, China|left A number of
Mongol and
Turkic peoples occupied the river banks for many centuries. In 657,
Tang dynasty general
Su Dingfang defeated
Ashina Helu,
qaghan of the
Western Turkic Khaganate, at the
Battle of Irtysh River, ending the
Tang campaign against the Western Turks. Helu's defeat ended the Khaganate, strengthened Tang control of
Xinjiang, and led to Tang suzerainty over the western Turks. The
Battle of Irtysh River took place in 1208 between the
Mongol Empire and an alliance of
Merkit and
Naimans near where Bukhtarma river becomes a tributary of the Irtysh. In the north-east of Irtysh, there was the
Yenisei Kingdom, ruled by the
Melig family from the
Ögedei dynasty of the
Yuan dynasty, which ruled until 1361. It was destroyed by the
Oirats. In the 15th and 16th centuries the lower and middle courses of the Irtysh lay within the Tatar
Khanate of Sibir; its capital,
Qashliq (also known as
Sibir) was located on the Irtysh a few kilometres upstream from the mouth of the
Tobol (where today's
Tobolsk is situated). The Khanate of Sibir was
conquered by the Russians in the 1580s. The Russians started building fortresses and towns next to the sites of former Tatar towns; one of the first Russian towns in Siberia (after
Tyumen) was
Tobolsk, founded in 1587 at the fall of the Tobol into the Irtysh, downstream from the former Qashliq. Farther east,
Tara was founded in 1594, roughly at the border of the
taiga belt (to the north) and the
steppe to the south. In the 17th century the
Dzungar Khanate, formed by the Mongol
Oirat people, became Russia's southern neighbor, and controlled the upper Irtysh. As a result of Russia's confrontation with the Dzungars in the
Peter the Great's era, the Russians founded the cities of
Omsk in 1716,
Semipalatinsk in 1718,
Ust-Kamenogorsk in 1720, and
Petropavlovsk in 1752. The Chinese
Qing Empire conquered Dzungaria in the 1750s. This prompted an increase in the Russian authorities' attention to their borderland; in 1756, the
Orenburg Governor
Ivan Neplyuyev even proposed the annexation of the
Lake Zaysan region, but this project was forestalled by Chinese successes. Concerns were raised in Russia (1759) about the (theoretical) possibility of a Chinese fleet sailing from Lake Zaysan down the Irtysh and into Western Siberia. A Russian expedition visited Lake Zaysan in 1764, and concluded that such a riverine invasion would not be likely. Nonetheless, a chain of Russian pickets was established on the
Bukhtarma River, north of Lake Zaysan. Thus the border between the two empires in the Irtysh basin became roughly delineated, with a (sparse) chain of guard posts on both sides. In the summer of 1828, the Prussian explorer
Alexander von Humboldt visited the Irtysh region on his journey through Russia and Central Asia; he came face-to-face with Chinese and Mongol border guards. The situation in the borderlands in the mid-19th century is described in a report by A. Abramof (
ru; 1865). Even though the Zaysan region was recognized by both parties as part of the
Qing empire, it had been annually used, by fishing expeditions sent by the
Siberian Cossack Host. The summer expeditions started in 1803, and in 1822–25 their range was expanded through the entire Lake Zaysan and to the mouth of the Black Irtysh. Through the mid-19th century, the Qing presence on the upper Irtysh was mostly limited to the annual visit of the Qing
amban from
Chuguchak to one of the Cossacks' fishing stations (
Batavski Piket). The border between the Russian and the Qing empires in the Irtysh basin was established along the line fairly similar to China's modern border with Russia and Kazakhstan by the
Convention of Peking of 1860. The actual border line pursuant to the convention was drawn by the Protocol of Chuguchak (1864), leaving Lake Zaysan on the Russian side. The Qing empire's military presence in the Irtysh basin crumbled during the 1862–77
Dungan Revolt. After the fall of the rebellion and the reconquest of Xinjiang by
Zuo Zongtang, the border between the Russian and the Qing empires in the Irtysh basin was further slightly readjusted, in Russia's favor, by the
Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881). ==Cultural references==