upper Gorbitza was the real border. The Chinese were happy with this and moved the boundary stone.
Treaty details
The treaty had six paragraphs: 1 and 2: definition of the border, 3. Albazin to be abandoned and destroyed. 4. Refugees who arrived before the treaty to stay, those arriving after the treaty to be sent back. 5. Trade to be allowed with proper documents. 6. Boundary stones to be erected, and general exhortations to avoid conflict.(Note that this summary given by G. Patrick March differs from the Manchu text given the Wikisource. March may have been summarizing the Latin or Russian text.)