Aigun

History

The predecessor of Aigun was a Ducher town on the left bank of the Amur River, reported by Russian explorer Yerofey Khabarov as Aytyun in 1652. Archaeologists know this site as the Grodekovo site, near the village of Grodekovo, and it is thought to have been populated from around the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd millennium AD. Some sources indicate a Chinese fort existed at Aigun for about 20 years during the Yongle era on the left shore of the Amur downstream from the mouth of the Zeya River; this Ming Dynasty Aigun was on the opposite bank from the later Qing Dynasty relocation.

The Ducher town was likely vacated when the Duchers were evacuated by the Manchu Chinese Qing Dynasty to the Sungari or Hurka in the mid-1650s. In 1683–85 the Manchus reused the site as a base for their campaign against the Russian fort of Albazin. After capturing Albazin in 1685 or 1686, the Manchus moved the town to a new site on the right bank of the Amur, about 3 mi downstream from the original, occupying the location of a former Daurian chief's village named Tolga.

The city became known primarily by its Manchu name Saghalien Ula Hoton, and sometimes by the Chinese translation Heilongjiang Cheng, both meaning 'Black River City', though by the 19th century 'Aigun' again became more current in western languages. For several years after 1683, Aigun served as the capital of Heilongjiang Province until the capital moved to Nenjiang in 1690 and later to Qiqihar; Aigun remained the seat of the Deputy Lieutenant-General for a large district covering much of the Amur Valley.

Around 1709, as part of a Sino-French cartographic program, Jesuits Jean-Baptiste Régis, Pierre Jartoux, and Xavier Ehrenbert Fridelli visited the town and found it well-defended, serving as the base of a Manchu river fleet controlling the Amur region, surrounded by numerous villages on a fertile riverside plain.