Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms: Volume 56

Northern Seas: The History of Russia

...[the bird] is white with blue spots. The color of its crest changes constantly; if people approach even slightly, it cries out and stands erect, its crest hanging down. Every household raises them This likely describes the turkey, often called the "fire chicken" in early Chinese texts, noting its color-changing caruncle. The Russians call the Swedish nation Nemets original: Niemchin. A transliteration of the Russian word Nemets, which historically referred to foreigners—literally "the mute"—who could not speak Russian, particularly Germans.

Regarding the fish, there are bream, fin-fish, sturgeon, carp, grouper, crucian carp, bream, silver carp, and flounder. There are also the duck-bill sturgeon, hadara, taku, mushu, erhu, song’a, chan-gou, shen-ya-lu, si-tie-li-lie-tie Likely a transliteration of the Russian sterlyad or sterlet sturgeon, and omoli Likely the omul, a whitefish endemic to Lake Baikal.

Regarding their music, they have bells, drums, trumpets, wooden flutes, oboes 嗩吶, suona, copper-stringed zithers Perhaps a reference to the harpsichord or piano, which were novel to Chinese observers, and bowed fiddles. Their local conditions, customs, and products are generally as described above. During the Ming dynasty, they were blocked by the northern deserts and had no communication with China. In the twelfth year of the Shunzhi reign [1655], their ruler, the Chaghan Khan A Mongolian title meaning "White Khan," used by the Qing to refer to the Russian Tsar, first sent envoys to establish contact.

The Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Unified Realm states: Russia lies to the north of the Chuku River The Chikoy River in the lands of the Khalkha Mongols. To the southeast, it reaches the northern bank of the Gerbichi River The Gorbitsa River, which served as a border according to the Treaty of Nerchinsk. From the northern slopes of the Outer Xing’an Mountains The Stanovoy Range, it extends eastward to the sea, bordering the region of the Heilongjiang [Amur River]...