t it to the mouth of the Amur, the acquisition
of Nikolaievsk for a naval basis was the immediate reward. But
Nikolaievsk, lying in an inhospitable region, far away from all the
main routes of the world's commerce, offered itself only as a
stepping-stone to further acquisitions. To push southward from this
new port became an immediate object.

There lay an obstacle in the way. The long strip of seacoast from the
mouth of the Amur to the Korean frontier--an area then called the
Usuri region because that river forms part of its western
boundary--belonged to China, and she, having conceded much to Russia
in the way of the Amur, showed no inclination to make further
concessions in the matter of the Usuri. She was persuaded to agree,
however, that the region should be regarded as common property,
pending a convenient opportunity for clear delimitation. That
opportunity soon came. Seizing the moment (1860) when China had been
beaten to her knees by England and France, Russia secured the final
cession of the Usuri region, which then became the Maritime Province
of Siberia. Then Russia shifted her naval basis in the Pacific to a
point ten degrees south from Nikolaievsk, namely, Vladivostok.
Immediately after this transfer an attempt was made to obtain
possession of Tsushima. A Russian man-of-war proceeded thither, and
quietly began to establish a settlement which would soon have
constituted a title of ownership had not Great Britain interfered.
The same instinct that led Russia from the mouth of the Amur to
Vladivostok prompted the acquisition of Saghalien also, which, as
already related, was accomplished in 1875.

But all this effort did not procure for Russia an unobstructed avenue
from Vladivostok to the Pacific or an ice-free port in the Far East.
In Korea seemed to lie a facile hope of saving the maritime results
of Russia's great trans-Asian march from Lake Baikal to the Maritime
Province and to Saghalien. Korea seemed to offer every facility for
such an enterprise. Her people were unprogressive; her resources
undeveloped; her self-defensive capacities insignificant; her
government corrupt. On the other hand, it could not be expected that
Japan and China would acquiesce in any aggressions against their
neighbour, Korea, and it became necessary that Russia should seek
some other line of communication supplementing the Amur waterway and
the long ocean route. Therefore she set about the construction of a
railway across As