raharris1973
Well-known member
What if the Stroganoffs, Yermak, and Ivan IV and successors left the Sibir Khanate alone?
What if the consequence is Russian territory does not extend (too much) East of Ural at least until late XVIII century, or mid-XIX century?
In OTL, conquest of the Siberian Khanate was, at least initially, a private enterprise of Stroganov family, Russian richest merchants (for quite a while) with the estates along Kama and Chusovaya Rivers and business interests in farming, hunting, saltworks, fishing, and ore mining.
Until XVIII practically the only hard currency" Russia had were furs. Gold and silver had been bought abroad and used to make the local currency. Can't say what percentage of the furs had been coming from beyond the Ural but probably there were still enough prior to the Siberian adventure.
Most of OTL (safe guess, all the way to the XVIII century) interest in the areas East of Ural was limited to taking tribute (furs) from the local tribes and then keeping trade route to China. Siberia was not seriously populated until Stolypin's 20th century reforms and communication with the Pacific Coast was extremely difficult until construction of the Trans Siberian railroad (either year or two by land or by the sea across most of the world). However, the resources had been spent on maintaining the gradually expanding "infrastructure".
Gold in Siberia (including Altay) was found in the early XVIII but it does not look like it was solving any financial problems even being a state monopoly (total production between 1719 and 1800 made up 22,491.1 kg.). In 1812 the monopoly was cancelled and almost simultaneously the gold was discovered on Ural and in 1823 the private operations had been producing twice more than the state owned ones with the output growing all the way to 1913.
So, what if Stroganovs did not finance Yermak's expedition but just kept improving their existing businesses and perhaps do some exploration on Ural to discover, among many other useful things, gold. So this ends up happening, earlier than OTL, in the time of Peter the Great, 1686-1725, instead of the historic time, 1812.
In OTL "conquest" of Siberia (actually, incomplete conquest of the Siberian Khanate) was a political bonus for Ivan the Terrible who was at that time in a process of being beaten on his Western borders. In ATL the bonus did not happen and Ivan is too busy elsewhere. His successors (in ATL) are not showing any interest in the subject and have quite a few problems on their hands (like a terrible famine happening at the time of Boris Godunov), then comes the Time of Troubles and the wars with the Commonwealth and Sweden continued during the reigns of the first Romanovs. In other words, everybody is busy and few Cossack "entrepreneurs" are getting nowhere with their discoveries. Peter I is busy with his favorite projects: the Great Northern War, building St- Petersburg and causing a general havoc all over the place. If Ural gold is discovered he is not launching ill-fated expedition into the Central Asia (Khiva) and probably does not care too much about the Wild East.
The 1st serious candidate for Drang Nach Osten is Catherine II but she may not have resources for doing anything serious: most of the available money are being spent on the wars with the Ottomans, favorites, and Novorossiya (Potemkin was quite good in not counting state money).
But maybe she does.
What has been happening in northeast Asia and to northeast Asia for this whole nearly two century period between 1580 to 1763? Has the Khanate of Sibir lasted this whole time as Russia's immediate neighbor to the east of the Ural Mountains? Or has it fallen to internal disintegration or to neighbors from the steppes like the Kazaks or one of the variety of other Mongol groupings? If it survived, has it expanded? If so, which direction(s)? North, downriver, to the Arctic? East, to take over forest, taiga, and tundra peoples not organized as states?
Besides Sibir, have any other powers moved in to the stateless "vacuum" of northeast Asia that Russia has not elected to fill in this ATL?
Have the Qing Chinese filled any of the vacuum? Where indeed have the Qing set their border by 1763, presuming they have the same history and set of successful monarchs, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong? Significantly, in OTL, they set their border by treaty with the Russians in two consecutive treaties in 1689, Nerchinsk, and 1729, Kyakhta. Without having to deal with the Russia factor, do the Qing define their border more, or less, expansively than OTL.
And that presumes the Qing Imperial Chinese history isn't butterflied away (a "butterfly net" does keep things simpler in Russia and the wider world). If dynamics change and cause a Ming or Shun China, that will make a difference.
What about other actors in Asia besides the Chinese, like the Dzunghar Mongols, and the Kazak Hordes? Would they fill any of the Siberian gap, not filled by the Russians, at least for a time?
If Catherine started to press eastern toward the Sibir Khanate area (far southwestern Siberia) and beyond in her reign, how fast could Russia advance across Asia toward the Pacific from that starting point?
But suppose she is too busy with her conquest of Crimea, transformation of it into Novorossiya, her related wars with the Ottomans, and partitions of Poland, and let's the Ural front remain quiet.
Paul's reign is too short and Alexander is quite busy playing savior of Europe. So we arrived to the 1820's.
Nicholas I starts annexation of Siberia but this means that Russian penetration into the Central Asia happens much later than in OTL. By 1830 Russia is simply not in a position to oppose the British attempts to arrange for trade with Bukhara (chances are that they'd fail due to the "natural causes"), etc. OTOH, without "the Russians are coming" British hysteria the Great Game may not happen on OTL schedule or perhaps at all: the Brits are securing (ha-ha) Afghanistan and feel themselves reasonably safe well before the Russians are getting anywhere close. So perhaps the Russian-British relations in XIX century are generally better than in OTL.
[But perhaps not, the British had no problems imagining the Russians posing impossible threats at times.]
Then, Russian move Eastward may or may not mean that they are getting all the way to the Pacific. Let's say that it is decided that Western Siberia and a chunk of the Central Asia is quite enough: after all nobody knows about the future discoveries (and there is not too much usage for the natural gas in mid-XIX, anyway). The rest is up for the gabs but I suspect that a big part of it could remain masterless simply because it does not worth an effort needed to get there.
Impact on Russian economy would be close to zero at least all the way to the end of the XIX century. There is still a lot of Siberia to conduct something similar to the OTL mass settlements. Communications with the eastern border are easier and there is no need to spend money on Pacific fleet.
Political impact: potentially better relations with Britain, no future conflict with Japan?
What if the consequence is Russian territory does not extend (too much) East of Ural at least until late XVIII century, or mid-XIX century?
In OTL, conquest of the Siberian Khanate was, at least initially, a private enterprise of Stroganov family, Russian richest merchants (for quite a while) with the estates along Kama and Chusovaya Rivers and business interests in farming, hunting, saltworks, fishing, and ore mining.
Until XVIII practically the only hard currency" Russia had were furs. Gold and silver had been bought abroad and used to make the local currency. Can't say what percentage of the furs had been coming from beyond the Ural but probably there were still enough prior to the Siberian adventure.
Most of OTL (safe guess, all the way to the XVIII century) interest in the areas East of Ural was limited to taking tribute (furs) from the local tribes and then keeping trade route to China. Siberia was not seriously populated until Stolypin's 20th century reforms and communication with the Pacific Coast was extremely difficult until construction of the Trans Siberian railroad (either year or two by land or by the sea across most of the world). However, the resources had been spent on maintaining the gradually expanding "infrastructure".
Gold in Siberia (including Altay) was found in the early XVIII but it does not look like it was solving any financial problems even being a state monopoly (total production between 1719 and 1800 made up 22,491.1 kg.). In 1812 the monopoly was cancelled and almost simultaneously the gold was discovered on Ural and in 1823 the private operations had been producing twice more than the state owned ones with the output growing all the way to 1913.
So, what if Stroganovs did not finance Yermak's expedition but just kept improving their existing businesses and perhaps do some exploration on Ural to discover, among many other useful things, gold. So this ends up happening, earlier than OTL, in the time of Peter the Great, 1686-1725, instead of the historic time, 1812.
In OTL "conquest" of Siberia (actually, incomplete conquest of the Siberian Khanate) was a political bonus for Ivan the Terrible who was at that time in a process of being beaten on his Western borders. In ATL the bonus did not happen and Ivan is too busy elsewhere. His successors (in ATL) are not showing any interest in the subject and have quite a few problems on their hands (like a terrible famine happening at the time of Boris Godunov), then comes the Time of Troubles and the wars with the Commonwealth and Sweden continued during the reigns of the first Romanovs. In other words, everybody is busy and few Cossack "entrepreneurs" are getting nowhere with their discoveries. Peter I is busy with his favorite projects: the Great Northern War, building St- Petersburg and causing a general havoc all over the place. If Ural gold is discovered he is not launching ill-fated expedition into the Central Asia (Khiva) and probably does not care too much about the Wild East.
The 1st serious candidate for Drang Nach Osten is Catherine II but she may not have resources for doing anything serious: most of the available money are being spent on the wars with the Ottomans, favorites, and Novorossiya (Potemkin was quite good in not counting state money).
But maybe she does.
What has been happening in northeast Asia and to northeast Asia for this whole nearly two century period between 1580 to 1763? Has the Khanate of Sibir lasted this whole time as Russia's immediate neighbor to the east of the Ural Mountains? Or has it fallen to internal disintegration or to neighbors from the steppes like the Kazaks or one of the variety of other Mongol groupings? If it survived, has it expanded? If so, which direction(s)? North, downriver, to the Arctic? East, to take over forest, taiga, and tundra peoples not organized as states?
Besides Sibir, have any other powers moved in to the stateless "vacuum" of northeast Asia that Russia has not elected to fill in this ATL?
Have the Qing Chinese filled any of the vacuum? Where indeed have the Qing set their border by 1763, presuming they have the same history and set of successful monarchs, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong? Significantly, in OTL, they set their border by treaty with the Russians in two consecutive treaties in 1689, Nerchinsk, and 1729, Kyakhta. Without having to deal with the Russia factor, do the Qing define their border more, or less, expansively than OTL.
And that presumes the Qing Imperial Chinese history isn't butterflied away (a "butterfly net" does keep things simpler in Russia and the wider world). If dynamics change and cause a Ming or Shun China, that will make a difference.
What about other actors in Asia besides the Chinese, like the Dzunghar Mongols, and the Kazak Hordes? Would they fill any of the Siberian gap, not filled by the Russians, at least for a time?
If Catherine started to press eastern toward the Sibir Khanate area (far southwestern Siberia) and beyond in her reign, how fast could Russia advance across Asia toward the Pacific from that starting point?
But suppose she is too busy with her conquest of Crimea, transformation of it into Novorossiya, her related wars with the Ottomans, and partitions of Poland, and let's the Ural front remain quiet.
Paul's reign is too short and Alexander is quite busy playing savior of Europe. So we arrived to the 1820's.
Nicholas I starts annexation of Siberia but this means that Russian penetration into the Central Asia happens much later than in OTL. By 1830 Russia is simply not in a position to oppose the British attempts to arrange for trade with Bukhara (chances are that they'd fail due to the "natural causes"), etc. OTOH, without "the Russians are coming" British hysteria the Great Game may not happen on OTL schedule or perhaps at all: the Brits are securing (ha-ha) Afghanistan and feel themselves reasonably safe well before the Russians are getting anywhere close. So perhaps the Russian-British relations in XIX century are generally better than in OTL.
[But perhaps not, the British had no problems imagining the Russians posing impossible threats at times.]
Then, Russian move Eastward may or may not mean that they are getting all the way to the Pacific. Let's say that it is decided that Western Siberia and a chunk of the Central Asia is quite enough: after all nobody knows about the future discoveries (and there is not too much usage for the natural gas in mid-XIX, anyway). The rest is up for the gabs but I suspect that a big part of it could remain masterless simply because it does not worth an effort needed to get there.
Impact on Russian economy would be close to zero at least all the way to the end of the XIX century. There is still a lot of Siberia to conduct something similar to the OTL mass settlements. Communications with the eastern border are easier and there is no need to spend money on Pacific fleet.
Political impact: potentially better relations with Britain, no future conflict with Japan?