Russia is the largest country in the world by area, with 17,098,200 square kilometers, spanning Europe and Asia. However, as a European country, Russia has an area of only about 4 million square kilometers in the European part and about 13 million square kilometers in the Asian part. Siberia has three major rivers that flow from south to north into the Arctic Ocean, the Ob River to the west, the Yenisei River in the middle, and the Lena River to the east. Everyone knows that the most famous river in Russia is the Volga, but the length of the Volga (3692 km) is not the first in the length of the Russian river, the Lena River is longer than the Volga.
Where does the Lena River originate? We should be familiar with Lake Baikal, known as the North Sea in ancient times, which is the place where Suwu herds sheep. The crescent-shaped Lake Baikal is located in southeastern Russia, just north of Mongolia. On the west bank of Lake Baikal there are mountains along the lake, and the Lena River originates in the western foothills of the mountain, only about 10 kilometers from Lake Baikal. The headwaters of the Lena River are drawn in an arc and then flow in a southwest-northeast direction, upstream in the Russian Irkutsk Oblast. After leaving the Irkutsk Oblast, the Lena River enters the territory of the Russian Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and has not since entered the third Russian provincial administrative region.
The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is worth mentioning because it is the largest provincial administrative region in the world, covering an area of about 3.1 million square kilometers, which is larger than India. After the Lena River enters the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, it draws a huge arc, and the capital of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic is Yakutsk, known for its "cold", located on the west bank of the Great Bend of the Lena River. After leaving Yakutsk, the Lena River flows freely on the plains east of the Kautyansk Mountains, which are very sparsely populated.
The Lena River is about 4,400 kilometers long, ranking ninth in the world in length, and the tenth is the Heilongjiang River (a river, known as the Amur River in Russia), with a basin area of about 2.49 million square kilometers. The Lena River is divided into three parts: the source to the inlet of the Vidim River is upstream, the estuary of the Vidim River to the confluence of the Aldan River is called the middle reaches, and the lower reaches to the mouth of the sea are downstream. The estuary of the Lena River is enormous, forming a bird-foot delta with an area of about 32,000 square kilometers.
The Lena River is not far from the mainland, and the Qing Dynasty called this great river the Lena River. Does the Lena River have anything to do with the mainland? It doesn't matter now, but during the Qing Dynasty, the Lena River became an important part of the negotiations between the Qing Dynasty and Tsarist Russia on the demarcation of the border.
The Qing Dynasty began between the White Mountains and the Black Water, that is, the northeast of the mainland and the Russian Far East (Outer Northeast). When the Qing Dynasty rose, Tsarist Russia continued to expand into Siberia. As early as the sixth year of the Later Jin Emperor Taiji Tiancong (Ming Chongzhen 5th year, 1632), Tsarist Russia had expanded to the Lena River and built Yakutsk. Russia's use of Yakutsk as a strategic base for continued eastward expansion aroused strong vigilance from the Qing Dynasty, and the two sides continued to clash. In the twenty-fifth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1686), the Kangxi Emperor, who was intolerable by the invasion of Tsarist Russia, ordered the Qing army to counterattack the Russian army, which is the famous Battle of Yaksa.
The Battle of Yaksa occupied the time, place, and people for the Qing Dynasty, and finally won the Victory of the Battle of Yaksa. At this time, Tsarist Russia had already figured out the strength of the Qing Dynasty, and it was impossible to achieve its goal simply by expanding by force, so it had to negotiate with the Qing Dynasty to demarcate the border in 1689.
Tu-Lena River Delta?
The negotiators sent by the Qing Dynasty were Herschel-Soetu, and Soetu's niece, Empress Xiaochengren, was the biological mother of Crown Prince Yinrong and a famous minister in the early Kangxi Dynasty. Soetu confronted the Russian representative Golovin at the negotiating table, and the negotiations were very intense. Despite the defeat of Yaksa, Tsarist Russia still opened its mouth widely, demanding that the Heilongjiang River (river) be the boundary, the Qing Dynasty in the south, and Russia in the north. If this standard is followed, the Qing Dynasty will lose about 600,000 square kilometers of territory north of the Heilongjiang River (river) actually controlled by the Qing Dynasty, which the Qing Dynasty will certainly not accept. On behalf of the Qing Dynasty, Sokhatu said that the borders of Qing Russia should be bounded by the Lena River (Lena River), the east of the river belonged to the Qing Dynasty, and the west of the river belonged to Tsarist Russia. As mentioned above, Tsarist Russia has occupied a large area east of the Lena River and made them spit out fat meat that they eat in their mouths, which is obviously impossible.
The Qing Dynasty had just won the Battle of Yaksa, morale was booming, and the Qing Dynasty had enough confidence to confront Tsarist Russia at the negotiating table and continue to fight if it did not accept it. The situation was supposed to be favorable to the Qing Dynasty, but the Qing Dynasty's sworn enemy Dzungar began to add to the chaos of the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty had to devote some of its energy to dealing with the Dzungars, while fearing that the Tsarist Russia would help the Dzungars. In this context, the Kangxi Emperor gave sokhatu an order that certain concessions could be made to Tsarist Russia, and that Nebuchu could be used as a boundary at the initial stage. If Tsarist Russia demands too much, take a step back and take the Erguna River as the boundary.
The Russian representative, Golovin, also wanted to continue to blackmail the Qing Dynasty, including by using non-peaceful means. Even when the Qing Dynasty faced pressure from the Dzungars, Soetu's attitude was still very tough and he was ready to fight against Tsarist Russia. Under various pressures, Tsarist Russia finally could not hold out and signed the Treaty of Nebuchu with the Qing Dynasty.
If we look at the map, we all know that the border between Tsarist Russia and the middle and early Qing Dynasty was a "nebuchu treaty to be discussed area", south of the Uddi River, in the shape of an east and west narrow length. There is also a theory of this "area to be discussed in the Treaty of Nebuchu", saying that the Manchu area to be discussed is not south of the Uddi River, but includes a vast area north of the Transhingan Mountains to the Lena River. Some scholars believe that the Manchu text of the pending area is the closest to the truth of the Treaty of Nebuchu, because in 1690, the second year of the signing of the treaty between Russia and the Qing Dynasty, the Qing army was still patrolling the area south of the Lena River.
After the turmoil of the late Qing Dynasty, about 1 million square kilometers of land north of the Heilongjiang River (river) and east of the Ussuri River were taken away by Tsarist Russia, which made the mainland very far away from the Lena River.