Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Šarhûda
ŠARHÛDA 沙爾虎達, 1599–1659, general, came from a Gûwalgiya clan of the Suwan 蘇完 tribe of Hurha 瑚爾哈. He and his father joined Nurhaci [q. v.] and were assigned to the Manchu Bordered Blue Banner. He served in most of the campaigns against the Ming troops and was twice sent to Heilungkiang to conquer native tribes. As a commandant of the vanguard division, he followed Dorgon [q. v.] to Peking in 1644 and pursued Li Tzŭ-ch'êng [q. v.] to T'ung-kuan, Shensi. After a few years of fighting in Kiangsu, Chekiang, Shantung, and Kiangsi, he was raised to deputy lieutenant-general of the Manchu Bordered Blue Banner and was given the hereditary rank of baron (男) of the first class. In 1652 he was entrusted with the command of the garrison troops at Ninguta, near the ancestral home of the imperial family, and in 1653 was raised to the rank of lieutenant-general.
In that year (1653) the Russian explorer of the Amur River, Erofei Pavlovich Khabarov (d. after 1667), was recalled to Moscow and the command of his forces, numbering a few hundred, and the task of collecting tribute from the natives of that region were entrusted to Onufriĭ Stepanov. The latter descended the Amur in 1654, plundering as he went, and advanced to the Sungari region where he defeated Haise 海色 an officer who had been sent from the Ninguta garrison to check the Russian advance. Haise was executed for this disgrace. Stepanov retraced his way up the Amur and built the fort, Kumarsk (Hu-ma 呼瑪). Minggadari [q. v.] was then sent by the Ch'ing Court to Kumarsk, but his apparently victorious attack on the fort in 1655 yielded no permanent success. In 1658 Šarhûda, with some forty-five boats and a number of firearms, intercepted Stepanov's men where they were plundering, near the junction of the Amur and the Sungari. Stepanov was killed and most of the Russian forces were either killed or captured. This battle left the Amur region clear of large bands of Russians until Fort Albazin was built in 1669 (see under Sabsu). Šarhûda died a year after the battle, at the age of sixty-one (sui) and was canonized as Hsiang-chuang 襄壯. The hereditary rank descended to his eldest son Bahai [q. v.], who was appointed his successor as commander of the Ninguta garrison.
[3/267/1a; P'ing-ting Lo-ch'a fang-lüeh (see under Ho Ch'iu-t'ao) 1/3a; Ravenstein, E. G., The Russians on the Amur (1861), pp. 28–32; Vladimir (Zenone Volpicelli), Russia on the Pacific and the Siberian Railway (1899), pp. 127–132.]