Chapter 005: The Lost Past
Although there was no territorial information, at least it proved that these people had a favorable opinion of Soviet Russia, and Stalin was a little more relaxed.
Stalin believed that the Chinese side should also send the Socialist Party with ties to Soviet Russia with the intention of settling the territorial dispute by peaceful means.
Stalin planned to delay as long as he could, although because of the Sino-Japanese peace talks, the Anglo-American counteroffensive in North Africa was delayed for a long time, and the counterattack on France was even more remote, but this did not prevent Stalin from being greedy for territory.
Before Zhou Wen came, Wang Hanzhang gave a detailed list of how to kill Chinese compatriots in order to let Zhou Wen have a more profound person.
In 1727, during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, China and Russia signed the Treaty of Brendches and the Treaty of Kyakhta, which defined the middle boundary between the two countries. In these two treaties, because the Qing negotiators were ignorant of the actual situation on the border and were deceived by the maps provided by Russia, the Chinese side suffered heavy losses, losing more than 300,000 square kilometers of land in the Angara River basin south of Lake Baikal and north of Kyakhta. Lake Baikal, located in the south of the Central Siberian Plateau and north of the Mongolian Plateau, is more than 600 kilometers long from north to south, 50 kilometers wide from east to west, with an area of more than 30,000 square kilometers, and is the largest freshwater lake in the Far East and Siberia. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, with a depth of 50 meters at shallow places, 1,620 meters at its deepest point, and an average depth of 720 meters. In total, more than 350 rivers flow into Lake Baikal, but only one from the Angara River. As a result, Baikal has a huge amount of water, far exceeding all other freshwater lakes in the world. In total, Lake Baikal contains 23,000 cubic kilometers of water, which accounts for four-fifths of the entire Russian freshwater reserves and one-fifth of the total freshwater on the Earth's surface. That's enough water to feed 6 billion people around the world for 40 years, which is terrifying. The water of Lake Baikal is also extremely clear, and the visibility can reach more than 40 meters. It is home to more than 600 species of plants and more than 1,200 species of animals, and is the richest lake in the world. Lake Baikal has long been recorded in ancient Chinese books and is called the "North Sea". During the Han Dynasty, Su Wu sent an envoy to the Xiongnu and was detained for 19 years, and the land of sheep grazing was on the shore of Lake Baikal. The Baikal and Angara River basins have always been the nomadic lands of the ethnic minorities in northern China, with the Xiongnu in the Han Dynasty, the Rouran in the Jin Dynasty, the Turkic in the Tang Dynasty, the Khitan in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the Mongols after the Southern Song Dynasty. It is home to a large area of grasslands and forests, from which the famous Yenisei River originates, and is rich in natural resources. The region has been inextricably linked to China for thousands of years, until the arrival of the Russians. The Russians built a fort on the western shore of the lake, named Irkutsk, and has now developed into an industrial city with a population of 600,000 that can produce Su-30 fighter jets. In addition to the determination of the boundary between the eastern and central sections of China and Russia, at that time in the western section of China and Russia were not yet bordered, and there were three Kazakh khanates and the Kokand Khanate (now Uzbekistan) in between, so the boundary here was not determined. After the Qing Dynasty conquered the Dzungar Provinces, its military power was great. The Kazakh and Badak mountain states, now Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, demanded that the Qing Dynasty be annexed. Emperor Qianlong, who claimed to be well-versed in history, refused to accept the above-mentioned countries on the grounds that they had not been owned by China since ancient times, and only asked them to pay tribute as vassal states. After entering the 19th century, Russia sent troops for many years, and finally conquered the three tents of Kazakhstan, and the border bordered the Qing Dynasty. At this time, the northwesternmost point of the Chinese border was roughly on the northern shore of Lake Balkhash, extending southwest to retain the entire Pamir region. After history entered the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty did not want to forge ahead, closed off the country, lagged behind the world trend, and the country's power declined greatly, and finally the British opened the country with artillery in the Opium War. The Russians have been coveting the northern territories of China for more than 100 years, and only then did they have an opportunity. In the northeast, the Russians crossed the border with small forces and tentatively invaded south. After the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains and set the world in the world, it foolishly blocked the entire Northeast region on the grounds of protecting the land of Longxing, prohibiting Han immigrants, and cutting off the channel of communication and integration between Guannai and the Northeast for thousands of years. In the 19th century, the vast areas of Northeast China were sparsely populated, and only a few primitive ethnic minority tribes lived. The Qing Dynasty garrison was also not large in number, and it was backward, and it did not know anything about how big the northeast was and what the border situation was. In this way, the Russian army very easily invaded the interior of the northeast, and advanced as far as the mouth of the Heilongjiang River, and even landed on Sakhalin Island. In 1858, when the Second Opium War broke out, the British and French forces invaded the suburbs of Beijing and burned the Old Summer Palace. The Qing court was very shocked, and Emperor Xianfeng also ran away to Rehe. At this time, Russia took the opportunity to intervene, pretending to help China mediate with Britain and France, and forced the Qing court to sign the "Aihui Treaty" with threats and deception, cutting off 600,000 square kilometers of land south of the Outer Khing'an Mountains and north of the Heilongjiang River, and assigning 400,000 square kilometers of land east of the Ussuri River, including Sakhalin Island, to the joint management of the two countries. In fact, there were already a large number of Russian troops there at that time, and it was completely managed by Russia. In 1860, Russia again used deception to force the Qing court to sign the "Treaty of Peking" with Russia under the pretext of withdrawing from the mediation with Britain and France, ceding all the so-called "condominium" land east of the Ussuri River to Russia. Through these two treaties, Russia seized 1 million square kilometers of land from China without firing a single shot, equivalent to the area of France and Germany combined. One of Russia's great heroes was the Governor-General of the Far East, Muravyov, who forced the Heilongjiang general Yishan to sign the "Aihui Treaty" with a saber, and drew a thick line along the Chinese river bank in the Ussuri River on the border map with a pencil, so that the Sino-Russian border dispute lasted for nearly a hundred years. The land ceded by Russia is the same fertile black soil as Northeast China, with dense primeval forests, vast wasteland wetlands, and rich coal, iron and oil resources. The area from the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, which is huge in water and abundant in fish, has since been separated from China's embrace, and China has forever lost its estuary to the northeast. Sakhalin Island, with an area of 76,000 square kilometers, was originally the largest island in China, and has been officially under the jurisdiction of China since the Tang Dynasty, and has been clearly recorded in all dynasties. The island is densely forested, with numerous lakes and swamps, and is rich in fisheries, coal, oil, and natural gas resources. After the Russian occupation of it, it was renamed Sakhalin, and it was originally used as a penal colony for prisoners. The famous writer Chekhov once went to the island to experience life and wrote "Sakhalin Notes". Now, Sakhalin has become an important base for the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, where powerful intercontinental missiles are deployed. Vladivostok, renamed Vladivostok after the Russian occupation, became Russia's largest city in the Far East and the largest port on the Pacific coast. Facing Japan and Korea across the sea, this large port has become Russia's gateway to the Pacific Ocean, and its strategic position is extremely important. It is also the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the base of the Russian Pacific Fleet. Boli, in the Tang Dynasty, was the residence of the Heishui Governor's Office, and the Qing Dynasty was governed by the Jilin General. After the Russian occupation, it was renamed Khabarovsk, and now has a population of more than 600,000 people, and has become the political, economic and cultural center of Russia in the Far East, as well as the seat of the command of the Russian Far Eastern Military District. Khabarovsk is located at the confluence of the Heilongjiang and Ussuri rivers, across the river from Fuyuan County in China's Heilongjiang Province.
History has proven that a region like Northeast China, which is rich in resources and suitable for human habitation, has great potential in terms of industry, agriculture and ecological development. Today, when densely populated areas have been fully developed, these areas have become the lifeblood of the country. China has lost vast black soil areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, and the magnitude of the losses and impacts cannot be overestimated. By 1864, it took Tsarist Russia a hundred years to conquer the Kazakh regime of Large, Medium and Small, bordering the northwestern border of China. The Tsarist government took advantage of the civil turmoil in China's Taiping Heaven and threatened to use force to force the Qing Dynasty to sign the "Treaty of Survey and Demarcation of the Northwest Boundary" with it. The Treaty stipulates that the border between China and Russia is marked by a permanent Karen, or border outpost. The map unilaterally drawn by Russia has already crossed the Chinese border Karen and penetrated deep into the interior of Xinjiang. When the Qing negotiators objected, Russia sent a large army to expel the isolated Qing army Karen all the way to the borders of the Russian claim, and brutally seized nearly 440,000 square kilometers of China's land. These areas are some of the most fertile arable land and grasslands in northwestern Xinjiang, as well as the numerous lakes surrounding the Tianshan Mountains. Among them, there is Balkhash Lake, with an area of 20,000 square kilometers, which is the largest saltwater lake in China. Issyk-Kul Lake, with an area of 8,000 square kilometers, is the second largest saltwater lake in China. Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, and Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, are both in this region. It is also rich in oil and gas, and in recent years the Chinese government has signed an agreement with the Kazakh government to jointly develop it. In 1865, Aguba, the leader of the Kokand Khanate in Central Asia, invaded Xinjiang and occupied many areas in preparation for his own use. Russia immediately used this as an excuse to send troops to occupy the Ili region of Xinjiang, claiming to be temporarily "managed" by the Qing Dynasty, but in fact it wanted to dismember Xinjiang together with Aguba. The Qing Dynasty showed great courage this time and sent Zuo Zongtang's army to Xinjiang to quell the rebellion. After several years of war, the Qing army finally defeated the invading army of Aguba and recovered all of Xinjiang except Ili. The Qing Dynasty sent representatives to negotiate with Russia to recover Ili, and after arduous negotiations, the "Ili Treaty" was signed, and Tsarist Russia finally gave up Ili, but cut more than 40,000 square kilometers of land west of the Altai Mountains and the upper reaches of the Irtysh River from China, including a large freshwater lake, Zaisangbo. After the Treaty of Ili, Tsarist Russia signed several boundary demarcation protocols with the Qing Dynasty one after another, and ceded more than 30,000 square kilometers of land west of the Khorgos River in Xinjiang from China. In 1898, Russia forcibly occupied more than 20,000 square kilometers of land west of the Sarykole Ridge on the Pamirs, and seized most of the Pamirs from China, resulting in a century-long problem of undefined Pamirs. It was not until 2001 that China signed a border treaty with Tajikistan, recovering nearly 2,000 square kilometers of its territory, and the rest was separated from China's territory forever.