Lorenz Lange

(Not to be confused with Lorentz Lange, a Norwegian politician).

Lorenz Lange (or Lorents Lange, Russian Лоренц (Лаврентий) Ланг ) (c. 1690 – 1752) was an official in 18th century Siberia who dealt with Russo-Chinese trade and diplomacy. His reports were a major influence on Russian policy and an important early source of European knowledge of Siberia, Mongolia and China. He is usually said to have been a cornet in the Swedish cavalry who was taken prisoner at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

At this time Russo-Chinese trade and diplomacy went through the western border to “Manchuria” since Mongolia was not fully under Chinese control. When the Manchus gained control of Mongolia after the First Oirat-Manchu War this created a long undefined border and opened a more practical trade route through the future Kyakhta.

Lange entered Russian service in 1712 as an engineer Lieutenant. In 1715-17 he was sent by Peter the Great as a special envoy to China, his mission being to promote Russian commercial interests. His journal was one of the most important early European descriptions of the Gobi Desert. In 1719 he returned to Peking on the staff of the Ismailov mission and lived there as a trade agent until 1722 when the Manchus blocked trade to force a settlement of the Mongolian border. At about this time he accompanied Tulishen to the border to investigate the problem of “deserters”, as the Manchus called Mongols who crossed the border without permission. In 1724 he was appointed to negotiate with the Manchus, but the next year he was made second to the more senior Sava Vladislavich. This led to the Treaty of Kyakhta in 1727.

He accompanied the state caravans from Kyakhta to Peking in 1727, 1731 and 1736. Lange was made vice-governor of Irkutsk (1739-1749) and met many of the famous explorers of the time, including Vitus Bering, Johann Georg Gmelin and George Wilhelm Steller. In 1739 he proposed that Siberian trade be given over to a private monopoly on the model of the Dutch East India Company. The proposal was accepted by the government, but had to be dropped when no merchants could be found to invest in it.

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Wikipedia