Manchuria

Manchuria, long the north-easternmost portion of the Chinese Empire, is since the events of 1898 so completely controlled by Russia as to be practically the south-eastern corner of Asiatic Russia. 'The Country of the Manchus' (see ASIA, CHINA) lies between the Yellow Sea and the Amur, and, lying just beyond the limits of China proper, borders on Corea and the Russian Maritime Province. The first step in the Russian occupation was the concession by China allowing the deviation of the Siberian railway through Northern Manchuria; then the events connected with the Russification of Port Arthur (q.v.) and Ta-lien-wan. Finally it was arranged that the Siberian railway should be connected with Kirin and Mukden, with Peking on the one hand and Port Arthur on the other, and that Cossack garrisons and settlements of Russians along the line should be sanctioned. The area of Manchuria is said to be 230,000 sq. m.; total pop. 21,000,000. The Chinese recognised three provinces—Kirin in the centre, Feng-tien or Liao-tung in the south, and Hei-lung-chiang in the north. The eastern and most of the central parts are covered with the irregularly grouped ranges of the Long White Mountains, which in the White Mountain itself reach 8000 feet, whilst the northern province is crossed by the Chingan Mountains. The central parts of the country are watered by the Sungari, which rises in the crater-lake of the Long White Mountains, and after a course of 850 miles joins the Amur in the north of Kirin province. The hills are rich in timber, pines predominating; in minerals, chiefly gold, silver, coal, and iron, of all which little has been extracted; and in fur-bearing and other animals, as the sable, foxes, lynx, squirrel, tiger, bear, wolf, deer, &c. The Manchurian lark, a clever mimic, is exported in great numbers to China. The rivers swarm with salmon, and trout are plentiful. The climate is temperate in summer, especially whilst the rains last (May to September), but very severe in winter, the season of traffic, when the streams and extensive marshy tracts are frost-bound; the thermometer frequently falls as low as $-25^\{\backslash circ\}\backslash text\{F\}$. in the northern province in the depth of winter. The soil is extremely fertile, and produces in abundance millet (with vegetables the chief food of the people), maize, hemp, poppy, beans, rice, vegetables, and ginseng. Wild silk is produced. The industry is confined to the making of furniture, coffins (sent to China), and carts, the tanning of leather, the preparation of furs, and the distilling of spirits. A large amount of trade is carried on at the towns in the interior, and especially at the treaty port of New-chwang (q.v.). Beans, bean cakes and oil, silk, ginseng, skins and furs, &c. are exported to the annual value of $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ million sterling, and cottons, woollens, metals, sugar, silk, paper, medicines, opium, &c. imported to $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ million sterling. The native opium is rapidly supplanting the Indian, the import of which fell from 330,000 lbs. in 1830-35 to some 10,000 lbs. in 1890-95. Floods have often caused severe famines. The population does not embrace more than one million Manchus, and most of these dress and speak like Chinese. Yet they are the aristocracy of the country, furnishing its magistrates and soldiers, its police, and its hunters, though many cultivate their own land. Ever since the Manchus conquered China (1644) and founded the present imperial dynasty Manchuria has been the favourite recruiting-ground for the Chinese army; there are stated to be 80,000 drilled men in the country. The rest of the population consists almost entirely of Chinese immigrants, as enterprising, industrious, and prosperous as any people in the empire. The principal towns are Moukden (q.v.), the capital; Kirin (q.v.); Tsitsihar, a convict settlement for the empire; Ying-tzu, commonly called New-chwang (q.v.), the chief port; and some others with populations of about 20,000. All Manchurian towns are indescribably filthy, worse than English towns in the 15th century, and most of them are walled. The religions current are those found in China (q.v.), though the original creed of the Manchus was Shamanism. Early in the 11th century B.C. there existed a native kingdom in the southern of the three provinces, and this was succeeded by other states, until in the beginning of the 17th century Nurhachu, a Manchu chief, founded a powerful sovereignty; in 1644 his grandson ascended the throne of China, and thus founded the reigning Chin dynasty. The conquerors imposed upon the conquered the custom of wearing the pigtail, shaving the forehead, and dressing in narrow-sleeved instead of wide-sleeved coats. Brigandage and gambling are exceedingly rife in the country. The Manchu language is a branch of the Mongol stem, as the people themselves are of the same division of the Ural-Altaic family. The French Roman Catholics have had missionaries in Manchuria since 1838, and the Scottish and Irish Presbyterian churches since about 1861. See James, The Long White Mountain (1888), where other books are quoted.