Haishenwei

Haishenwei is the old Chinese (Han) name for the most important city and port (and possibly capital) of East Tartary, a Manchu province. This area corresponds with present-day Vladivostok, in the Primorsky Krai area, part of the Russian Far East.

This city was in the same place as an ancient coastal town of the Mohe. Later on the same site were founded successively cities of the Korean Koguryo, Paekche, Shilla, and Parhae kingdoms, and of the Jurchens, and theLiao Dynasty/Khitan kingdoms. Finally it was Manchu administrative center of an Imperial province. Manchus and Chinese subjects lived there, and it was the most important commercial and fishing port in the area.

It is probable that some Japanese merchants and fishermen arrived at the port, and maintained ccommercial relations with local residents.

Possibly this city is one of the fortified towns described by Sheng-Wu-Chi ("Our august dynasty military realizations memorial"), in a Ming Dynasty chronicle of the Tungus East Tartary "nation". The Weji, Warka and Kurka tribes joined Nurhaci in the Manchu Qing Empire.

This port was lost to China under the 1860 Convention of Peking made between Russia and others, and the Chinese Empire.