Manchuria

Manchuria, historical region of northeastern China. Strictly speaking, it consists of the modern provinces (sheng) of Liaoning (south), Jilin (central), and Heilongjiang (north). Often, however, the northeastern portion of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region also is included. Manchuria is bounded by Russia (northwest, north, and east), North Korea (south), and the province of Hebei (southwest). The Chinese call Manchuria the Northeast or the Northeast Provinces. Before the 1860s the Manchuria area also included those territories north of the Amur River (Heilong Jiang) that China’s Qing government ceded to Russia by the Sino-Russian Treaty of Aigun (Aihui) in 1858 and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Beijing in 1860.

Manchuria to about 1900

Prior to the 17th century, the history of Manchuria was shaped by three converging ethnic groups: the Chinese, the people collectively known as the Tungus, and the Mongols and Proto-Mongols. The Tungus (from which several groups emerged) were forest and plain dwellers who had a mixed economy of agriculture, fishing, hunting, and livestock breeding. Those in Manchuria were known in various historical periods by such names as Sushen, Yilou, Fuyu, Mohe, Juchen (Nüzhen), and, finally, Manchu (Manzhou, or Manzu). The Mongols and Proto-Mongols were nomadic pastoralists who occupied the grasslands of the eastern rim of the Mongolian Plateau and the eastern slope of the Da Hinggan (Greater Khingan) Range. They were known by such names as Xianbei, Wuhuan, Shiwei, Khitan (Qidan), and Mongol. The agricultural Chinese migrated from the north of China to cultivate the soil of the rich Liao Plain in southern Manchuria. The successive hegemonies and kingdoms in Manchuria resulted from violent clashes among these ethnic groups.

Prehistoric Manchuria was the eastern terminus of a natural highway for nomadic peoples who moved across the great Eurasian plain from the Volga River to the Korean peninsula. As early as 1000 bce, certain Manchurian tribes are mentioned in Chinese sources. The earliest settlement of Chinese colonies in southern Manchuria began about the 3rd century bce. Chinese immigration into southern Manchuria accelerated during the following centuries: in the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) some Manchurian lands were overrun by the Han, who organized those conquered territories into military commanderies. During the chaotic period following the collapse of the Han empire, China was able to maintain only a loose hegemony over Manchuria.

Under the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties, China was able to reassert some control over south Manchuria. In the late 7th century Manchuria’s pastoral Tungus peoples asserted their independence, founding in 698 the Zhen kingdom, which became the Bohai kingdom in 713. Centred in the modern province of Jilin, Bohai at its height covered nearly the whole of Manchuria and northern Korea. With the collapse of the Tang dynasty in 907, the Mongol subgroup known as the Khitan gradually gained ascendancy in Manchuria and began expanding south against China and west against the Turkic nations. In 926 the Khitan forces overthrew Bohai. At the height of its power, the Khitan empire under its reigning Liao dynasty occupied practically the whole of Manchuria, part of northern Korea, part of North China, and the greater part of the Mongolian Plateau.

In the late 11th century there ensued a marked decline in the administrative efficiency and military prowess of the Khitan empire. The non-Khitan subjects staged frequent rebellions against their overlord. Of particular importance among these rebels were the Juchen tribes, a group of Tungus peoples who lived beyond the Liao frontier but were in a tributary relationship to the Liao court.

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In 1115 Aguda, the paramount chief of the Juchen, signalized the drastic decline of Khitan power by proclaiming the establishment of the Jin kingdom. An alliance between the Juchen Jin kingdom and the Chinese Song dynasty succeeded in destroying the Liao empire in 1125. After the destruction of their common enemy, the Jin turned against the Song. In 1127 the Juchen sacked the Song capital, and the Song court retreated to the south, where it existed as the Nan (Southern) Song dynasty. The Juchen decided to incorporate the occupied Song territory into their own domain, and in 1152 their capital was moved from Manchuria to Yanjing (modern Beijing). By then, however, the formidable Jin military machine had become moribund and was an easy prey to the Mongols, who rose to power in the Mongolian Plateau in the 12th century.

In 1211 the Mongols invaded Jin under the leadership of the great Genghis Khan, and by 1234 Jin had succumbed to the combined pressure of the Mongols and the Song Chinese. Occupying the whole of Manchuria, the Mongols made it one province, the Liaoyang. In 1280 the Mongols completed the conquest of China, having already established the Yuan dynasty. Eventually, however, the Mongols’ harsh rule precipitated a series of rebellions among the Chinese, who overthrew the dynasty in 1368. The victorious Chinese established a native dynasty (the Ming), pursued the Mongols into the steppes, and reinstituted Chinese rule over the Liaodong Peninsula.

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During the 15th and 16th centuries the Mongols regained their strength and began pressing upon the Chinese frontier. As a result, the Ming position in Manchuria gradually deteriorated, and by the 17th century the Juchen were strong enough to challenge the Ming rule. It was the Jianzhou tribes under the leadership of Nurhachi (1559–1626) who succeeded in forging a new and greater Juchen empire. Beginning in 1583, Nurhachi led a series of campaigns that ultimately brought all the Juchen tribes under his control. In 1616 he was proclaimed han (“emperor”) by his subjects and allies. Nurhachi named his dynasty Jin, sometimes called the Hou (Later) Jin, in an attempt to rekindle the desire for imperial greatness among the Juchen people. After Nurhachi’s death, his son and successor, Abahai, continued the task of territorial expansion. When Abahai died in 1643, Manchu arms had been carried east into Korea, north into the Amur and Ussuri (Wusuli) river valleys, west to Inner Mongolia, and south to the Great Wall. Abahai adopted the name Manchu for his people and changed the dynastic designation from Jin to Qing. In 1644 the Manchu, with the help of dissident Chinese, established themselves as the new rulers of China. Qing dynastic rule of China lasted until 1911/12.

Although the Chinese had colonized the Liao Plain more than a thousand years before and had made it a centre of Chinese cultural influence, they had never been able to secure a foothold in central and north Manchuria, which remained predominantly a preserve of tribal groups. Paradoxically, it was during the period of Manchu ascendancy that the Chinese succeeded in penetrating the Sungari and Amur valleys. Until 1688 the Qing government encouraged Chinese immigration to Liaodong in order to revive its economy. After 1688 Chinese immigration was restricted. But the Manchu soon had to modify their exclusion policy when they were forced to strengthen the thinly spread Manchu garrisons in the Amur River valley with Chinese recruits to counter the eastward march of Russian power in the area. Manchuria’s natural resources attracted an unending stream of land-hungry peasants and other voluntary Chinese immigrants to Manchuria, despite the official ban. The flow of immigration became a flood tide in the 19th and 20th centuries as the Qing government actively sponsored planned colonization of virgin lands in Jilin and Heilongjiang. The growing Chinese presence helped the Manchurian economy develop from primitive self-sufficiency to an important centre of international trade. The great Manchuria frontier was thus inexorably Sinicized by Chinese colonists: the non-Manchu Tungus tribesmen of the Ussuri and Amur valleys declined in number year after year, and the Manchu soon merged imperceptibly into the Chinese population.