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As early as the first half of the seventeenth century between the Russian nation and China lay vast territories populated by nomadic and seminomadic peoples, the majority of whom had no stable government formations. Simultaneous with the Russian annexation of Eastern Siberia and the appearance of Russians in the Amur region, China was seized by armies of the Manchu conquerors — the founders of the Ch'ing empire — invading China from southeastern Manchuria. At the beginning of the second half of the seventeenth century the regions south of the Amur became a zone of parallel penetration by Russians and Manchus. The Manchus had made previous forays into this area but had not attempted to consolidate their hold there.