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The Contrast between the Russian writer Chekhov traveling thousands of miles to Sakhalin Island, and the Qing Dynasty never visited even a decent reader, is the starting point for the author's thinking. Sakhalin Island lost... Why? Bu Jian, an expert in Qing history studies, used the book "The Past of Sakhalin Island" to try to answer.
*This article was originally published in Sanlian Life Weekly, No. 2, 2022, and the author authorized the original article of Sanlian Book.
Church in port dæe, 1896. The port is located in an important coal-producing area on the central west coast of Sakhalin Island, where Chekhov visited
Interview | Zhang Long
Q: The first chapter of your book is called "Why Chekhov Went to Sakhalin Island," so why did you study Sakhalin Island?
Bu Jian: Most of my generation has experienced a shortage of books and poor knowledge. At that time, I was in the Independent Third Regiment of the Shandong Construction Corps, and I was deeply impressed by the private exchange of some books on the torn skin and scrolls among my comrades-in-arms, including Chekhov's short stories. As for his "Sakhalin Travels", I read it very late, and only happened to read it after I went to work at the Qing History Center, and I was caught at once, it was the kind of eager and immersive reading, and it was precisely because of reading his book that I had the impulse to write history for Sakhalin Island.
Why did Chekhov go to Sakhalin? In fact, when Lao Qi made a decision, his relatives and friends did not understand and tried to dissuade him, and a painter who promised to go with him also repented. Chekhov coughed up blood on the way, hesitated, but did not flinch, and finally arrived at Sakhalin Island, and spent more than three months, from north to south, made an in-depth investigation, and wrote a "Sakhalin Travels" that shocked the world.
And this question is also raised: Why did not a single famous person land on Sakhalin Island during the Ming and Qing dynasties? Chekhov once said, "We should go to places like Sakhalin, just as the Turks worship Mecca." "I feel guilty after reading it! It was with such guilt that I began to write this book, trying my best to collect information, and asking my friends to check the accounts of Japan and Russia, which took more than five years to complete. The lack of historical materials, coupled with my shallow learning, many places in the book are not detailed and accurate enough, but it can roughly outline the brief history of the island, especially its departure, which is a matter of concern.
The sign on the wall of the old customs in Blagoveshchensk, where Chekhov stayed when he went to Sakhalin Island
Q: In order to study the history of Sakhalin Island, you traced the 3,000-year history of exchanges between the Central Plains and the Northeast Frontier, does this way of interaction have anything to do with the eventual departure of Sakhalin Island?
Bu Jian: I would like to answer from several aspects. First, it is very early and rarely recorded, but the historical context is generally visible. The early clans on Sakhalin Island belonged to Sushen, and according to the Records of the Great Dai Li, during the reigns of Shun, Yu, Tang, and King Wen of Zhou, "the Ming Sect of the People, which was known through the four seas, was solemn overseas, and was searched by the Northern Fa Canal, and served by the Qiang Dynasty." Overseas, researchers often refer to it as "seaside" or "beyond the four seas", which is not accurate enough, and should take into account the geographical characteristics of cautious crossings of straits, including Sakhalin Island.
Second, Su Shen is very far away from the Central Plains, and when ancient texts talk about this region, they talk more about its tributes, one is the neem stone stone, that is, the arrow, with thorns as the arrow shaft, and the small stones are ground into arrow clusters; the second is Hai Dongqing, a kind of falcon, which is white. "Chinese Lu Yuxia" writes the story of Confucius in Chen, saying that a negative arrow Hai Dongqing first fell on a tree in the palace, and then fell to the ground and died, everyone did not know the origin, Chen Huigong asked people to go to Confucius for advice. Confucius said that this arrow came from a place of solemnity and was called a stone stone. Later generations no longer attached importance to this simple thing, and Hai Dongqing was loved by successive dynasties, and there were many records in historical books and poems. From the word "Haidong", it can be felt, or inferred, that its main area of activity should be Sakhalin Island. During the long imperial period, Haidongqing, as the most rare tribute, attached rich historical information and political color, was related to tribal battles, dynastic changes, and rebellions of foreign domains (for example, Korea also offered Haidongqing to the Ming court for a long time).
Third, the existence of Sakhalin Island, which clearly records, has reached the Eastern Han Dynasty. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Biography of Dongyi Lie, which says that "there is a female country in the sea", should refer to Sakhalin Island. Since the Tang Dynasty set up the Heishui Governor's Mansion, the Liao Dynasty set up the Gongying Road, the Jin Dynasty assigned Sakhalin Island to Huli to change the road, called "Lady of the Sea", the Yuan Dynasty set up the Eastern Expedition to solicit envoys, and the Ming Dynasty established the Nuer Gandu Division, this island has been included in the Chinese territory, and gradually has an administrative subordination relationship.
Fourth, from the Han and Tang dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the ethnic groups on Sakhalin Island have always been autonomous, and the relationship with the imperial court is generally a tribute, and the exchanges have become closer and closer. But even the Ming Dynasty, which had established several guardhouses on the island, including the Qing Dynasty, which standardized the tribute system, still did not exercise direct rule, and the islanders basically fended for themselves, and their ties with the imperial court and local governments were still loose. This has also led to the lack of ability of indigenous peoples to resist foreign aggression, resulting in a lack of sense of belonging and identity, which has a great deal to do with the eventual loss of Sakhalin Island.
The "Map of Wula and Other Places", painted in the 29th year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1690), has the names of the Heng Rolling River and Temple Street, and is lost on Sakhalin Island. It is now in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Question: Sakhalin Island left the motherland in the Qing Dynasty, what responsibility did the Qing government have for sakhalin island's departure?
Bu Jian: Legally speaking, Sakhalin Island separated from China after the signing of the Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty, on the second day of the first month of the Xianfeng Decade, on November 14, 1860 AD. Combing through the previous history, you will find that the island has gradually drifted away from the mother body in Qianjiajian.
From the establishment of houjin by the Qing dynasty Emperor Nurhaci, the Manchu rulers used the original solemn land as a backyard, and the so-called "birth daughter Zhen" and "New Manchuria" included the tribes living on Sakhalin Island. The Qing army entered the customs, the capital was Beijing, and the Manchus moved to Guannei in batches, and the fundamental land was becoming more and more empty, let alone a farther and more desolate island? After the Kangxi Emperor recovered Yaksa, the overall stability of heilongjiang territory greatly increased, and the attention to Sakhalin Island increased greatly, and the system of rewarding Ulin and entering the capital for women was gradually established, but it was also mainly based on bondage, not strictly administrative jurisdiction. The system of tribute to Ulin is both effective and fragile. The more later, the more arrogant and domineering the officials who landed on the island, the more the elderly patriarch was forced to kowtow to the young members, how could there be no resentment in his heart? The Qing Dynasty had no facilities on the island, the three surnames yamen were two or three thousand miles away, and it took three or four months to land on the island to handle official business, and the response was slow and costly. The nearest establishment of the wooden city also showed a trend of continuous retreat, from Pulu and Qiji to Deleng, and then to the three surnames of the city. The residence of Kupham Feyaka is scattered, and every year the trip of the tribute mink has to cross the mountains and mountains, cross the sea and cross the river, which is extremely difficult. On the other hand, the mink rats are getting less and less beaten, the acceptance is becoming more and more demanding, and the price ratio of tribute and reward has changed greatly. As the road to tribute became longer and longer, the relationship between the Kupians and the imperial court gradually drifted away. Reflecting on this history is painful, and I personally believe that the long-term indifference of the Qing court should be the main reason for the loss of the island.
Scene of the Sakhalin tribute mink people paying tribute at the Delen Office, in the Eastern Tatar Chronicle
Q: Russia and Japan have successively coveted Sakhalin Island, what is the reason why they attach importance to Sakhalin Island?
Bu Jian: Sakhalin Island is a long strip of large island close to the northeast mainland, the northern end is facing the Mouth of the Heilongjiang River, the southern end is facing Hokkaido, the west is the Tatar Strait, the east is the North Pacific Ocean, the strategic location is extremely important; the island covers an area of 76,400 square kilometers, more than the sum of Taiwan Island and Hainan Island, and has rich forests, coal, fisheries, oil and other resources.
The Japanese interest in Sakhalin Island, which arose around the beginning of the seventeenth century, is limitedly known. More than a hundred years later, in the Edo period, Arai Shiraishi also believed that it was a distant unknown place that few people could reach, and "it was impossible to examine the vastness of the narrow in the meantime." Due to sakhalin's geographical relationship with Ezo (Hokkaido), Japan spied and infiltrated the island earlier. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, matsumae domain sent people to Sakhalin Island, and a year before Emperor Taiji declared himself emperor and changed his name to Daqing, he sent Zuoweimen Murakami Toubu to inspect the island, as if it were his own territory. In order to facilitate the invasion, the Japanese also changed the method of making a fuss about the name of the island, first called Tang Tai, changed the name to Northern Ezo, and later called Hua Tai. By the end of the Qianlong Dynasty, the Matsuzen clan had opened up fishing grounds in Anilva Bay in Nankupang, and built warehouses, processing yards, tax offices and even set up outposts.
The different island names reflect the Japanese's desire to encroach
As for the Russian interest in Sakhalin, it should be expanded a little more, talking about the interest of Europeans in the island. Chekhov said that "Europeans have long considered Sakhalin to be a peninsula", mainly because the French geographer Danville painted Sakhalin Island on a map as a peninsula (with the complex terrain of the Heilongjiang estuary bay). Danville misled Europeans for many years and remained influential until the mid-nineteenth century. The Russians have always coveted the outlet to the Heilongjiang River and have long been eyeing Sakhalin Island. They did not believe that a large river had no sea channel, until the summer of 1849, when The Baikal, after completing the transport mission to the port of Kamchatka, the Navy's Captain Nevelskoy and baikal, entered the Sea of Okhotsk through the Kuril Islands, reached the east coast of Sakhalin Island, bypassed the slender headland in the northeast, surveyed the shore, sailed into the estuary bay, and finally found the mouth of the Heilongjiang River with turbulent waters, determined that there was a deep-water channel to the sea, and then sailed south to survey the Tatar Strait, confirming that Sakhalin Island was not connected to the mainland, and could sail around the island and lead directly to Japan.
It was in the twenty-ninth year of Daoguang, the Qing court first suffered a fiasco in the Opium War, and was also overwhelmed by the British's request to enter Guangzhou, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Xianggan flooded one after another, and Hong Xiuquan's worship of God had gathered more than 10,000 believers, and its momentum was like a storm... Did you know that the Russians have infiltrated the northeastern frontier and the sea frontier? The lack of precautions by local officials, the far-shrinking and ineffectiveness of the border Karen, and the alienation of the tribes in the border areas have made the blatant invasion of Neshi and others unimpeded. In June 1850, Nevelskoy, who had been promoted to colonel, returned to the mouth of the Heilongjiang River with 25 sailors, began to build barracks (Peter Winter Camp) in Happy Bay, and then set up a post on Temple Street, and sent people to Sakhalin Island to survey and map, and the history of the island and the area east of the Ussuri River in the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River was completely rewritten.
Gennaki Ivanovich Nevelskoy (1813–1876) was a Russian admiral. In June 1849, he led the transport ship "Baikal" around the northern end of Sakhalin Island into the estuary bay to investigate, found the Heilongjiang River through the sea channel, and then sent personnel to Sakhalin Island to investigate, and in 1853 set up a military post in Aniwa Bay
Q: From the material you have quoted, what do you think the attitude of the aborigines of Sakhalin Island towards the outsiders?
Bu Jian: There are three large tribes on Sakhalin Island: the Phayaka in the north and central parts, the main tribe of the island, which is close to the Hezhe people in the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, at least close to the clan; the Ainu people in the south, generally considered to be close to the Ainu people on Ezo (Hokkaido); and the Orenchun people on the Turm River in the south-central part of the east coast, who speak the Tungusic language, should be unable to tolerate the bullying and heavy taxes of the Luocha invaders, and migrated from the Waixing'an Mountains in the early Qing Dynasty.
The attitude of the island's ethnic groups towards outsiders, since they had no writing, could only be understood from Russian and Japanese literature. As a witness, Mamiya Hayashizō wrote in the book that the southern Ainu people were friendlier, the central and northern parts were very suspicious, and encountered dangerous scenes of the Shandan people. He lived in the homes of the islanders for several months during the survey and was generally accepted, but when he accompanied the ship of tribute to the delegatory sable to the delegating office on the mainland, he strongly felt the antipathy of the common people towards the Japanese, and the Qing officials were very friendly. Three years before the palace, in the summer and autumn of 1805, two groups of Russians landed on Sakhalin Island, both with clear colonial expansion plans, both armed and led by Russian naval officers. First, the Hope led by KrusonShthtern landed from the headland in the northeast, and the Fiyaka people of the local village, although not without vigilance and apprehension, still behaved relatively friendly, hugging and greeting these uninvited guests, and sympathizing with the sick among them. Second, the aforementioned Russian Navy, which landed in aniwa Bay, was obviously very happy when they smashed the Japanese warehouse on the island and beat up the Japanese foreman. Nearly half a century later, Nevelskoy led the Russian ships to the Gulf of Aniwa, and the Ainu enthusiastically helped the Russians unload various items, and even hoped that the Japanese foreman would be punished, as they did after the Russian landings more than 40 years ago.
The Fiyaka people of Sakhalin Island
More than thirty years later, Chekhov wrote about the tragic fate of the indigenous people after the Russian occupation, the mass death caused by the foreign plague, the wanton slaughter of fugitives, and the rapid degeneration of all kinds of temptations. Will they miss their homeland? yes. From the "Translation and Compilation of the Manchu Archives of the Three Surnames and Vice-Governors", we can know that until the twelfth year of Tongzhi (1873), in the list of tribute minks, there were still a list of 148 households with 6 surnames on Sakhalin Island, all of which were marked as "received". At that time, the entire lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River and the east of the Ussuri River belonged to Russia, and the heavy card was set up to strictly prohibit the passage of the Gong Sables, and I really don't know how they crossed the strait to reach the three surname cities thousands of miles away.
Q: There are two clues in your book, one is sakhalin island written by the literary scholar Chekhov, and the other is Sakhalin island recorded in Chinese and foreign historical records.
Bu Jian: Ha, thanks for the prompt. I didn't have this design when I was writing, and when you analyze it, I really think it's like this.
In my opinion, Chekhov's Sakhalin Travels is a strange book, a masterpiece, full of human love and compassion, and a manifestation of the noble character and sentiments of a great writer. The book not only writes about the different classes of people on the island, the hellish prisons and settlements, and the decay and transformation of the original ethnic groups during the Russian occupation period, but also a true record of the Russian-Japanese struggle for Sakhalin Island. It was after reading this book that I began to gaze at Sakhalin Island in shock, looking for its thousands of years of travels, detracting its connection to dynasties, searching for evidence of the jurisdiction of the Ming and Qing dynasties over the island, and focusing on documenting its journey to china. In addition to searching through domestic archives and searching for Russian and Japanese sources, three books have benefited a lot, namely, Maguya Hayashizō's "Eastern Tartar Chronicles", Nevilleskoy's "The Merits of Russian Naval Officers in the Russian Far East", and then "Sakhalin's Travels", which are not at all on the same scale as the first two. Chekhov's words shocked me and fascinated me, because they were naturally quoted during the writing process, and they formed two clues, which were not deliberately sought.
In 1891, prayers were held in prison
The respect of Lao Qi's visit lies in his concern for a desolate and remote land, in his inability to ignore human suffering and injustice, and even more in the fact that he does not approve of the colonial occupation of Tsarist Russia, and reveals through the mouths of different people that it is not Russia. The main purpose of this book is not to condemn the infiltration and invasion of Russia and Japan, let alone the claim of sovereignty, but to take the loss of Sakhalin Island as an example to make a deep historical reflection that is painful. If there are two lines in this book, I think that these two lines should be tied together in "deep self-examination and self-seeking", and have no role in each other.
Q: Your narrative is something I like very much, not rigid, with true feelings, how do you think non-fiction works with historical themes should be written to have more readers?
Bu Jian: Thank you for the encouragement. In fact, I am more sober in this regard, and I know that there will be some people who do not like it and do not accept this way of writing. Whether historical writing should be cold or passionate, neither the reader nor the author seems to be in agreement. From choosing such a topic, to determining the framework of the whole book, to writing section by section, I have a strong emotion to bring in, confused, lost, sad, resentful, compassionate, and emotional. And this kind of "not rigid, there is truth" is exactly what some scholars oppose, believing that it is not rigorous and calm. Even a great Confucian like Mr. Qian Mu, who advocates treating the history of the motherland with warmth, has been scorned by some academic schools. The "historiography is the study of historical materials" advocated by Fu Sinian still has a strong influence to this day, and this language has its own academic value, but it is also somewhat self-narrowing, some paranoid and rude. Of course, historical writing is inseparable from historical materials and the comparative analysis of historical materials, but it is also indispensable without inference, deduction and imagination. It is also the essence of the "History", and it is a height that is difficult to reach in the history books of later generations.
The loss of Sakhalin Island was mainly due to the theft and seizure of the two neighboring countries, Russia and Japan, and the responsibility of the Qing court was both large and long-lasting. In recent years, my research has been more on the Qianjia and Jia dynasties, which was another period of cultural prosperity and academic flourishing in Chinese history. And it was in this so-called Great Qing Dynasty that Sakhalin Island was basically ignored and forgotten, and no one was seen to propose the governance of this big island, no one paid attention to the compatriots there, no one even thought of it and mentioned it, and no one noticed that a group of robbers were circling around it, or even quietly sneaking in.
The stele of Yongning Temple on Cape Trin and the surrounding terrain seen by Theo palace Linzang and his return trip to the Deleng Office with the Sakhalin Island Tribute Marten Household are published in the "Eastern Tartar Chronicle"
When it comes to history, we will think of the word "Taoism," the core of which should be the feelings of the family and the country, the responsibility of responsibility, "establishing a heart for heaven and earth, establishing a destiny for the people, continuing to learn from the saints, and opening up peace for all the worlds"; it is "profiting from the life and death of the country, and avoiding it because of misfortune and happiness", and everything else falls into two meanings. Sakhalin Island is a mirror, and Chekhov is also a mirror, illuminating the stubbornness and triviality of those Qianjia Daru. I can't prescribe a recipe for how to write a good history book, but I often take it as a lesson in writing, I am more devoted and serious, and I hope that readers will like it.
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Sakhalin Island Past
Bu Jian wrote
Life, Reading, And New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore 2021-11
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