After driving out the Mongols who occupied the magpie's nest, the Russians re-established their country on the ruins.
Ivan IV succeeded Tsars, and Russia embarked on a route of external expansion, after nearly a hundred years of expansion and development.
Tsarist Russia opened the mouth to the Atlantic Ocean and controlled the Baltic Sea region.
After stabilizing the foundations of Europe, Tsarist Russia began a long time
Eastward strategy.
It took a long three hundred years for Russia to reluctantly annex Siberia.
Nowadays, scholars and people have too many questions about Russia's eastward strategy.
Why, during these three hundred years, the Chinese dynasty was indifferent to Russia's eastward strategy and ceded this treasure containing a large number of resources to the Russian Empire.
The origin of Russia's eastward expansion
Russia is moving eastward, simply put, that is
Russia turned its sights eastwards to the Ural Mountains and made a strategic advance across the Ural Mountains to the east
。
In the early modern period, Tsarist Russia's eastward expansion was mainly territorial expansion and the development and governance of newly occupied lands; in the early twentieth century, the eastward expansion of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union was mainly to seize strategic places in the Far East; the eastward expansion of the Soviet period was mainly to develop the resources of Siberia and consolidate the security of the eastern border. In the new period, Russia's eastward expansion, mainly
Revitalize the eastern region and integrate into the Asian economy.
In 988 AD, Grand Duke Vladimir of Kiev converted to Christianity from the Byzantine Empire as an Orthodox Church, which has since become the state religion of Russia and the future Eastern European states.
In 1054, the Roman Catholic Church was formally divided from the Byzantine Orthodox Church, and Russia was involved in discord and strife between the Catholic and Orthodox religious worlds. In 1453, the Byzantine Empire, which represented Orthodox Orthodoxy, was destroyed by Ottoman Turkey, and the center of Orthodoxy moved from the Balkan Peninsula to Russia.
Moscow became a new holy place for countless Orthodox Christians.
Russia, which follows Christian orthodoxy, was extremely hostile to the Reformation and the Renaissance movements taking place in the Western world at this time.
Thus all of Russia fell into a state of isolation and isolation.
As mentioned above: Russia's disregard for the Reformation of Western society and the renewal of science and technology have led to a significant socio-economic lag behind that of the West.
The two-century-long Mongol rule had a profound impact on Russia, especially in the political system; the Russian aristocracy tasted the sweetness of the absolutist regime, so after expelling the Mongols, Russia began a long period of absolute monarchy and centralized rule.
The political behavior of the state was largely determined by the Tsar himself, and this political-cultural mindset led the Russian elite to be indifferent to the logic of reason, but they were sensitive to the logic of force.
In 1533, the young Ivan IV ascended the throne.
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the feudal division of Russia was a thing of the past, and the Muscovite Principality established absolute monarchical rule.
In order to consolidate his own power, Ivan the Terrible implemented a special system of jurisdiction in the territory, resulting in the tail of the army in the local area, the increasingly rampant atrocities of soldiers, coupled with the continuous natural disasters for many years.
As a result, Russia's domestic economy is weak, and the people's lives are unsustainable.
The ruling class has lost its exploitable object,
We can only shift our horizons abroad and begin to implement policies related to expansion and plunder.
The acquisition of new territories, wealth, and populations was a direct driver of outward expansion, but Russia's expansion was not the same as that of Western European countries.
Russia is located in a vast plain, surrounded by strong enemies, since the founding of the country, Russia has been at war with Sweden, Poland and other countries.
The lack of natural danger is a permanent reason for Russia's endless war with its neighbors.
It can be said that the Russian state was born from the war, and also grew, developed and strengthened in the war.
Although it cannot be said that Russia's outward expansion in history was entirely due to insecurity, it can be said
Seeking a greater sense of security in the offensive was one of the important reasons for Russia's expansion.
Tsarist expansion and development of Siberia
In the age of great navigation, Western Europeans successfully opened up a large number of colonies overseas through ocean voyages. Russia, for its part, focused on its expansion across Eurasia.
In 1582, the Russian nobleman Strokanov organized a mercenary army of Cossacks who crossed the towering Ural Mountains and launched an attack on the Sibir Khanate.
In the face of smoothbore guns and artillery, the cold-armed army of the Sibir Khanate was like a fish meat to be slaughtered on a chopping board. Faced with the powerful Russian army, Sibir Khan was forced to abandon his land and lead his people to migrate south.
After conquering the Sibil Khanate, the Tsarist Russian army marched eastward to the west coast of the Pacific, encountering little decent resistance along the way. After occupying the vast lands of Siberia, the Russian government began to assimilate and build local residents in Siberia.
In 1586, the Russian army built the first castle near the mouth of the Tula River, Tyumen Castle.
The following year, the Russian army built Topolsk Castle at the transportation hub of the Ob River waterway. Since then, such castles, which have the dual nature of military strongholds and administrative centers, have been established in various transportation routes and strategic points in Siberia.
In 1604, Tsarist Russia established the Fortress of Tomsk on the banks of the Irtysh River, marking the completion of the Russian occupation of Siberia.
After the completion of the occupation of Siberia, Tsarist Russia stepped up its layout of the Far East, and at the end of the 17th century, the vanguard troops of Tsarist Russia arrived in Heilongjiang and encountered the Qing Empire, which was in full swing at that time.
After the Battle of Yaksa, Tsarist Russia understood that it was impossible to force the Qing government to make concessions on the border issue in the short term.
Thus China and Russia signed the Treaty of Nebuchadnezzar on the border issue.
After the Tsarist strategy to go south was hindered by the Qing Empire, they chose to continue northward and annexed the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1699, when Tsarist Russia had completely controlled the vast lands of Siberia.
The next thing Tsarist Russia had to do was to develop and build the region.
The expansion of Tsarist Russia in the 19th century and the response of the Manchu Qing government
Fast forward to the early 1860s, after the outbreak of the American Civil War, cotton exports from the southern region of the United States were interrupted by the outbreak of war. Russian cotton merchants and big capitalists took the opportunity to petition the Tsar and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, asking the government to help them obtain raw materials for the textile industry in Central Asia.
However, russia is not the only one interested in Central Asia, and Britain, an old colonialist country, is also eager to move on Central Asia, frequently sending missions to central Asia.
In 1850, British instructors appeared in the armies of the Muslim Khanates in southern Central Asia. And helped the local khanate to establish a modern army, which undoubtedly touched the sensitive nerves of the tsarist authorities, and the side of the bed allowed others to sleep peacefully.
In response to the British infiltration, Tsarist Russia stepped up its layout and aggression against Central Asia.
In early 1873, after several years of meticulous preparation, the Russian Tsarist army assembled a special army of thirteen thousand men on the border, equipped with the most advanced heavy artillery in Europe at the time, and launched an all-out attack on the Khiva Khanate in Central Asia. In May of the same year, the capital of Khiva was captured by Russian troops, and in August, under pressure from Tsarist Russia, Khiva Khan was forced to sign an unequal treaty with him and was incorporated into the system of tsarist vassal states.
While going south, Tsarist Russia did not forget the Qing government's Territory of Xinjiang. In 1857, Ulykhan, a descendant of the feudal nobility of the former Kashgar, led an army from the Kokand State to occupy Kashgar.
Tsarist Russia sees this as an excellent opportunity to infiltrate Xinjiang. At this time, the Qing government was in the second Opium War, and the northwest border was weakly garrisoned to deal with the rebellion of the local ethnic minorities, and the Russians were able to take advantage of the situation.
In 1864, in an anti-Qing mutiny by ethnic minorities in China's Xinjiang region, the Kokand general Agubai took the opportunity to lead a large army into southern Xinjiang, which was trained by British officers and equipped with the most advanced breech rifles in Europe at that time.
Agupa tried to take the opportunity to annex large tracts of land in Xinjiang and thus establish a new khanate.
However, due to the repeated jump between The British and Russian countries in Kokand, it caused panic in Tsarist Russia, after all, in the distribution of benefits, the British could give Agubai more things. Once Kokand and Britain were in cahoots, they would encircle Russia's flanks to the point of threatening the European hinterland of the Russian Empire.
In 1866, Tsarist Russia decided to attack first, and sent troops to forcibly occupy the Mussol Pass, a major communication route connecting the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, and gathered a large number of troops west of Ili to prepare for the invasion of Ili.
In the early 1970s, Agubai, with the support of the British, successively conquered the Turpan Basin and Urumqi. At this time, the Qing government had not yet recovered from the aftermath of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, and the voices in the court about abandoning Xinjiang were even louder, and in May 1871, Czarist Russia saw that the Manchu Qing government was unable to intervene in Xinjiang affairs, so the army attacked Ili in two ways, and occupied Ili in July of that year.
Faced with the bad situation in Xinjiang, the Qing court was helpless, and finally under the basis of Zuo Zongtang's arguments, the Qing government made a determination to suppress the rebellion in Xinjiang.
In May 1876, Zuo Zongtang led the Qing army to attack Agubai, and successfully defeated Agubai's troops the following year, and Agubai, who had been defeated repeatedly, was poisoned to death by his disgruntled generals.
At the end of 1877, the rebellion in Xinjiang was completely quelled by Zuo Zongtang.
The Qing government took this opportunity to make representations to Tsarist Russia, demanding that the Tsarist army completely withdraw from Ili, but how could the Tsarist Russia give Ili back to the Qing government.
In the face of the rogue behavior of Tsarist Russia, the Qing government, which has always been "lenient to the outside world and fierce at home," naturally put on a slave posture. In July 1880, the Qing government sent Zeng Jize to St. Petersburg to negotiate with Tsarist Russia. The Russian lion opened his mouth and demanded tens of millions of taels of silver from the Chinese side for military expenses.
At this time, the Qing government's self-improvement campaign was in full swing, and money was the most urgently needed resource of the Qing government.
In order to keep the only silver in its own treasury, the Qing government had to continue to exert its traditional artistic ability - exchanging land for money and ceding more than 70,000 square kilometers of land to Tsarist Russia.
After seeing the concessions of the Qing government, the Russian government ordered the withdrawal of troops from Ili, and the Qing government nominally completed the recovery of the Ili region.
After completing the nominal counterinsurgency in Xinjiang, the Qing government focused all its energy on the foreign affairs movement to seek strength and prosperity, but this reform policy of changing soup and not changing medicines was doomed to failure.
The Sino-Japanese War tore open the last fig leaf of the Qing government, the Beiyang Fleet, which had been built at great expense, was completely destroyed on Liugong Island, the army equipped with various new weapons was defeated by the Japanese army in the Korean War, and the Manchu Qing government's self-improvement movement was also declared bankrupt after the war.
If the previous layout of Tsarist Russia in Siberia still had to "take care" of the Qing government's feelings, then
The defeat in the Sino-Japanese War made Tsarist Russia realize that the Qing Dynasty was nothing more than a declining empire with foreign powers, and was unable to interfere in their layout in Siberia and even in the Far East.
In the last years of the Russian Romanov dynasty, the Russians successfully assimilated the major populations living in Siberia and fully integrated them into the Russian system of rule.
Even after the establishment of the Soviet Union and the infiltration of Western intervention forces into Siberia, it did not set off much of a storm, and since then, Russia has officially completed the annexation of Siberia.
epilogue
When we open the history of Russia's conquest of Siberia, we can easily see that this history is nothing more than the annexation of advanced civilizations to backward civilizations.
In a three-hundred-year-long layout, Russia has worked for generations to finally fully integrate the vast Siberian region into its own ruling system.
For the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was trapped in a dream, the Russian plan could not interrupt their dreams, as long as they could control their own acres and three-quarters of land, the annexation of Siberia had nothing to do with the Manchu nobles.