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(Ann)
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The removal of Donghai Jurchen from the mid-SAH during the 1670 s
was the operational centerpiece of this mobilization. By this time both the
Qing and Romanovs had received warnings and appeals for intervention
via their indigenous tributary systems.^88 Such records, dating from the
1670 s until the Russian expulsion from the SAH in 1687 , suggest a
polarization of direct imperial struggles for basin resources.^89
The Qing state issued an appeal to indigenous peoples and imple-
mented drastic measures as early as 1653 – 54 when many“Solon”were
relocated southward to the Non River where they would form the
Hunting Eight Banners. Several hundred households were also moved in
1665. Details on relocation, however, are scant before the 1670 s, coin-
ciding with the apparent peak in Cossack Yaksa’s ability to collect
yasak.^90 The Russians sometimes likely misinterpreted the wholesale
abandonment of villages before their impending and often dreaded des-
cent as Manchu-initiated. Actually, as for example in 1653 , authorities
were sometimes informed of indigenousflight to Qing territory after the
fact through routine communications of pelt tribute exchanges.^91
Relocation, which could involve shifts of thousands of people and
animals over hundreds of kilometres, was logistically complicated and
potentially traumatic.Table 2 provides demographic statistics on the
1676 relocation operation. Under the leadership of the Meljere clan
leader Januka, forty-five New Manchu banner companies of 2 , 768 men
were raised from a population of more than thirteen thousand. This
whole group was shifted from an area roughly stretching more than two
hundred kilometers from the Ton River above Ilan Hala north to the the
Bičan River, just above the SAH-Sungari confluence.^92 So began a sys-
tematic process of relocation that continued to form, shift, and reshift
New Manchu banner companies of mid-SAH residents to points as far
south as Beijing up to 1791.^93
At such a scale and under the exigency of Russian incursion, problems,
including active resistance to relocation, were inevitable. By 1678 officials
were still reviewing demographic registration information (outlined
inTable 2 ) that was required to complete mobilization for eighteen of
the banner companies. Some of these had already been split into new
formations.^94 Many ostensibly logistical problems were actually rooted in
the abrupt severance of indigenous peoples’existing environmental ties,
especially with game, in the process of reconstituting their identity as
mobilized Qing subjects.
Upon their arrival at Ningguta some Warka officers, for example,
petitioned resident dynastic officials for funds to purchase a large number
88 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
