Resources
Meshcheryakov A. Yu., Antropov O. K. Features of the Russian Colonization of the Manchurian Territory at the End of the XIX — the Beginning of the XX Century
<Краткая записка о поездке генерального штаба штабс-капитана Евтюгина из г. Благовещенска в Цицикар, летом 1884 года>
The number of immigrants from China's Kannai grew rapidly, and new villages could be found along the route. The Han Chinese settlement in Manchuria progressed so successfully that it is difficult to distinguish whether they are still Manchu or Han Chinese, even for those who are now experienced......
Kanto, which literally means "the east of China's Shanhaiguan", includes Heilongjiang Province, Jilin Province, Liaoning Province and northeastern Inner Mongolia.
And in Russian, the word "Kanto" does not refer to the whole of Manchuria, but only to its southern tip - the Liaodong Peninsula. Because before the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian side called the Luda lease area the Kwantung Prefecture (Russian: Квантунская Область).
The Liaodong Peninsula was part of the Ming Empire of China in the late 14th and early 17th centuries before being conquered by the Qing Empire.
After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, most of the Han Chinese in Kwantung migrated to the Kannai region, like the Manchus, and the population of the Kanto region gradually decreased.
Later, the Qing government often allowed small numbers of Han Chinese to immigrate to Liaodong (present-day Liaoning), but on a relatively limited and controlled scale.
For most of the Qing Dynasty, the rest of the Kanto region was usually closed to the Han Chinese, even separating the Kanto from the interior with "special wickers." An edict issued by the Kangxi Emperor in 1668 forbade other ethnic groups to settle in the emperor's homeland.
As a result, until the 19th century, much of the Kanto region remained underpopulated, inhabited mainly by Manchus, Mongols (in the western steppe region), and other Tungusic peoples.
Due to the sparse population of the Heilongjiang region, this indirectly led to the incorporation of the area around the Trans-Khingan Mountains into the Russian Empire. This fact prompted the Qing government to realize the need to increase the population of the Kanto region.
So in 1860, the Qing general Heilongjiang submitted a memorandum to the emperor, recommending that the Hulan area (around present-day Harbin) be opened for new immigrants. The peasants were able to provide new income to the local treasury in order to pay the arrears of wages to the Eighth Banner Army.
Thus, from the 1860s onwards, Qing policy began to encourage peasants to move from Zhili and Shandong to Manchuria. The rapid expansion of settlers from Chinese mainland in Manchuria did not go unnoticed by Russia.
In 1884, Captain Yevtyusin, who was visiting northern Manchuria, noted: "The number of immigrants from the Chinese Guannai increased rapidly, and new villages were everywhere along the route. The Han Chinese settlement in Manchuria progressed so successfully that it is difficult to distinguish whether they are still Manchu or Han Chinese, even for those who are now experienced. ”
- < Краткая записка о поездке генерального штаба штабс-капитана Евтюгина из г. Благовещенска в Цицикар, летом 1884 года> (Brief record of the expedition of Captain Yevtyukin of the General Staff from Blagoveshchensk to Tsykhar in the summer of 1884)
There is no accurate data on the size of the migration as complete statistics are not kept.
Based on data from the customs and railway archives, historians Thomas Gottschang and Diana Lary estimate that between 1891 and 1942 alone, 25.4 million people arrived in Manchuria from Guannai, of whom 16.7 million returned, adding 8.7 million to Manchuria's population.
According to the 1940 census, 85 percent of Manchuria's population was Han Chinese, only 6 percent were nominally Manchus, and the remaining 9 percent were Koreans, Mongols, and Japanese.
This made the settlement of Chinese in Manchuria one of the largest migration operations in human history.
Resources
Meshcheryakov A. Yu., Antropov O. K. Features of the Russian Colonization of the Manchurian Territory at the End of the XIX — the Beginning of the XX Century
<Краткая записка о поездке генерального штаба штабс-капитана Евтюгина из г. Благовещенска в Цицикар, летом 1884 года>
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