At Qing’s request, Joseon musketeers twice marched to the Amur region and defeated Russian forces moving south.
About 150 musketeers under Byeon Geup went in 1654 and about 200 under Sin Ryu in 1658, defeating Russian forces on the Amur — a test of the musket units King Hyojong had built up for his planned northern campaign.
The age when the Ming, shaken by northern raiders, southern pirates and the silver economy, fell to Li Zicheng’s rebels, and the Manchu Qing reached its greatest extent and prosperity under Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong — as Japan was unified out of the Warring States into the Edo shogunate’s bakuhan order and closed country, and Joseon, after two great wars, met its neighbours through embassies to Edo and the Northern Learning
Three centuries in which the Ottomans of Suleiman I, the Mughals of Akbar and the Safavids of Abbas I flourished and then faltered, while across the Atlantic the slave trade and colonies transformed the Americas, leading to American independence
