History of Manchuria
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 Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo which became a centerpiece of the fast-growing Empire of Japan.
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.
Various ethnic groups and their respective kingdoms, including the Xianbei, Wuhuan, Mohe and Khitan have risen to power in Manchuria.
People of Balhae maintained political, economic and cultural contacts with both Silla and the Tang dynasty, as well as Japan.
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.
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 (northeast China 东北), are also descendants of the Khitans.
[citation needed] 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 (Kaifeng).
[1] 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 (now Beijing) in 1153, and had the Shangjing palaces destroyed in 1157,[2] 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 Khitans under Yelü Liuge declared their allegiance to Genghis Khan and established the nominally autonomous Eastern Liao dynasty in Manchuria in 1213.
As a result of an internal strife among the Khitans, they failed to accept Yelü Liuge's rule and revolted against the Mongol Empire.
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.
[10] After the expulsion of the Mongols from China proper, the Jurchen clans remained loyal to Toghan Temür, the last Yuan emperor.
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.
The process of unification of the Jurchen people completed by Nurhaci was followed by his son's, Hong Taiji, energetic expansion into what became Outer Manchuria.
For decades the Qing rulers tried to prevent large-scale immigration of Han people, but they failed and the southern parts developed agricultural and social patterns similar to those of North China.
The region was separated from China proper by the Inner Willow Palisade, a ditch and embankment planted with willows intended to restrict the movement of the Han people into Manchuria during the Qing dynasty, as the area was off-limits to the Han until the Qing started colonizing the area with them later on in the dynasty's rule.
[17] Han farmers were resettled from north China by the Qing to the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation.
In 1860, at the Convention of Peking, the Russians managed to annex a further large slice of Manchuria, east of the Ussuri River.
In Chuang Guandong many Han farmers, mostly from Shandong peninsula moved there, attracted by cheap farmland that was ideal for growing soybeans.
During the Boxer Rebellion in 1899–1900, Russian soldiers killed ten thousand Chinese (Manchu, Han and Daur peoples) living in Blagoveshchensk and Sixty-Four Villages East of the River.
[21][22] In revenge, the Chinese Honghuzi conducted guerilla warfare against the Russian occupation of Manchuria and sided with Japan against Russia during the Russo-Japanese War.
Japan took advantage of the disorder following the Russian Revolution to occupy Outer Manchuria, but Soviet successes and American economic pressure forced Japanese withdrawal.
[25] Manchuria was (and still is) an important region for its rich mineral and coal reserves, and its soil is perfect for soy and barley production.
[31] From September 1903, Yi began to build up an armed force, digging extensive trenches between Bongcheon (now Shenyang), Manchuria, Jilin, and Jiandao.
[39] Around the time of World War I, Zhang Zuolin, a former bandit (Honghuzi) established himself as a powerful warlord with influence over most of Manchuria.
Under Japanese control Manchuria was one of the most brutally run regions in the world, with a systematic campaign of terror and intimidation against the local Russian and Chinese populations including arrests, organised riots and other forms of subjugation.
During the Korean War of the 1950s, 300,000 soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army crossed the Sino-Korean border from Manchuria to repulse UN forces led by the United States from North Korea.
The event was meant to foster feelings of reconciliation and cooperation between the two countries by their leaders, but it has also provoked different degrees of dissent on both sides.
In 1868, the local Russian government decided to close down goldfields near Vladivostok, in the Gulf of Peter the Great, where 1,000 Chinese were employed.
