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| Language Official |
Russian, Mandarin | |||||
| Others | Yiddish, Armenian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian, Manchu, Danish | |||||
| Ethnic Groups Main |
Russian, Han Chinese | |||||
| Others | Polish, German, Tatar, Georgian, Lithuanian, Greek, Bashkir, Japanese | |||||
| Population | 1,430,812 | |||||
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The European Settlement Area, (Chinese: 歐洲定居領土; Russian: Европейская территория поселения; Yiddish: אייראפעישע ייִשובֿ געביטן; Polish: Europejskie obszary osadnicze) commonly referred to as the ESA or simply Harbin, is an area of the Manchuria region of China which a European majority area.
History[]
Foundation and growth[]
For thousands of years, the region was inhabited by various Indigenous Mongolic, Turkic and Tungstic people, such as the Buryat, Evenki, Daur, Oroqen, and most notably, the Manchus (or Jurchens).
In 1897 a shortcut on the Trans-Siberian railroad was proposed, it would go strait through Manchuria. China gave the region around the railroad to Russia as a concession. Russian railroad workers started building the city from scratch but the Russian government soon took over the city's construction and started making plans to hire Swiss and Italian architects so they could build a planned city designed to show off Russian power and culture. Its fertile soil attracted the first Europeans who were unaffiliated with the railroad, these early settlers were from Southern Russia and Ukraine. This area then became one of China's largest agricultural producers.
The pristine farmland was mostly unfarmed at this time. It was the traditional land of the Manchu people, who built a wall called the Willow palisade to keep Han Chinese out after the Manchus conquered China.
Mining and manufacturing started as well, being one of the first parts of China to industrialise. Harbin received immigrants from all over the world, people from 33 different countries lived in the city and 45 different languages could be heard in its streets.
Boxer rebellion and Russian rule[]
After it became clear that Japan had the capability to begin colonising China, the great powers started to move on the territory. The Russians, Germans, British and French all rushed to gain territory in China and a partition seemed quite likely. The Chinese peasants saw the increasing foreign influence and decided to act, the largest of these groups was the Fists of Harmony and Justice, known to Europeans as "Boxers". They killed foreigners and Christians as they marched to Beijing, were they laid siege to the foreign legations. Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, Austria-Hungary and the United States landed troops in China to lift the siege while Russia also invaded on it's own, taking all of Manchuria. The Qing did not give permission to the Eight-Nation Alliance to land so they saw it as an invasion. The Qing army itself laid siege to the legations. The war ended with a crushing defeat for the Chinese. China paid huge war reparations while Russia added Manchuria to it's empire.
Russia's plans for expansion into East Asia continued to be realised, now that they had complete control of Manchuria they allowed settlers to begin developing the untouched wilderness that the Qing royals had used as a hunting ground. Russia saw the growth of the city and decided to support this growth with government initiatives.
Its wealth and importance only grew after Russia's victory over Japan in 1906.
The city's rapid growth outpaced the ability of its hospitals to keep up, combined with the fact that people from all over the world were mixing together resulted in a relatively mild outbreak of pneumonia turning into an epidemic that killed 60,000 people in 1911. This event came to be known as the Manchurian plague.
World War I, Russian Civil war and Independence[]
In 1915, Japan joined the Central Powers, putting Manchuria on the frontlines of the First World War.
After the Russian Revolution Manchuria fell into legal limbo. China had collapsed in 1911 and Russia did the same in 1917. With no country claiming it, Manchuria declared independence from both Russia and China. During the war, 150,000 Russians fled to Manchuria due to the fact that it was mostly Russian. Foreign visitors were surprised to see that many Russian Manchurians were actually fairly wealthy.
Manchuria fought for the white army in the Russian civil war, it also conquered several Chinese warlord states. But they knew that their greatest threat was Japan, who had started to encroach on Russia's sphere of influence with its invasion of Korea. They fought the Reds, Whites, Manchurians and Czechoslovak legion. Thousands of Japanese settlers arrived in Japanese-occupied territory and many Japanese companies began to set up in the region. The Japanese also installed local allies into positions of power as puppets, such as the Buryat Nationalists, the Baikal Cossacks and the Young Yakuts.
The Manchurians found themselves fighting against the invading Japanese so they put many of the thousands of Japanese Manchurians into internment camps, while also seeking an alliance with the Bolsheviks. By this point (1922) he Red army had won on most other fronts on the war so was able to throw their full force at the Japanese. Conflict between the Japanese Army and government meant that the 70,000 troops deployed to Siberia would receive no reinforcements and that Japan would not annex the region.