Yishiha

Yishiha (; also rendered as Išiqa and Isiha; ) (fl. 1409–1451), sinicized name Yi Xin (易信), was a Jurchen eunuch of the Ming dynasty of China. He served the Ming emperors who commissioned several expeditions down the Songhua and Amur Rivers during the period of Ming rule of Manchuria, and is credited with the construction of the only two Ming dynasty Buddhist temples ever built on the territory of present-day Russia. and was captured by the Ming forces in the late 14th century.

Amur expeditions Yishiha's Amur expeditions belong to the same period of the Yongle Emperor's reign (1402–1424) which saw another eunuch admiral, Zheng He, sail across the Indian Ocean, and Chinese ambassador Chen Cheng reach the Timurid Empire's capital Herat (in today's Afghanistan) overland.

By 1409, the Yongle Emperor's government, which had already established relations with the Haixi and Jianzhou Jurchens in southern Manchuria, ordered Yishiha to start preparations for an expedition to the lower Amur River region, to demonstrate the power of the Ming Empire to the Nurgan Jurchen populating the area and induce them to enter into relations with the empire, and to ensure that they would not create trouble for the Ming state when the latter went to war with the Eastern Mongols. The commission's authority covered much of the Amur basin, including the shores of the Sungari, Ussuri, Urmi, Muling, and Nen Rivers. The stele, presently kept in the Arseniev Museum in Vladivostok, described the locals as good archers and fishermen, and their clothes as made of fishskin. According to some evidence (a seal issued by the empire's Ministry of Rites, found in Yilan County, Heilongjiang), in 1413 Yishiha also visited the nearby coast of the Sakhalin Island, and granted Ming titles to a local chieftain. ) populating the area. As of the mid-19th century, Tyr was a Nivkh settlement, as attested by a contemporary encyclopedia and the book by E.G. Ravenstein, based on the accounts of the Russian explorers of the 1850s. Another ethnic group native to the Ulchsky District (where Tyr is located) are the Ulch people, a Tungusic people, but their home villages are all located upstream from Tyr.

During the rest of the Yongle Emperor's reign, Yishiha carried out three more expeditions to Nurgan, while the Nurgan natives sent some more tribute and trade missions to the Ming court.

Yishiha's last mission was connected to the retirement of the Nurgan chief and the "inauguration" of his son as his successor. Yishiha attended at that event in 1432, presenting the new chief a seal of authority and giving gifts to subordinate chieftains. This time Yishiha's fleet included 50 big ships with 2,000 soldiers, and they actually brought the new chief (who had been living in Beijing) to Tyr. A second stele was put next to the second temple. The stele has also survived, and has been moved south by the Russians for keeping at the Arsenyev Primorye Museum in Vladivostok.

According to modern historians, Yishiha made the total of nine In 1435 Yishiha was put in charge of the defense of the Liaodong region; he remained at this post for over 15 years. Apparently, his performance during the raids of the Oirad Mongol chief Esen Tayisi was considered unsatisfactory, and some time between 1449 and 1451 he was relieved of his duties. No later traces of him have been found by modern historians.