Eastern vs Western Siegecraft: When the Chinese Besieged a Russian Star Fortress in 1686

Don’t sleep on solving your internet problems while travelling and go to and use the code sandrhoman to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase. In 1686, Chinese cannons bombarded the Russian fortress of Albazin for several weeks. The Qing Kangxi Emperor had sent an army to the frigid and inhospitable east of Siberia to capture the fortress and stop the expansion of the Tsardom of Russia in the region. But despite relentless bombardment, superior numbers, and ferocious assaults, his troops still struggled to capture the fortress. This was not due to any fundamental inferiority of the Chinese forces to the Tsardom’s troops. Instead, the trouble arose from the clash of Eastern siege methods with a Western-style star fortress with bastions. Chinese siege tactics differed significantly from those practiced in the West, which typically featured massive fortifications with bastions, systematic trench digging, and the use of heavy artillery. In this video, we’ll investigate t