Russia was badly hurt in the Crimean War, but why did it seize a large area of land in the Qing Dynasty two years later?

On June 1854 and 10, the Russian fleet led by Irkutsk of Russia and Muraviev, the governor of eastern Siberia, went down the river from Heilongjiang to Aihui City on the south bank of Heilongjiang, demanding that the defenders of the Qing Dynasty release them. This fleet consists of 1000 people. Except that the Ergon was led by a steamboat, all the other boats were small wooden boats. However, it is such a fleet that is already luxuriously equipped in front of the Qing army, because the Qing army seen by the Russians is still holding spears and carrying bows and arrows. Ravenstein, who came with the fleet, had to sigh with emotion: "For two hundred years, China people in this area have made no progress."

In fact, Muraviev's armed navigation is controversial within Russia. At this time, Russia was fighting fiercely with Britain and France in Crimea, and there were few troops stationed in the Far East. The Russian Foreign Ministry is worried about how to deal with it if the Qing Dynasty turns its face. Tsarist Russia was simply unable to go to war with the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, there is no doubt about Muraviev's sailing and gambling. Of course, he won the bet: although Hu Xunbi, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Qing Dynasty, verbally refused the passage of the Russian fleet, he was afraid of the enemy like a tiger and did not take any measures to prevent the Russian fleet from forcibly passing. In this way, the Russian fleet arrived at Miaojie at the mouth of Heilongjiang on June 25th, and deployed most of its troops there.

In fact, since18th century, Russia has been secretly exploring Heilongjiang and Sakhalin Island, and occupied Temple Street in 1850 and Sakhalin Island in 1853. Different from before, the voyage of 1854 was an open voyage, one was to test the bottom line of the Qing Dynasty, and the other was that Muraviev began to immigrate to Heilongjiang on a large scale, so it was difficult to keep it secret. The adventure of 1854 fully meets Muraviev's expectations.

Only the international situation is developing in a direction unfavorable to Russia:1In March 855, Russia was defeated in the Crimean War, and Tsar Nicholas I committed suicide by humiliation. 1856 In March, after hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed, Russia finally admitted its cowardice, signed the Paris Peace Treaty, and ceded more than 50,000 square kilometers of land. However, the fiasco of the battlefield made the domestic contradictions in Russia unprecedented, and the dissatisfaction with serfdom made domestic peasant uprisings break out one after another. Russia has been weakened, which makes Russia shrink in the Far East and not rush in China. They were worried that the Qing Dynasty would close Sino-Russian trade, making the financial situation of Russia on the verge of bankruptcy worse.

However, Muraviev resisted domestic opposition. Of course, he also has good reasons. The most important reason is that Russia has an overwhelming advantage in the total population of this region. 185 1 year, the population of eastern Siberia under the jurisdiction of Muraviev has reached 830,000, while the population of Heilongjiang in the Qing Dynasty was only1000, and that of Jilin was only over 300,000. Not only that, most of these people in the Qing Dynasty lived on the right bank of Heilongjiang, so that when Russia occupied Temple Street and Sakhalin Island, the Qing court did not get local reports. After emigrating from Muraviev, the Russian population on the left bank of Heilongjiang and along the Wusuli River reached 40,000. To put it bluntly, the demand and control of territory is still based on population. Through the population advantage, Russia has actual control over this area, which can be confirmed by only one document.

The Qing court has an unshirkable responsibility for this situation. China has always paid attention to the changes of immigrants. However, because the Northeast was the land of Longxing in the Qing Dynasty, the Qing court issued a ban to prohibit large-scale immigration of Han people. Because the Qing dynasty entered the customs, many flag people immigrated to the customs, so the population of Northeast China, especially Heilongjiang and Jilin, has not been very rich. In fact, with the rapid increase of population in the middle of Qing Dynasty, emigrating to Northeast China can not only solve the livelihood problem of the people, but also emigrate to the border, which really kills two birds with one stone. However, the Qing Dynasty banned the Northeast for its own selfish interests, which led to the emptiness of the Northeast and was finally exploited by Russia.

Through a series of probing into the Qing court, Muraviev was convinced that the Qing court did not understand the international situation and the plight of Russia, and Muraviev was convinced that the Qing court would yield as long as it was intimidated. So, 1858, Muraviev and the Qing court completely showdown. He came to Aihui City, met with Yishan, the general of Heilongjiang Province, and asked for a new demarcation. Yishan refused at first, and Muraviev let the Russian ship fire a gun that night. Not to mention Muraviev's luck, you met a mountain. During the Opium War, Yishan fought against the British army in Guangzhou. When he saw the British guns, he thought it was witchcraft, which made people fill the toilets by the river, so the Russian guns were shocking at night. Yi Shan, a tourist trap, signed the Aihui Treaty with Muraviev, ceding 600,000 square kilometers north of Heilongjiang to Russia, and dividing 400,000 square kilometers east of Wusuli River into two countries.

1859, Russia sent an envoy to Beijing to change the contract, demanding that the Qing court recognize the Treaty of Love, which was rejected by the Qing court on the grounds that Yishan had no right to handle it. At this time, the Russian peasant uprising intensified, and Russia was unable to use force against the Qing Dynasty. Russia also sat patiently and talked with the Qing court for more than a year. Even so, Russian envoy Ignachev was expelled from Beijing by the Qing court in May 1860. Ignachev left Beijing and went directly to Shanghai. Because 1859, the Qing army attacked the British and French fleet at Dagukou, 1860, the British and French allied forces made a comeback and arrived in Shanghai in March. The Qing court immediately sent someone to make peace and asked Britain and France not to go north. Ignachev's purpose in going to Shanghai was to provoke the British and French allied forces to attack Tianjin. He also provided the allied forces with the information he had collected in the past year about the protection of the Qing army in Beijing and Tianjin, letting the British and French allied forces know that the main force of the Qing army was not in Beijing and Tianjin, which greatly stimulated the desire of the British and French allied forces to go north.

It should be said that since then, the British and French allied forces attacked Tianjin in the north, which was closely related to Russia's instigation. Russia wanted to benefit the fishermen. In the end, the British and French allied forces not only conquered Tianjin, but also occupied Beijing, and the Qing court was forced to sign the Beijing Treaty with Britain and France. At the same time, the Qing court also surrendered to Russia. The Beijing Treaty signed with Russia not only recognized the effectiveness of the Love-Lost Treaty, but also confirmed the cession of the area east of the Wusuli River to Russia. In this way, Russia, weakened in the Crimean War, took advantage of the Qing court's ban on the Northeast, immigrated wantonly, and incited the British and French allied forces to benefit, and finally won millions of square kilometers of land in China with little effort. (Text/A Taizhuo, picture from the Internet)