Thanks to the victory of the Qing army at the Battle of Yaksa, the Treaty of Nebuchu was signed on September 7, 1689, the first border treaty between the Qing Empire and the Russian Empire. In the view of the Qing Dynasty, this treaty was an equality treaty based on major concessions made by its own side, while the Russian side believed that the Qing Dynasty had taken away Russia's inherent territory in the Heilongjiang River Basin through force coercion.
Tsarist Russia's greed for land is well known to the world, they never compromise on territorial issues, in order to annex land, the Tsar desperately expanded outwards, constantly launched cruel wars against neighboring countries, and the territory expanded thousands of times in three hundred years. So, of course, they would not give in to the dispute over territory, and when the news of The siege of Yaksa reached Moscow, the russian generals demanded more troops to punish the Qing Dynasty in the Far East, and the head of the Moscow Guards Corps, Libyan Fu, assured the regent Princess Sofia and Tsar Ivan: "Your Majesty the Tsar, Your Royal Highness the Princess sofia, as long as you hand me 1,000 soldiers, I promise you to sit in the Golden Ruan Hall in Beijing, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, next Christmas." ”
Judging from the Battle of Yaksa and the previous series of russian and Qing battles, the Equipment and tactics of the Qing Army are far inferior to those of the Russian Army, and in Yaksa, the Qing Army has struggled with thousands of elite divisions against hundreds of Russian bandits who have come from afar, and if Russia sends the main regular army, it can defeat the Qing Army, but Princess Sophia has decided to compromise after repeated consideration.
A country so fierce that it felt that it had suffered a loss in the Treaty of Nebuchadnezzar actually endured it, and endured it for more than one hundred and sixty years, and it was not until 1858 that it "recovered" the lost land in the Treaty of Nebuchadnezzar. So what made the Tsar endure such a long period of "resignation"?
There are three main reasons for this, one is the issue of strategic center of gravity, the second is the crisis within Russia, and the third is the qing dynasty's trade pressure on Russia.
When the Treaty of Nebuchu was signed, less than a month after Peter the Great came to power, he immediately tried his best to look west, comprehensively learn the advanced technology and culture of the West, and in order to seize the sea, he launched the Great Northern War and the Russo-Turkish War, and threw almost all his military strength into the war against Sweden and the Ottoman Empire. Successive tsars after Peter the Great, in order to conquer Europe and retake Constantinople and other strategic goals, constantly launched or were involved in wars, and fought more than a dozen Russo-Turkish wars, as well as the Seven Years' War, the War of Partition of Poland, the Napoleonic War, the Crimean War, and in order to control the Caucasus, they fought with Persia for a hundred years. Therefore, for more than one hundred and sixty years, Russia's strategic focus was in the West, and these successive wars made it impossible for the Tsar to take care of the Qing Dynasty, which was thousands of miles away.
In the years leading up to the Treaty of Nebchu, Russia was in the midst of a serious political crisis, when the army staged a palace coup, placed peter the Great under house arrest, forcibly put his brother Ivan Ivan to the throne, and made their sister Princess Sophia regent, forming a bizarre scene of two emperors and a princess regency. This chaotic political situation led to the defeat of the crimean war, the war between Russia and Turkey was also on the verge of breaking out, and there was no time to look east, and the regent Princess Sophia had to constantly guard against Peter's coup to regain power.
Peter the Great's father, the elder Tsar Alexei, had been married twice, but Fedor and Ivan, born to his ex-wife, were in poor health. His wife, Nalyshkina, had only one son, his youngest son, Peter, who was born in Moscow on June 9, 1672, as a healthy child.
After Alexei's death, Fedor succeeded to the throne, but he was infirm and died not long after. Since he had no heirs, he had to choose one of Tsar Alexei's sons and daughters to succeed to the throne. At this time, only the eldest princessEss Sophia, Ivan and Peter were still alive, and Ivan was 16 years old and Peter was 10 years old. Ivan, though older, was as weak as his brother Fedor, mentally inferior, and blind in both eyes, unable to rule the country. Although Peter is healthy and clever, and has always been favored by his father, he is still young and does not understand the world.
After Fedor's death, fierce disagreements arose over the succession to the throne, with Alexei's ex-wife Miloslav's family electing Ivan and his second wife, the Nalishkin family supporting Peter, and the two sides began a fierce dungeon fight.
Finally, the Nalishkin family gained the upper hand by gaining the support of the Orthodox Church, and Patriarch Ioakim recognized Peter as Tsar and held a coronation ceremony for Peter. After Peter's coronation, Empress Dowager Nalishkina took power as regent. At this time, the great nobles fell to the Nalishkin family, and the uncle of the state, Nalishkin, was in a position of power, but he acted arbitrarily and arbitrarily, which caused dissatisfaction among the government and the opposition.
At that time, moscow was garrisoned by the shooting army created by Ivan the Terrible, and they were in a bad situation due to long-term inpayment. After the Nalishkin family came to power, they entered the palace to petition for the payment of the wages they owed. However, the Empress Dowager Nalishkina, far from meeting their demands, also dismissed and reprimanded some officers, who were very angry. Ivan's half-sister, the eldest princess Sophia, decided to take advantage of the displeasure of the Shooting Army and launch a coup d'état. She falsely claimed that Ivan had been killed by Nalishkin and secretly instigated their mutiny to overthrow the Nalishkin family. On 15 May 1682, the Shooting Army, led by Duke Khovansky, invaded the Kremlin, killing its commander Dolgorukov and his uncle Nalishkin. In a state of crisis, Narishkina brought Ivan to the firing squad, where the lies about his murder were dispelled. However, the disaster had already formed, and the shooting army, fearing reprisals, simply did not stop trying to kill the Nalishkin family, and they continued to hunt down the Nalishkin family's henchmen until May 26, when the riots were quelled.
The coup d'état orchestrated by Sophia, though successful, could not force Peter to abdicate because he was recognized by the Orthodox Church. Europe is different from China, and as long as the Chinese rebels can overthrow the original rulers, they can ascend the throne themselves as emperors. But the kingship of Europe was legitimized only if it was recognized by the Church, otherwise it would always be a rebel.
Although it was impossible to get Peter to abdicate, the Shooting Army demanded that Ivan also ascend the throne, and with Ivan as the First Tsar, Peter as the Second Tsar, and Ivan's sister Sophia as regent, they would otherwise continue the killing of the Nalishkin family, and Nalishkina would have to accede to the Janissaries' request. In July 1682, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Ioakim coronated two tsars at the same time in the church, and for the first time in Russian history, the scene of two tsars ruling together appeared.
Two tsars
On May 29, Sophia, with the support of the Janissaries, became the regent and began to bow to the government, which was also the first female regent in Russian history. Peter I and his birth mother, Empress Nalishkina, were expelled from the Kremlin and moved to live in the palace in the village of Preobrazhensky on the outskirts of Moscow.
After helping Sophia seize power, the leader of the Shooting Army, Khowansky, was proud and arrogant, did not take Sophia in his eyes, and even wanted to replace him. Hovansky's threat put Sophia on her back, and she plotted to get rid of it and take control of the shooting army herself.
After careful planning, Sophia planned a prayer ceremony that the Tsar was required to attend, and set up an ambush in advance at the monastery where the prayer ceremony was held, and ordered the nobles to go to the ceremony. Khovánski was aware of Sophia's plot, but he was arrogant and arrogant, believing that no one would dare to touch him, and went straight to the ceremony, but as soon as he entered the monastery, he was arrested and executed on the spot. Sophia took control of the Shooting Corps, and she subsequently appointed her confidant General Shaklovidi as the new leader of the Forbidden Shooting Corps.
After seizing military power, Sophia was in full power, and her most powerful assistant was his lover, the Duke of Golizin. In 1687, Grand Duke Golizin led an army to attack the Crimean Khanate, but on both occasions he returned. In order to maintain her prestige, Sophia covered up the truth, falsely claimed to have won a great victory, and held a grand ceremony of triumph for the Grand Duke of Golizin, who had returned from the defeat. However, the truth was soon revealed, and Sophia's act of shielding her lover and deceiving her people was met with severe dissatisfaction among the Russian people and army, and her rule began to waver.
Princess Sophia
Exiled Peter, although young, is very scheming, and he has cultivated obscurity, organizing his own team by practicing combat games with his friends, and preparing for the recapture of power in the future. This team later developed into two regiments, named "Preobrazhensky Regiment" and "Semonovsky Regiment", which are the two most famous guards in Russian history, and the military song "Preobrazhensky Regiment March" of "Preobrazhensky Regiment" has been sung to this day, symbolizing the soul of the Russian army.
Seven years later, the fledgling Peter had the strength to regain power, and on August 7, 1689, Peter led the Preobrazhensky Regiment and the Semenovsky Regiment to besiege the Kremlin and take his sister to house arrest in the Convent of the Virgin, and the 17-year-old Peter I was officially in power, while his brother Ivan still retained the title of First Tsar until his death in 1696, and the chaotic Political Situation in Russia was stabilized.
In such a chaotic and dangerous situation, the ruling Princess Sophia is walking on thin ice, she may lose power and even her life at any time, even if the Russian army has the ability to defeat the Qing Dynasty, how can she have the confidence and energy to launch a thousand miles expedition?
The United States is today's hegemon, the trade stick is a weapon it often wields, and the economic sanctions launched by the United States can often play a role in choking the throat of opponents. Like the United States, ancient China was the absolute hegemon of East Asia, through the trade embargo to force the Foreign Yi to submit, is also one of the common means of the Central Plains Dynasty, the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the trade stick is particularly skilled, and tea is the most important trade war weapon, which is the Tang and Song Dynasties since the consistent "tea to yi" strategy.
Because the nomadic people are mainly meat-eating, they need to consume vitamins through tea, and the Chinese at that time believed that foreigners ate milk and beef, which were not easy to digest, and they had to eat rhubarb and drink a lot of tea to resolve, if they did not eat for several months, they would be blind in both eyes and would also die of gastrointestinal congestion.
Liang Cai, the Hubu Shangshu Liangcai of the Jiajing Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, said: "The diet of Zhufan is not cut to my tea. If you have it, you will live, and if you don't have it, you will die. ”
The Qing Dynasty scholar Zhao Yi also said: "Tea, rhubarb ... Heavenly Ruosheng these two things are the tools of my dynasty to control the outer yi. ”
They all believed that tea rhubarb was a matter of life and death for foreigners, but only produced in China, so that the imperial court could achieve restraint and control over them.
In fact, although tea rhubarb did not matter whether it was life or death, at that time in Europe and Russia, tea drinking had become a habit, and tea was a necessity of life, and it was imported in large quantities from China every year.
Since the signing of the Treaty of Nebuchadnezzar, Bilateral trade between China and Russia has begun, and in 1728, the Treaty of Kyakhta was signed, and Kyakhta became a port of trade between China and Russia. The essence of Sino-Russian trade is "he comes with skin, I use tea to go", that is, to exchange fur for tea, and Kyakhta is "a place where there is tea" in Mongolian.
Kyakhta
The Qing Dynasty had a dominant position in trade with Russia, because the fur imported by Russia only met the needs of the court and the magnates for luxury goods, and had nothing to do with the national economy and people's livelihood, while the tea and cheap cotton cloth, porcelain and other materials provided by the Qing Dynasty were indispensable daily necessities for the Russians, and Russia earned a lot of income in bilateral trade, and the tariffs levied from the Kyakhta trade accounted for 20% of russia's national tariffs, and the income of a Kyakhta was equivalent to the income of the three Russian provinces. Kyakhta's trade accounted for up to 67% of Russia's total trade with Asia at that time. At that time, the purchase price of 1 Put tea in Kyakhta was 12-15 rubles to europeans for 110 rubles, and for this alone, the Russian government could make a profit of 150,000 rubles per year, so the trade in Kyakhta was an important pillar of Russian finance.
Qianlong saw this very clearly, and he pointed out: "Although Russia's land is rich, tea cloth and other things must be given to the interior. And its annual trade, the profit is very rich, can not help but ask me to pass the market. China controls it as it pleases. It can be seen that he is very confident in using trade weapons to subdue Russia.
Although the Qing Dynasty signed a series of treaties with Russia, and bilateral trade became increasingly popular, Russia never gave up its aggressive ambitions, and although it temporarily collapsed, it still showed its claws from time to time and infringed on China's interests. They constantly crossed the border, encroached on Chinese territory, levied heavy taxes on Chinese goods exported to Russia, and brutally exploited Chinese merchants; Tsarist Russia also secretly supported the Dzungar rebellion, violated the provisions of the treaty, sheltered the rebel leaders, and even arbitrarily demanded that grain be transported through Heilongjiang and shouted war.
It was during the Qianlong period, and in the face of the arrogant Russians, the Qianlong Emperor ordered the closure of the port in 1764, and the trade between the two countries was completely stopped. The Tsarist side was soon overwhelmed, when Russia was involved in the Seven Years' War in Europe and could no longer confront the Qing Dynasty, so it softened its attitude and lowered its posture, saying that it would no longer invade and harass the Chinese border in the future, and trade between the two sides could be restored.
In 1779, the Chinese captured a group of Russian smugglers who had illegally crossed the border, but the Russian authorities refused to conduct a trial according to the provisions of the treaty, and also took the opportunity to create a conflict and encroach on Chinese territory. The Qing Dynasty then imposed economic sanctions on Russia again, halting trade between the two sides. The sanctions hit Russia's fur industry hard, and it had to pay three or four times the price to import tea from other sources. At that time, 1 put of Chinese tea sold for 11 rubles, while tea shipped from Western Europe cost more than 1 put and 52 rubles. Tsarist Russia had no choice but to remove the governor and related officials who caused the incident, and after dealing with the cross-border personnel in accordance with the qing dynasty's requirements, requested the resumption of trade. Two years later, Qianlong lifted the ban on trade between the two countries.
In 1784, the Buryats in Tsarist Russia stole the property of the Qing Dynasty merchant Jin Ming, the two sides held a trial, the Qing Dynasty put forward a demand for compensation for 10 times the amount of Jin Ming's losses, and demanded that the Russian side hand over the prisoners, the Russian side gave compensation, but without notifying the Qing Dynasty, it released the prisoners privately and ignored the negotiations made by the Qing Dynasty. So the Qing Dynasty closed the Kyakhta trade port for the third time.
The embargo was very severe and lasted for eight years. Russia, while the Kyakhta port was closed, transshipped trade goods from the sea to the Port of Guangzhou, only to be detected by Qianlong, who found that The tariff revenue of Guangzhou had risen sharply. He pointed out that Guangzhou's "tax and silver surplus should not be as high as 539,000 yuan." It is connected to Russia. In recent years, because Russia has not traded through, the northern area has been strictly inspected, and the fur goods such as sea dragons (that is, sea otters) and black foxes have been smuggled from foreign ships to Guangdong for sale, for fear that the tariff will be full, or because of this. So he ordered strict interrogation and banned the import of Russian goods.
Russia, which had been severely sanctioned, suffered heavy losses, and the Russian Siberian authorities were in a state of rage, and the governor of Irkutsk gathered his forces to prepare for war in an attempt to annex Outer Mongolia and the Heilongjiang region by force. The Russians also made trouble on the border, shooting and killing Qing Karen patrol soldiers. However, at this time, the Russo-Turkish War broke out again, and in order to avoid fighting at the same time at the eastern and western ends, Tsarist Russia had to submit to the Qing Dynasty again, and according to the qing court's request, three criminals were handed over to the Qing Dynasty, two of whom were beheaded and one was exiled. In 1792, Qianlong approved the restoration of Kyakhta again.
From 1731 to 1792, the Kyakhta trade was stopped 12 times and closed for 15 years, and the Russian side claimed to lose more than 5 million rubles, which was indeed intolerable for Russia, and it was enough to prove that the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century, with the weapon of tea, firmly grasped Tsarist Russia and made it dare not act rashly.
After entering the 17th century, China's productivity and technological level had lagged behind that of the West, and after Spain occupied the Philippines, the colonists suggested in a report to King Philip II of Spain that only 6,000 Spanish musketeers needed to conquer China. Coincidentally, more than a hundred years later, Nikolai, a Russian minister on mission to the Qing Dynasty, also suggested in his report to the Tsar that only 2,000 Russian regular troops could obtain all the land beyond the Great Wall. These colonists are not arrogant and ignorant people, they are far-sighted, experienced strategists, in the long-term colonial plunder and hegemony activities, they have trained a keen insight into how to analyze and look at the strength of other countries and nations, and the military data they put forward to conquer China are not fools' dreams, but have scientific basis and have been repeatedly proved in the future.
However, these colonists' plans were not implemented at that time, and one of the important reasons was that from the 17th to the 18th century, Europe was in constant turmoil, and Spain, France, Britain, Russia, and Prussia all wanted to dominate and fiercely conquer each other, just like China's Spring and Autumn Warring States, and the Qing Dynasty was thousands of miles away, and they had no spare strength to use troops against the Qing Dynasty. Militarily, if Russia had invaded on a large scale at that time, the consequences for Qianlong would not have been much better than the Opium War, and although Russia could not conquer a big country like the Qing Dynasty, it could defeat the Qing army, plunder land, and force the Qing Dynasty to sign unequal treaties. Russia's military strength at that time was very strong, and even the Prussian army was inferior to the Russian army. In the Seven Years' War, Frederick II the Great of Prussia swept through Europe with the slashing tactics he created, but was defeated by the Russian army in the Battle of Kulsdorff, even Berlin was occupied by the Russian army, Frederick II almost committed suicide, if it were not for the sudden death of the Russian tsarina, Prussia would have been destroyed. If such a Russian army came to attack the Qing army, which was still using a large number of cold weapons, the result could be imagined.
Fortunately, Qianlong was fortunate, on the one hand, Russia was plagued by war in Europe, and on the other hand, the trade weapon of tea really squeezed the Tsar's seven inches powerfully. Originally, China's traditional advantages over the West were porcelain and silk, and these gorgeous luxuries fascinated the European aristocracy to death, but they could not ask for it, thus giving birth to infinite admiration for China. But by the Qianlong period, China's monopoly on porcelain and silk had been broken, and the level of European porcelain production surpassed that of China, when china's only tea was tea, and the Russians had to choose to be patient in order to get tea and the huge profits generated by this trade. But Qianlong's descendants are not so lucky, the Qing Dynasty government in the late Qing Dynasty still wants to balance the British with tea, but with the support of British advanced technology, India's Assam black tea has been successful, replacing China's position in the tea market in one fell swoop, and the "tea to yi" strategy that has lasted for thousands of years has completely failed.
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