Mannerheim was a respectable man, both in his personal conduct and in his professionalism and morality as a leader in Finnish politics and commander-in-chief of the Finnish army. However, as a Chinese, it is enough to show moderate admiration, for China, this person is an enemy, even if he is worthy of respect, he is also an enemy worthy of respect. At the end of the Tsarist War I, before the bourgeois February Revolution, Finland was still under the rule of Tsarist Russia, Mannerheim participated in the Russo-Japanese War as a Russian officer, this is not a problem, the problem is that after the Russo-Japanese War, he was responsible for the reconnaissance of the military route from Xinjiang to Lanzhou, Lanzhou to Beijing, as well as the investigation of China's political and military capabilities and social conditions, and made the preliminary preparations for the decision-making of the Tsarist invasion of China.
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (Finnish: Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Russian: Густав Карлович Ма?ннерейм, 4 June 1867 – 27 January 1951) was a Finnish military and political figure, a baron, who served as leader of the White Army during the Finnish Civil War and as Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces in World War II. Mannerheim is the highest-ranking soldier in Finnish military history, with the final rank of "Field Marshal of Finland", and has served as the country's regent (1918-1919) and 6th president (1944-1946).
Born on a small island near Finland's old capital of Aubu (now Turku), Mannerheim's family soon rose to prominence, although his family was Dutch who moved from Germany to Sweden. His great-grandfather was granted the hereditary title of Earl, and the family entered the top class of society, and his family moved from Sweden to Finland during the time of his great-grandfather. Mannerheim, not the eldest son, was born on a estate on the island of Lucisari with the title of Baron, but that was not the worst. As the saying goes, the rich are not more than three generations, his father because of poor management, resulting in the family's decline, in order to reduce the burden on the family, Mannerheim was sent to the non-commissioned officer school at the age of 13, ready to eat food later. The huge gap in living environment made Mannerheim precocious, superior IQ, but made him naughty. After he entered the military school, and before he stepped into the Nikolaev Cavalry School, his performance was not easy to find positive words to describe.
At the Nikolaev Cavalry School, Mannerheim completed the prodigal son's metamorphosis and in 1981 transferred to the Chevre Knights' Guards (a status similar to that of the royal guards of the feudal dynasty). He was elected to the Tsar's coronation, one of the Tsar's four personal bodyguards. At the beginning of the 19th century, Russia began to accelerate its preparations for invasion of the mainland, and Mannerheim, who was wounded in the Russo-Japanese War and returned to Finland to recuperate, was conscripted to the mainland to spy on military intelligence. However, in order to erect the archway, the Russian General Staff arranged for him to enter the expedition led by the Frenchman Bo xihe.
In March 1906, the Russian General Staff gave Mannerheim a secret mission to infiltrate a expedition led by the French scientist Paul Perriet to infiltrate China for espionage. During the two-year expedition, Mannerheim traveled 14,000 kilometers across eight provinces in China, including Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Hebei, and collected a large amount of important intelligence. To conduct a comprehensive military and social investigation according to the will of the Russian General Staff, he wanted to find out the best military route from Kashgar through Lanzhou to Beijing. Find out about China's military strength, its political status, the extent to which the Qing government's new policies were influenced by Japan, and so on.
Mannerheim's trip to Xinjiang starts from Kashgar, passes through Yeerqiang to Hotan, then north to Aksu, via Ili and Yanqi to Urumqi, and then all the way west, through Qitai, through Turpan, through Barikun, out of Hami, leaving Xinjiang and entering the Hexi Corridor. During his expedition to the west, he had a Chinese name, Ma Dahan, which was the name given to Yuan Hongyao, the Daotai of Kashgar (Kashgar was the administrative capital of southern Xinjiang at that time) of the Qing Dynasty in China at that time, when he issued him a passport. The military purpose of his trip was well carried out, and the nearly two-hundred-page "Crossing China by The Decree of His Majesty ... The preliminary investigation report was approved by Shangfeng and was later published as an annex with "Xinjiang in the Eyes of Russian Travelers". His archaeological journey was meant to conceal his eyes and ears, so the harvest was limited, but the pictures and records he took in the western region were very valuable materials for understanding Xinjiang at that time. The pictures are included in the "Photo Collection of the Madahan Western Expedition 1906-1908", and the detailed record is in the "Diary of the Madahan Western Expedition Across Asia: A Journey from the Caspian Sea to Beijing 1906-1908".