Diplomatic Career and Involvement in The Great Game
Ignatyev's diplomatic career began at the Congress of Paris in 1856, after the Crimean War, where he took an active part as military attaché in the negotiations regarding the demarcation of the Russo-Ottoman frontier on the lower Danube.
Two years later he was sent with a small escort on a dangerous mission to the Central Asian states of Khiva and Bukhara. The khan of Khiva laid a plan for detaining him as a hostage, but he eluded the danger and returned safely, after concluding a treaty of friendship with the emir of Bukhara.
His next diplomatic exploit was in the Far East, as plenipotentiary to the court of Peking (Beijing). When the Qing Chinese government was terrified by the advance of the Anglo-French expedition of 1860 and the burning of the Summer Palace in the Second Opium War, he worked on their fears so dexterously that, in the Convention of Peking, he obtained for Russia Outer Manchuria – not only the left bank of the Amur, the original object of the mission, but also a large extent of territory and seacoast south of that river that would become the Russian Maritime Province. See Amur Annexation.
Read more about this topic: Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev
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