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challenge by manipulating Russian vulnerability to both nature and
custom. The Dagur made Khabarov, who stated that both sides had been
“living together as one family”and associating“frequently,”believe they
accepted Russian domination by giving their word, pelts, and food. These
submissions gave most the chance toflee. The Dagur had deprived the
Russians of vital human resources, a strategy culminating in the suicide of
Tolga and his fellows.^83
Russian dependency also reveals why pelts alone were insufficient for a
sustainable Romanov Amur. Instead, pelts and indigenous peoples, along
with other local resources such as food, formed an integrated whole that
would have to be more carefully managed without crude extortion before
Russia could realize its ambitions. Regional domination would emerge
only for the imperial power that could reorder all the critical components
of boreal diversity for its own benefit. So, after the initially confused stage
of Qing-Romanov conflict from the 1640 s to the 1660 s, each power
sought to reorder its control of pelts and peoples to adapt to the new
challenges posed by the other.
imperial competition for the sah basin: second stage
Both Qing and Romanov forces received unambiguous indications
through their respective pelt tribute systems that the indigenous peoples
of the basin were under pressure to subject themselves to one side or the
other in the 1650 s. This decade saw the formal establishment of the Qing
military administrative region of Jilin and the outbreak offive military
clashes between Romanov and Qing forces between 1652 and 1660. The
indigenous peoples most directly involved lived along the Sungari River,
part of Jilin’s southwestern border with Heilongjiang, and the SAH
River’s middle reaches. None of these peoples were entirely unified or
entirely subjugated by either empire, but by the 1650 s they had become
some of the SAH basin’s most compelling resources.
In 1657 Ningguta’s commanderŠarhūda, prompted by Cossack raids’
erosion of sable tribute, submitted a memorial to the throne to urge an
expedition along the Sungari.Šarhūda wanted preemptive conquest of
variousaimanof unsubjugated Hejen and Fiyaka and defense of existing
Qing vassalaimanfrom subversion. His warning that“it would be no
easy matter”to resubjugate subvertedaimanindicates the limits of the
contemporary tribute system’s ability to construct reliable Qing subject
identities. Indeed, Russia had already“recruited”new Dagur“Cossack
servitors”in 1652 , and scattered records indicate a subsequent expansion
86 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
