Tannu Uriankhai
Encyclopedia
Tannu Uriankhai is a historic region of the Mongol Empire
and, later, the Qing Dynasty
. The realms of Tannu Uriankhai largely correspond to the Tuva Republic of the Russian Federation
, neighboring areas in Russia, and a part of the modern state of Mongolia
.
After Outer Mongolia
declared independence from the Qing Dynasty
and Republic of China
in the early 20th century, the region of Tannu Uriankhai increasingly came under Russian influence and finally became an independent communist state
, the Tuvinian People's Republic
, which was annexed by the Soviet Union
in 1944.
Sovereignty over the area has not been officially renounced by the Republic of China
, based on the island of Taiwan
since 1949.
in China (1279-1368), Tannu Uriankhai was controlled by the Oirots
(western Mongolians, also known as Zungars until the end of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Thereafter, the history of western Mongolia, and by extension Tannu Uriankhai (more as a spectator than as a participant), is a story of the complex military relations between the Altan Khanate (Khotogoit tribe) and the Oirots, both competing for supremacy in western Mongolia.
The Qing dynasty
established its dominion over Mongolia as a result of intervening in a war between the Oirots and the Khalkha
s, the dominant tribe in the eastern half of Mongolia. In 1691 the Emperor Kangxi accepted the submission of the Khalkhas at Dolon Nor in Inner Mongolia, and then personally led an army into Mongolia, defeating the Oirots near Ulaanbaatar (the capital of present-day Mongolia] in 1696. Mongolia was now part of the Qing state. Qing rule over Tuva came more peacefully, not by conquest but by threat: In 1726 the Emperor Yongzheng ordered the Khotogoit Khan Buuvei Beise to accompany a high Qing official ("amban") to "inform the Uriankhais of [Qing] edicts" in order to prevent "something untoward from happening." The Uriankhais appear to have accepted this arrangement without dispute, at least none is recorded. Qing subjugation of the Altai Uriankhai and the Altainor Uriankhai occurred later, in 1754, as part of a broader military offensive against the Oirots.
The Tannu Uriankhai were reorganized into an administrative system similar to that of Mongolia, with five khoshuns ("banner") and 46 or 47 sumuns ("arrow") (Chinese and Russian sources differ on the number of khoshuns and sumuns). Each khoshun was governed by an hereditary prince nominally appointed by the Qing military governor at Uliastai. In the latter half of the 18th century, one of the khoshun princes was placed in charge of the others as governor ("amban-noyon") in recognition of his military service to the dynasty.
Tannu Uriankhai (as well as Altai and Altainor Uriankhai) occupied a unique position in the Qing Dynasty’s frontier administration system. If Qing statutes rigorously defined procedures to be followed by the nobles of Outer and Inner Mongolia, Zungaria, and Qinghai for rendering tribute, receiving government stipends, and participating in imperial audiences, they are silent regarding Tannu Uriankhai. After the demarcation of the Sino-Russian border by the Treaty of Kyakhta (1727), the Qing inexplicably placed border guards ("yurt pickets," Mongolian: ger kharuul) south of the Tannu-ola Mountains separating Tannu Uriankai from Outer Mongolia, not along the Sayan Mountains separating the region from Russia. (This fact was used by 19th-century Russian polemicists, and later Soviet writers, to prove that Tuva had historically been "disputed" territory between Russia and China.) The Qing military governor at Uliastiai, on his triennial inspection tours of the 24 pickets under his direct supervision, never crossed the Tannu-ola mountains to visit Uriankhai. When problems occurred meriting official attention, the military governor would sent a Mongol from his staff rather than attend to the matter himself.
Indeed, there is no evidence that Tannu Uriankhai was ever visited by a senior Qing official (except perhaps in 1726). Chinese merchants were forbidden to cross the pickets, a law not lifted until the turn of the 20th century. Instead, a few days were set aside for trade at Uliastai when Uriankhai nobles delivered their annual fur tribute to the military governor and received their salaries and other imperial gifts (primarily bolts of satin and cotton cloth) from the emperor. Thus, Tannu Uriankhai enjoyed a degree of political and cultural autonomy unequalled on the Chinese frontier.
Russian merchants from Minusinsk followed, especially after the Treaty of Peking http://www.answers.com/topic/treaty-of-peking in 1860, which opened China to foreign trade. They were lured by the "wild prices," as one 19th-century Russian writer described them, that Uriankhais were willing to pay for Russian manufactured goods—cloth, haberdashery, samovars, knives, tobacco, etc. By the end of the 1860s there were already sixteen commercial "establishments" (zavedenie) in Tannu Uriankhai. The Uriankhais paid for these goods in livestock-on-the-hoof, furs, and animal skins (sheep, goat, horse, and cattle). But crossing the Sayan Mountains was a journey not without hardships, and even peril; thus, by 1880-85 there were perhaps no more than 50 (or fewer) Russian traders operating in Tannu Uriankhai during the summer, when trade was most active.
Russian colonization followed. It started in 1856 with a sect of Old Believers called the "Seekers of White Waters," a place which according to their tradition was isolated from the rest of the world by impassible mountains and forests, where they could obtain refuge from government authorities and where the Nikon rites of the Russian Orthodox Church were not practiced. In the 1860s a different kind of refugee arrived, those fleeing from penal servitude in Siberia. More Russians came. Small settlements were formed in the northern and central parts of Tuva.
The formal beginning of Russian colonization in Tannu Uriankhai occurred in 1885, when a merchant received permission from the Governor-General of Irkutsk to farm at present-day Turan. Other settlements were formed, and by the first decade of the 20th century there were perhaps 2,000 merchants and colonists.
By the late 1870s and in the 1880s the Russian presence had acquired a political content. In 1878 Russians discovered gold in eastern Uriankhai. There were rumors of fabulous wealth to be gained from this area, and the Russian provincial authorities at Yeniseisk were deluged with petitions from gold miners to mine (permission was granted). Merchants and miners petitioned Russian authorities for military and police protection. In 1886 the Usinsk Frontier Superintendent was established, its primary function to represent Russian interests in Tannu-Uriankhai with Uriankhai nobles (not Qing officials) and to issue passports to Russians traveling in Uriankhai. Over the years this office was to quietly but steadily claim the power of government over at least the Russians in the region—taxation, policing, administration, and justice—powers that should have belonged to, but were effectively relinquished by, the Qing. Shortly after the office of Superintendent was created, the "Sibirskaya gazeta" brought out a special edition, congratulating the government on its creation, and predicting that all Tannu Uriankhai would someday become part of the Russian state.
As a general observation, the Tsarist government had been reluctant to act precipitously in Uriankhai for fear of arousing the Qing. It generally preferred a less obvious approach, one that depended on colonization (encouraged quietly) rather than military action. And it is this that fundamentally distinguished ultimate Russian dominion over Tannu Uriankhai from that of Outer Mongolia, with which it has often been compared. In the former, the Russians were essentially colonists; in the latter, they were traders. The Russians built permanent farm houses in Uriankhai, opened land for cultivation, erected fences, and raised livestock. They were there to stay. What gave the Russian presence added durability was its concentration in the northern and central parts of Tannu Uriankhai, areas sparsely populated by the natives themselves. It was Russian colonization, therefore, rather than purposeful Tsarist aggression, that resulted in Tannu Uriankhai ultimately becoming part of Russia in the following century.
But in the second half of the 19th century the Qing government was far too distracted by internal problems to deal with this. Instead, it was left to local officials on the frontier to manage the Russians as best they could, an impossible task without funds or troops. The military governors at Uliastai had to be content with limp protests and inconclusive investigations.
There was another reason. Uriankhai trade with Russians was conducted on credit using a complex system of valuation principally pegged to squirrel skins. As the number of squirrels declined because of over-hunting, the price of goods increased. The Russians also manipulated the trade by encouraging credit purchases at usurious rates of interest. If repayment were not forthcoming, Russian merchants would drive off the livestock either of the debtor or his relatives or friends. This resulted in retaliatory raids by the Uriankhai.
The situation worsened when the Chinese came. Although the Qing had been successful in keeping Chinese traders out of Uriankhai (unlike in Mongolia and other parts of the frontier), in 1902 they were allowed the cross the border to counter Russian domination of the Uriankhai economy. By 1910 there were 30 or so shops, all branches of Chinese firms operating in Uliastai. For a host of reasons—more aggressive selling, easier credit terms, cheaper and more popular goods for sale—the Chinese were soon able to dominate commerce just as they had in Mongolia. Soon, the Uriankhais, commoners and princes alike, had accumulated large debts to the Chinese.
The end of Qing rule in Tannu Uriankhai came quickly. On October 10, 1911 the revolution to overthrow the Qing broke out in China, and soon afterwards Chinese provinces followed one another in declaring their independence. The Outer Mongolians declared their own independence of China on December 1, and expelled the Qing viceroy four days later. In the second half of December bands of Uriankhai began plundering and burning Chinese shops.
Uriankhai nobles were divided on their course of political action. The Uriankhai governor (amban-noyon), Gombo-Dorzhu, advocated becoming a protectorate of Russia, hoping that the Russians in turn would appoint him governor of Uriankhai. But the princes of two other khoshuns preferred to submit to the new Outer Mongolian state under the theocratic rule of the Jebstundamba Khutukhtu of Urga.
Undeterred, Gombu-Dorzhu sent a petition to the Frontier Superintendent at Usinsk stating that he had been chosen as leader of the an independent Tannu Uriankhai state. He asked for protection, and proposed that Russian troops be sent immediately into the country to prevent China from restoring its rule over the region. There was no reply—three months earlier the Tsarist Council of Ministers had already decided on a policy of gradual, cautious absorption of Uriankhai by encouraging Russian colonization. Precipitous action by Russia, the Council feared, might provoke China.
This position changed, however, as a result of genuine concern for the safety of Russian lives and property in Uriankhai, pressure from commercial circles in Russia for a more activist approach, and a petition from two Uriankhai khoshuns in the fall of 1913 requesting to be accepted as a part of Russia. Other Uriankhai khoshuns soon followed suit. In April 1914 Tannu Uriankhai was formally accepted as a protectorate of Russia.
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
and, later, the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
. The realms of Tannu Uriankhai largely correspond to the Tuva Republic of the Russian Federation
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, neighboring areas in Russia, and a part of the modern state of Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
.
After Outer Mongolia
Outer Mongolia
Outer Mongolia was a territory of the Qing Dynasty = the Manchu Empire. Its area was roughly equivalent to that of the modern state of Mongolia, which is sometimes informally called "Outer Mongolia" today...
declared independence from the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
and Republic of China
Republic of China (1912–1949)
In 1911, after over two thousand years of imperial rule, a republic was established in China and the monarchy overthrown by a group of revolutionaries. The Qing Dynasty, having just experienced a century of instability, suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism...
in the early 20th century, the region of Tannu Uriankhai increasingly came under Russian influence and finally became an independent communist state
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
, the Tuvinian People's Republic
Tuvinian People's Republic
The Tuvan People's Republic was an independent state in the territory of the former Tuvan protectorate of Imperial Russia , also known as Uryankhaisky Krai . It was a satellite state of USSR...
, which was annexed by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1944.
Sovereignty over the area has not been officially renounced by the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
, based on the island of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
since 1949.
History
With the fall of the Yuan DynastyYuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
in China (1279-1368), Tannu Uriankhai was controlled by the Oirots
Oirats
Oirats are the westernmost group of the Mongols who unified several tribes origin whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of western Mongolia. Although the Oirats originated in the eastern parts of Central Asia, the most prominent group today is located in the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal...
(western Mongolians, also known as Zungars until the end of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Thereafter, the history of western Mongolia, and by extension Tannu Uriankhai (more as a spectator than as a participant), is a story of the complex military relations between the Altan Khanate (Khotogoit tribe) and the Oirots, both competing for supremacy in western Mongolia.
The Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
established its dominion over Mongolia as a result of intervening in a war between the Oirots and the Khalkha
Khalkha
Khalkha is the largest subgroup of Mongol people in Mongolia since 15th century. The Khalkha together with Tsahar, Ordos and Tumed, were directly ruled by the Altan Urag Khans until the 20th century; unlike the Oirat people who were ruled by the Dzungar nobles or the Khorchins who were ruled by...
s, the dominant tribe in the eastern half of Mongolia. In 1691 the Emperor Kangxi accepted the submission of the Khalkhas at Dolon Nor in Inner Mongolia, and then personally led an army into Mongolia, defeating the Oirots near Ulaanbaatar (the capital of present-day Mongolia] in 1696. Mongolia was now part of the Qing state. Qing rule over Tuva came more peacefully, not by conquest but by threat: In 1726 the Emperor Yongzheng ordered the Khotogoit Khan Buuvei Beise to accompany a high Qing official ("amban") to "inform the Uriankhais of [Qing] edicts" in order to prevent "something untoward from happening." The Uriankhais appear to have accepted this arrangement without dispute, at least none is recorded. Qing subjugation of the Altai Uriankhai and the Altainor Uriankhai occurred later, in 1754, as part of a broader military offensive against the Oirots.
Qing administration
Tannu Uriankhai (as well as Altai and Altainor Uriankhai) occupied a unique position in the Qing Dynasty’s frontier administration system. If Qing statutes rigorously defined procedures to be followed by the nobles of Outer and Inner Mongolia, Zungaria, and Qinghai for rendering tribute, receiving government stipends, and participating in imperial audiences, they are silent regarding Tannu Uriankhai. After the demarcation of the Sino-Russian border by the Treaty of Kyakhta (1727), the Qing inexplicably placed border guards ("yurt pickets," Mongolian: ger kharuul) south of the Tannu-ola Mountains separating Tannu Uriankai from Outer Mongolia, not along the Sayan Mountains separating the region from Russia. (This fact was used by 19th-century Russian polemicists, and later Soviet writers, to prove that Tuva had historically been "disputed" territory between Russia and China.) The Qing military governor at Uliastiai, on his triennial inspection tours of the 24 pickets under his direct supervision, never crossed the Tannu-ola mountains to visit Uriankhai. When problems occurred meriting official attention, the military governor would sent a Mongol from his staff rather than attend to the matter himself.
Indeed, there is no evidence that Tannu Uriankhai was ever visited by a senior Qing official (except perhaps in 1726). Chinese merchants were forbidden to cross the pickets, a law not lifted until the turn of the 20th century. Instead, a few days were set aside for trade at Uliastai when Uriankhai nobles delivered their annual fur tribute to the military governor and received their salaries and other imperial gifts (primarily bolts of satin and cotton cloth) from the emperor. Thus, Tannu Uriankhai enjoyed a degree of political and cultural autonomy unequalled on the Chinese frontier.
Russian settlement
Russian settlement of the region began in 1839 with the opening of two gold mines in the Sayan Mountains; in the following decades, other areas were exploited for mining, mainly in the northern part of Uriankhai. By 1883 the total number of Russian miners in had reached 485.Russian merchants from Minusinsk followed, especially after the Treaty of Peking http://www.answers.com/topic/treaty-of-peking in 1860, which opened China to foreign trade. They were lured by the "wild prices," as one 19th-century Russian writer described them, that Uriankhais were willing to pay for Russian manufactured goods—cloth, haberdashery, samovars, knives, tobacco, etc. By the end of the 1860s there were already sixteen commercial "establishments" (zavedenie) in Tannu Uriankhai. The Uriankhais paid for these goods in livestock-on-the-hoof, furs, and animal skins (sheep, goat, horse, and cattle). But crossing the Sayan Mountains was a journey not without hardships, and even peril; thus, by 1880-85 there were perhaps no more than 50 (or fewer) Russian traders operating in Tannu Uriankhai during the summer, when trade was most active.
Russian colonization followed. It started in 1856 with a sect of Old Believers called the "Seekers of White Waters," a place which according to their tradition was isolated from the rest of the world by impassible mountains and forests, where they could obtain refuge from government authorities and where the Nikon rites of the Russian Orthodox Church were not practiced. In the 1860s a different kind of refugee arrived, those fleeing from penal servitude in Siberia. More Russians came. Small settlements were formed in the northern and central parts of Tuva.
The formal beginning of Russian colonization in Tannu Uriankhai occurred in 1885, when a merchant received permission from the Governor-General of Irkutsk to farm at present-day Turan. Other settlements were formed, and by the first decade of the 20th century there were perhaps 2,000 merchants and colonists.
By the late 1870s and in the 1880s the Russian presence had acquired a political content. In 1878 Russians discovered gold in eastern Uriankhai. There were rumors of fabulous wealth to be gained from this area, and the Russian provincial authorities at Yeniseisk were deluged with petitions from gold miners to mine (permission was granted). Merchants and miners petitioned Russian authorities for military and police protection. In 1886 the Usinsk Frontier Superintendent was established, its primary function to represent Russian interests in Tannu-Uriankhai with Uriankhai nobles (not Qing officials) and to issue passports to Russians traveling in Uriankhai. Over the years this office was to quietly but steadily claim the power of government over at least the Russians in the region—taxation, policing, administration, and justice—powers that should have belonged to, but were effectively relinquished by, the Qing. Shortly after the office of Superintendent was created, the "Sibirskaya gazeta" brought out a special edition, congratulating the government on its creation, and predicting that all Tannu Uriankhai would someday become part of the Russian state.
As a general observation, the Tsarist government had been reluctant to act precipitously in Uriankhai for fear of arousing the Qing. It generally preferred a less obvious approach, one that depended on colonization (encouraged quietly) rather than military action. And it is this that fundamentally distinguished ultimate Russian dominion over Tannu Uriankhai from that of Outer Mongolia, with which it has often been compared. In the former, the Russians were essentially colonists; in the latter, they were traders. The Russians built permanent farm houses in Uriankhai, opened land for cultivation, erected fences, and raised livestock. They were there to stay. What gave the Russian presence added durability was its concentration in the northern and central parts of Tannu Uriankhai, areas sparsely populated by the natives themselves. It was Russian colonization, therefore, rather than purposeful Tsarist aggression, that resulted in Tannu Uriankhai ultimately becoming part of Russia in the following century.
Qing reaction
The Qing government was not oblivious to the Russian presence. In the 1860s and 1870s the Uliastai military governor on a number of occasions reported to Peking on the movement of Russians into Uriankhai. Its suspicions were further aroused by other events. At negotiations between it and Russia resulting in the Tarbagatai Protocol of 1864, which defined a part of the Sino-Russian border, the Russian representative insisted that all territory to the north of the Qing frontier pickets fall to Russia. Moreover, the Uliastai military governor obtained a Russian map showing the Tannu-ola Mountains as the Sino-Russian border.But in the second half of the 19th century the Qing government was far too distracted by internal problems to deal with this. Instead, it was left to local officials on the frontier to manage the Russians as best they could, an impossible task without funds or troops. The military governors at Uliastai had to be content with limp protests and inconclusive investigations.
End of Qing rule
By the early 20th century the Uriankhai economy had seriously deteriorated, resulting in the increasing poverty of its people. The causes were varied: declining number of fur-bearing animals probably due to over-hunting by both Uriankhais and Russians; declining number of livestock as a result of the export market to Siberia; and periodic natural disasters (especially droughts and plagues), which took a fearful toll on livestock herds.There was another reason. Uriankhai trade with Russians was conducted on credit using a complex system of valuation principally pegged to squirrel skins. As the number of squirrels declined because of over-hunting, the price of goods increased. The Russians also manipulated the trade by encouraging credit purchases at usurious rates of interest. If repayment were not forthcoming, Russian merchants would drive off the livestock either of the debtor or his relatives or friends. This resulted in retaliatory raids by the Uriankhai.
The situation worsened when the Chinese came. Although the Qing had been successful in keeping Chinese traders out of Uriankhai (unlike in Mongolia and other parts of the frontier), in 1902 they were allowed the cross the border to counter Russian domination of the Uriankhai economy. By 1910 there were 30 or so shops, all branches of Chinese firms operating in Uliastai. For a host of reasons—more aggressive selling, easier credit terms, cheaper and more popular goods for sale—the Chinese were soon able to dominate commerce just as they had in Mongolia. Soon, the Uriankhais, commoners and princes alike, had accumulated large debts to the Chinese.
The end of Qing rule in Tannu Uriankhai came quickly. On October 10, 1911 the revolution to overthrow the Qing broke out in China, and soon afterwards Chinese provinces followed one another in declaring their independence. The Outer Mongolians declared their own independence of China on December 1, and expelled the Qing viceroy four days later. In the second half of December bands of Uriankhai began plundering and burning Chinese shops.
Uriankhai nobles were divided on their course of political action. The Uriankhai governor (amban-noyon), Gombo-Dorzhu, advocated becoming a protectorate of Russia, hoping that the Russians in turn would appoint him governor of Uriankhai. But the princes of two other khoshuns preferred to submit to the new Outer Mongolian state under the theocratic rule of the Jebstundamba Khutukhtu of Urga.
Undeterred, Gombu-Dorzhu sent a petition to the Frontier Superintendent at Usinsk stating that he had been chosen as leader of the an independent Tannu Uriankhai state. He asked for protection, and proposed that Russian troops be sent immediately into the country to prevent China from restoring its rule over the region. There was no reply—three months earlier the Tsarist Council of Ministers had already decided on a policy of gradual, cautious absorption of Uriankhai by encouraging Russian colonization. Precipitous action by Russia, the Council feared, might provoke China.
This position changed, however, as a result of genuine concern for the safety of Russian lives and property in Uriankhai, pressure from commercial circles in Russia for a more activist approach, and a petition from two Uriankhai khoshuns in the fall of 1913 requesting to be accepted as a part of Russia. Other Uriankhai khoshuns soon followed suit. In April 1914 Tannu Uriankhai was formally accepted as a protectorate of Russia.
See also
- The Sixty-Four Villages East of the Heilongjiang River is another territory annexed by Russia, claimed by the Republic of China now based in Taiwan.