Under its terms, China ceded to Russia 185,000 square miles of land from the left bank of the Amur River down to the Ussuri River and agreed that the territory between the Ussuri and the Pacific Ocean would be held in common pending a future settlement. With more than 20,000 troops and naval support, he was able to force the Chinese representative to agree to the Treaty of Aigun, named after the frontier town where the meeting took place. The small and ill-equipped Chinese frontier garrison in the region was no match for the Russians when Muraviev demanded in May 1858 that China recognize Russian sovereignty on the land north of the Amur riverbank. Muraviev built up a large Russian force that included Cossack units, a naval squadron in the Far East, and set up forts and settlements along the Amur River valley in areas that the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) between Russia and China had recognized as Chinese territory. In 1847 Nicholas appointed Nikolai Muraviev, an energetic proponent of Russian imperialism, governor of Eastern Siberia. Russian leaders, including Czar Nicholas I, feared British dominance in East Asia and resolved to expand into Chinese territory first. The Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty’s easy defeat by Great Britain in the first Anglo-Chinese Opium War had made its glaring weakness apparent to the world.
The Russian Empire made important gains at the expense of China between 1858–60.
