HISTORICAL SKETCH. 7 



V e V (1 0, in 1651 he again made his appearance upon the banks of the Amour and stopped 

 to winter in the station of Albazin founded by him. During two years notwithstanding the 

 opposition of the Manchuro who surrounded him on every side he occupied the whole 

 course of the Amour and reported his success to Yakutsk. 



The rumour of the wealth of the river conquered by Khabarov quickly spread not only 

 tlirough the Siberian v o e v o d e s h i p s but reached the Tsar himself, so that in 1654 Kha- 

 barov was recalled to Moscow to make a personal report upon the Amour, and the whole of his 

 brave company was placed under the command of the Cossack Ouufri Stepanov. This worthy 

 successor of Khabarov closely pressed by the enemy, was obliged to fortify himself in the 

 newly built Kamora stronghold and in 1655 withstood a severe siege at the hands of a 

 numerous Manchur army. Later, after three years of obstinate struggle with the Manchurs, 

 he fell in a skirmish in 1658. 



Meanwhile, a road to the Amour was opened through Transbaikalia. The Yenlsseisk 



V e V d a Pashkov proposed to the Government, for the expeditious subjugation of the 

 Amour, to select in the vicinity of the steppes a rallying point, where all the warlike force 

 might be concentrated and whence it might undertake offensive movements. His plan was 

 approved and an expedition to the Amour was entrusted to him; at the same time all the 

 detachments along the Amour were ordered to place themselves under Pashkov's orders. This 



V e V d e then, from Yenisseisk, following the Upper Tunguzka, Baikal, the Selenga and the 

 Khilka, reached the river Nerch, and at a distance of four versts from its mouth founded in 1658 

 the Xerchinsk stockaded fort. Here he wished to gather all the Amour bands which had 

 been under the command of Stepanov, but as upon the death of the latter these parties 

 scattered, Pashkov did not venture, with the miserable remnants of those who answered to his 

 summons, to undertake any decisive operations and thus his expedition met with no success. 



In 1665 a crowd of Russians under the leadership of Xikifor Chernigovski consisting 

 of fugitive criminals, wishing to earn their pardon, appeared upon the ruins of Albazin, re- 

 newed the fortress there, began to collect y a s s a k from the previous tributaries, the Tuuguzes, 

 and founded some strongholds. In 1677 the fort Verkhozeissk was built on the upper waters 

 of the Zeya, followed by forts Selimbaevsk aud Dodonsk. For almost 20 years Albazin enjoyed 

 comparative tranquillity, but in 1685 the Manchur troops, with considerably superior forces, 

 devastated the environs of Albazin and from the 12th of June of the same year commenced 

 the celebrated siege of this town. The voevode T o 1 b u z i n, with a body of 500 men pitched 

 against a horde of 15,000 Manchurs-, was obliged to surrender Albazin and retreat; but in 

 the same year, reinforced by fresh troops that had come to his aid, he returned and built upon 

 the site of the burnt wooden fortification an eartlioru entrenchment. The Manchurs observing 

 the restablishment of Albazin undertook a second siege in 1686, during which Tolbuzin was 

 killed and his successor Afanasi Beiton stubbornly continued to hold his earthworks for a whole 

 year, until at last in 1687 the exhausted Manchurs were themselves couipelled to raise the 

 siege. In 1688, a congress was appointed of the plenipotentiaries of the two warring sides, at 

 which the Chinese gained a diplomatic victory. In August 27, 1689, the Xerchinsk treaty 

 was signed, confirming the Amour to the Chinese, and for 160 years depriving the Russians 

 of the possession of lliis outskirt of Siberia. 



