History of Manchuria
is a region in East Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria can refer either to a region falling entirely within present-day China, or to a larger region today divided between Northeast China and the Russian Far East. To differentiate between the two parts following the latter definition, the Russian part is also known as Outer Manchuria, while the Chinese part is known as Northeast China.
Manchuria is the homeland of the Manchu people. "Manchu" is a name introduced by Hong Taiji of the Qing dynasty in 1636 for the Jurchen people, a Tungusic people.
The population grew from about 1 million in 1750 to 5 million in 1850 and to 14 million in 1900, largely because of the immigration of Han farmers.
Lying at the juncture of the Chinese, Japanese and Russian spheres of influence, Manchuria has been a hotbed of conflict since the late-19th century. The Russian Empire established control over the northern part of Manchuria in 1860 ; it built the Chinese Eastern Railway to consolidate its control. Disputes over Manchuria and Korea led to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo which became a centerpiece of the fast-growing Empire of Japan. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 led to the rapid collapse of Japanese rule, and the Soviets restored the region of Manchuria to Chinese rule: Manchuria served as a base of operations for the Mao Zedong's People's Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War, which led to the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In the Korean War of 1950–1953, Chinese forces used Manchuria as a base to assist North Korea against the United Nations Command forces. During the Sino–Soviet split Manchuria became a matter of contention, escalating to the Sino–Soviet border conflict in 1969. The Sino-Russian border dispute was resolved diplomatically only in 2004.
In recent years scholars have studied 20th-century Manchuria extensively, while paying less attention to the earlier period.
Prehistory
sites located in the region of Manchuria are represented by the Xinglongwa culture, Xinle culture and Hongshan culture.Early history
Antiquity to Tang dynasty
The earliest documented residents in what later became known as Manchuria were the Sushen, Donghu and Gojoseon peoples. Around 300 BC, the state of Yan expanded into what is now Liaoning province, establishing the commanderies of Liaoxi and Liaodong.After the fall of Yan, the region was successively ruled by the Qin, Han, and Jin dynasties and then various Xianbei states during the Sixteen Kingdoms era. Meanwhile, the kingdoms of Buyeo and Goguryeo were established to the north, at times controlling large territories of the region.
Manchuria was the homeland of several Tungusic ethnic groups, including the Ulchs and Nani. Various ethnic groups and their respective kingdoms, including the Xianbei, Wuhuan, Mohe and Khitan have risen to power in Manchuria.
Balhae
From 698 to 926, the kingdom of Bohai ruled over all of Manchuria, including the northern Korean peninsula and Primorsky Krai. Balhae was composed predominantly of Goguryeo language and Tungusic-speaking peoples, and was an early feudal medieval state of Eastern Asia, which developed its industry, agriculture, animal husbandry, and had its own cultural traditions and art. People of Balhae maintained political, economic and cultural contacts with both Silla and the Tang dynasty, as well as Japan.Northeastern Manchuria in today's Primorsky Krai was settled at this moment by northern Mohe tribes. It was incorporated to the Balhae Kingdom under King Seon's reign and put Balhae territory at its height. After subduing the Yulou Mohe first and the Yuexi Mohe thereafter, King Seon administered their territories by creating four prefectures : Solbin Prefecture, Jeongli Prefecture, Anbyeon Prefecture and Anwon Prefecture.
Liao and Jin dynasties
With the Song dynasty to the south, the Khitan people of Western Manchuria, who probably spoke a language related to the Mongolic languages, created the Liao dynasty in Inner and Outer Mongolia and conquered the region of Manchuria, and went on to control the adjacent part of the Sixteen Prefectures in Northern China as well.In the early 12th century the Tungusic Jurchen people, who originally lived in the forests in the eastern borderlands of the Liao Empire and were Liao's tributaries, overthrew the Liao and formed the Jin dynasty. They went on to control parts of Northern China and Mongolia after a series of successful military campaigns. Most of the surviving Khitan either assimilated into the bulk of the Han and Jurchen populations, or moved to Central Asia. However, according to DNA tests conducted by Liu Fengzhu of the Nationalities Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Daur people, still living in northern Manchuria, are also descendants of the Khitans.
File:Ussuriysk-Stone-Tortoise-S-3542.jpg|thumb|250px|left|A 12th-century Jin dynasty stone tortoise in today's Ussuriysk
The first Jin capital, Shangjing, located on the Ashi River within modern Harbin, was originally not much more than a city of tents, but in 1124 the second Jin emperor Wanyan Wuqimai starting a major construction project, had his ethnic Han chief architect, Lu Yanlun, build a new city at this site, emulating, on a smaller scale, the Northern Song capital Bianjing. When Bianjing fell to Jin troops in 1127, thousands of captured Song aristocrats, scholars, craftsmen and entertainers, along with the treasures of the Song capital, were all taken to Shangjing by the winners.
Although the Jin ruler Wanyan Liang, spurred on by his aspirations to become the ruler of a unified China, moved the Jin capital from Shangjing to Yanjing in 1153, and had the Shangjing palaces destroyed in 1157, the city regained a degree of significance under Wanyan Liang's successor, Emperor Shizong, who enjoyed visiting the region to get in touch with his Jurchen roots.
The capital of the Jin, Zhongdu, was captured by the Mongols in 1215 at the Battle of Zhongdu. The Jin then moved their capital to Kaifeng, which fell to Mongols in 1233. In 1234, the Jin dynasty collapsed after the siege of Caizhou. The last emperor of the Jin, Emperor Mo, was killed while fighting the Mongols who had breached the walls of the city. Days earlier, his predecessor, Emperor Aizong, committed suicide because he was unable to escape the besieged city.
Mongols and the Yuan dynasty
In 1211, after the conquest of Western Xia, Genghis Khan mobilized an army to conquer the Jin dynasty. His general Jebe and brother Qasar were ordered to reduce the Jurchen cities in Manchuria. They successfully destroyed the Jin forts there. The Khitans under Yelü Liuge declared their allegiance to Genghis Khan and established the nominally autonomous Eastern Liao dynasty in Manchuria in 1213. However, the Jin forces dispatched a punitive expedition against them. Jebe went there again and the Mongols pushed out the Jins.The Jin general, Puxian Wannu, rebelled against the Jin dynasty and founded the kingdom of Eastern Xia in Dongjing in 1215. He assumed the title Tianwang and the era name Tiantai. Puxian Wannu allied with the Mongols in order to secure his position. However, he revolted in 1222 after that and fled to an island while the Mongol army invaded Liaoxi, Liaodong, and Khorazm. As a result of an internal strife among the Khitans, they failed to accept Yelü Liuge's rule and revolted against the Mongol Empire. Fearing of the Mongol pressure, those Khitans fled to Goryeo without permission. But they were defeated by the Mongol-Korean alliance. Genghis Khan gave his brothers and Muqali Chinese districts in Manchuria.
Ögedei Khan's son Güyük crushed the Eastern Xia dynasty in 1233, pacifying southern Manchuria. Some time after 1234 Ögedei also subdued the Tungusic peoples in northern part of the region and began to receive falcons, harems and furs as taxation. The Mongols suppressed the Tungus rebellion in 1237. In Manchuria and Siberia, the Mongols used dogsled relays for their yam. The capital city Karakorum directly controlled Manchuria until the 1260s.
During the Yuan dynasty, established by Kublai Khan by renaming his empire to "Great Yuan" in 1271, Manchuria was administered under the Liaoyang province. Descendants of Genghis Khan's brothers such as Belgutei and Hasar ruled the area under the Great Khans. The Mongols eagerly adopted new artillery and technologies. The world's earliest known firearm is the Heilongjiang hand cannon, dated 1288, which was found in Mongol-held Manchuria.
After the expulsion of the Mongols from China proper, the Jurchen clans remained loyal to Toghan Temür, the last Yuan emperor. In 1375, Naghachu, a Mongol commander of the Northern Yuan dynasty in Liaoyang province invaded Liaodong with aims of restoring the Mongols to power. Although he continued to hold southern Manchuria, Naghachu finally surrendered to the Ming dynasty in 1387. In order to protect the northern border areas the Ming decided to "pacify" the Jurchens in order to deal with its problems with Yuan remnants along its northern border. The Ming solidified control only under Yongle Emperor.
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty took control of Liaoning in 1371, just three years after the expulsion of the Mongols from Beijing. During the reign of the Yongle Emperor in the early 15th century, efforts were made to expand Chinese control throughout entire Manchuria by establishing the Nurgan Regional Military Commission. Mighty river fleets were built in Jilin City, and sailed several times between 1409 and ca. 1432, commanded by the eunuch Yishiha down the Songhua and the Amur all the way to the mouth of the Amur, getting the chieftains of the local tribes to swear allegiance to the Ming rulers.Soon after the death of the Yongle Emperor the expansion policy of the Ming was replaced with that of retrenchment in southern Manchuria. Around 1442, a defence wall was constructed to defend the northwestern frontier of Liaodong from a possible threat from the Jurchen-Mongol Oriyanghan. In 1467–68 the wall was expanded to protect the region from the northeast as well, against attacks from Jianzhou Jurchens. Although similar in purpose to the Great Wall of China, this "Liaodong Wall" was of a simpler design. While stones and tiles were used in some parts, most of the wall was in fact simply an earthen dike with moats on both sides.
Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, the "Chinese god", Chinese motifs like the dragon, spirals, scrolls, and material goods like agriculture, husbandry, heating, iron cooking pots, silk, and cotton spread among the Amur natives like the Udeghes, Ulchis, and Nanais.
Starting in the 1580s, a Jianzhou Jurchens chieftain Nurhaci, originally based in the Hurha River valley northeast of the Ming Liaodong Wall, started to unify Jurchen tribes of the region. Over the next several decades, the Jurchen, took control over most of Manchuria, the cities of the Ming Liaodong falling to the Jurchen one after another. In 1616, Nurhaci declared himself a khan, and founded the Later Jin dynasty.