How it was accomplished it is needless to say; but China reluctantly agreed that there should be for a time a joint occupation of this strip, and, in 1859, needing Russia's friendship, it was unconditionally bestowed.
The "Ussuri Region" was now transformed into the "_Maritime Provinces of Siberia_," and the Russian Empire, by the stroke of a pen, had moved ten degrees toward the south.

Vladivostok, at the southern extremity of the new province, was founded in 1860, and in 1872 made chief naval station on the eastern coast, in place of Nikolaifsk.
But the prize obtained after such expenditure of effort and diplomacy was far from satisfactory.

Of what use was a naval station which was not only ice-bound half the year but from which, even when ice-free, it was impossible for ships to reach the open sea except by passing through narrow gateways controlled by Japan?
How to overcome these obstacles, how to circumvent nature in her persistent effort to imprison her--this was the problem set for Russian diplomacy to solve.
The eastern slice of Manchuria, which now had become the "Maritime Province of Siberia," was a pleasant morsel, six hundred miles long.
But there was a still more desired strip lying in the sun south of it--a peninsula jutting out into the sea, the extreme southern end of which (Port Arthur) was ideally situated for strategic purposes, commanding as it does the Gulf of Pechili, the Gulf of Liao-Tung and the Yellow Sea.

Who could tell what might happen?
China was in an unstable condition.

Her integrity was threatened.