Chapter 813: Tripartite No-War Treaty

The Great Ming envoy Choros Chokhur Ubashi and the envoy of the Great Mongol State, Guang Shiheng, appeared together in the audience hall of the Kremlin.

Tsar Alexei I looked at the two of them and could not help feeling that these two men ought to have swapped identities.

"Your Majesty, the Great Mongol State holds that all the lands of the Jingqili River and the entire Heilong River basin belong to them! They therefore hope that our country will abandon all forts in the Zeya River (Jingqili River), Argun River, Shilka River, and Heilong River basins, including the Yaksa fort and the Nerchinsk fort.

The Great Mongol State further demands that Lake Baikal, the Outer Khingan Range, and the Uda River serve as the border between the Mongol and Russian states. In addition, the Great Qing State also demands the Pacific coast region of Eastern Siberia."

The man explaining the Great Mongol State's position to the Tsar in Russian was the Yakutsk military governor Frantsbekov, the local Russian official directly facing the Great Qing State and Khabarov's immediate superior. Ever since the Great Qing State began seriously developing its route of retreat beyond the passes, the good days for him and Khabarov had come to an end. After all, Russia's military presence in Eastern Siberia was extremely weak; only the ice city of Yakutsk was temporarily beyond the reach of the Qing army, while the other forts all lay under the edge of the Great Qing army's sword.

Moreover, Yakutsk's logistics depended on the Lena River and the Arctic Ocean, and transport was extremely inconvenient. For only a few months of the year was it navigable, and the supply of all kinds of goods was very difficult.

In addition, because the Pacific fur trade route between the Great Qing and Spain had been opened, the furs of the Heilong River and Jingqili River regions all flowed toward Vladivostok. Moscow therefore found it very hard to extract further profit from Eastern Siberia — because the number of Russians and Cossacks in Eastern Siberia was limited, and relying on them to hunt in person could not yield a sufficient quantity of furs.

If the Great Qing State did not properly develop the Northeast and Outer Northeast itself, the Russians could obtain large quantities of furs from the Solon and Bargut peoples through trade, plunder, and extortion.

But now the Russians had gained a powerful competitor, which made it impossible for them to obtain large quantities of cheap furs.

Without furs, Eastern Siberia became a chicken rib for Russia, and it was no longer worth sending too many troops there.

Therefore, at the same time that the Great Qing State was reinforcing its troops on the Heilong River and Jingqili River, Russia's Yakutsk military governor Frantsbekov had no troops to use and could only keep shrinking his forces.

Now Russia's only major stronghold in the Heilong River and Jingqili River basins was the single town of Yaksa, held by Khabarov and his men.

In addition, on the bank of the Shilka River, a tributary of the Heilong River, there was also a timber-and-earth Nerchinsk fort that could be considered a relatively sturdy stronghold.

But neither Yaksa nor Nerchinsk could possibly withstand an attack from the Great Qing Heilong River Angbang Zhangjing yamen — this yamen had 3,000 standing vanguard camp cavalry, plus a Heilong River naval force of over 1,000 men, and it had also brought large numbers of Solon and Bargut tribes under its jurisdiction. At any time it could field an army of over ten thousand!

However, the Qing army indeed could not possibly penetrate deep into the Lena River basin to attack the Yakutsk fort — there was no water route between the Lena River and the Heilong River, and the distance was also very great, requiring a crossing of the Outer Khingan Range to arrive.

From the standpoint of logistics and transport, the Russians, traveling by the Arctic Ocean–Lena River route, were better positioned than the Qing army advancing north from the Heilong River.

Therefore, the extreme limit the Qing army could reach in the north was the Outer Khingan Range and the Pacific (Sea of Okhotsk) coast of Eastern Siberia.

The extreme limit of the Russian army, on the other hand, was the Lena River basin and the Angara River basin. The former led to the Arctic Ocean, while the latter connected Lake Baikal with the Yenisei River, and the Yenisei River led to the Arctic Ocean.

Because Russia's expansion in Eastern Siberia relied on navigation along the Yenisei River, Lena River, Angara River, and Arctic Ocean, as long as the Great Qing or the Great Ming could not produce an equally low-cost transport plan, the difficulty of seizing Eastern Siberia would be astonishing — the cost of overland transport across the Siberian permafrost was more than ten times that of water transport!

One must understand that the permafrost thaws every summer, so any road built there "melts" once every year. Only a red empire like the Soviet Union could maintain roads there.

Without good roads, grain wagons could not pass.

Therefore, Russia's advantage in Siberia lay in navigation on the Arctic Ocean, the Yenisei River, the Lena River, and the Angara.

The Great Qing's advantage in Siberia, on the other hand, lay in navigation on the Heilong River and its tributaries and along the Pacific (Sea of Okhotsk) coast, as well as in control of the Khalkha Mongol steppe.

As for the Great Ming, Siberia originally had nothing to do with them, but the leader of the Dzungar tribe, Sengge, had unexpectedly hung out the Great Ming signboard, hoping to use the Great Ming's influence to overawe Russia and stabilize the Dzungars' rear.

Accompanying Choros Chokhur Ubashi to Moscow was the high official of the Siberian Province, Pyotr Golovin, the same military governor who had earlier thrown Khabarov into prison. He came from the distinguished Russian Golovin family and also held the title of count.

After leaving Yakutsk, he had been promoted to the post of high official of the Siberian Province, and from that time on the Dzungar leader Batur Khong Tayiji had been his chief opponent.

Russia's policy toward the Dzungars was first to offer amnesty and enlistment, then to nibble away, and finally to swallow them whole!

Therefore, using threats and inducements to bring the Dzungars into the Tsar's embrace was Golovin's principal mission.

But the development of events exceeded his expectations. The Dzungar tribe, which had proved impervious to Russia's offers of amnesty and enlistment, had unexpectedly plunged headlong into the embrace of the Great Ming Empire.

Oh, later Golovin learned the Great Ming Empire's price, and he was not at all surprised — military expenses of 250,000 taels of silver a year! And they also provided large numbers of matchlock guns and cannons!

If Moscow had been willing to offer such terms, the Dzungars would long since have become the Tsar's most loyal slaves.

But the problem was, how could Moscow possibly be so generous?

The Tsar was poor, and simply could not throw money into Central Asia like that!

What relieved Golovin, however, was that the Dzungars, having received large quantities of firearms and cannons, seemed to have no intention of marching north to retake the pastures along the Ob and Yenisei Rivers, but instead turned their gaze southward — this was in fact Zhu Cilang's will. He did not wish the Dzungars to come into conflict with Russia on the southern steppe of Western Siberia, but hoped the Dzungars could seize the relatively wealthy lands of Central Asia in order to open up the Silk Road.

Therefore, at the end of last year, the new Dzungar leader, Sengge — who was also the Great Ming Protector-General of the Northern Protectorate — sent his uncle, the Deputy Protector-General Choros Chokhur Ubashi, to visit in the name of a Great Ming envoy, hoping to sign with the Russian Tsar a treaty that could win ten years of peace, and at the same time to sign a trade agreement.

Of course, the Dzungar tribe could not suffer too great a loss in the northern border demarcation; they could not give up the grasslands and salt lakes of the middle Irtysh River, nor could they give up the grasslands south of the Omsk–Tomsk line.

"Your Majesty the Tsar," Golovin said to Alexei I, "the Great Ming envoy hopes to sign with us a ten-year peace treaty and to divide the border fairly. They hope to take the line between Omsk and Tomsk as the border, with the north belonging to Russia and the south belonging to the Great Ming.

After the treaty is signed, they also hope to trade with us by the overland route through Central Asia–Siberia."

The Tsar looked at the Great Ming Mongol, who was still waving a fan in the depths of winter, and then at the Mongol envoy dressed in the manner of a Han literatus. He was silent for a while before he opened his mouth and asked, "But I have heard that war between the Great Ming and the Great Mongols is about to break out at any moment! Is there any truth to this?"

"No!" the Great Ming Mongol Choros Chokhur Ubashi answered with great certainty. "In fact, the Princess of the Great Mongol State will very soon be married to the Great Ming Emperor!"

Guang Shiheng could not speak Russian, but his mission included Dominican missionaries who could speak Russian. After hearing the missionaries' translation, he also said with great certainty, "The Mongol Great Khan will absolutely not start a war with the Great Ming. The Great Khan's younger sister will very soon be married to the Great Ming Emperor."

Alexei I nodded. "Very well then. Since the Great Ming and the Mongols can become friendly states, why can we peace-loving Russians not also become friends with you?

The matter of border demarcation can be discussed slowly. Before it is settled, we can first sign a ten-year tripartite no-war treaty."

(End of Chapter)