The world's deepest and most abundant freshwater lake, Lake Baikal, once belonged to China

The deepest lake in the world is called Lake Baikal.

The largest freshwater lake in the world is also Baikal.

Baikal, from the Mongolian language, means "fertile lake". It is famous for its abundance of aquatic products. The lake is known as the "blue eye" of Siberia because of its long and narrow waters, which are curved like a crescent moon.

Lake Baikal is located between Irkutsk and Buryatia in Russia. The southern end of the lake is only 111 kilometers from the Mongolian border, and the eastern side of the lake is more than 500 kilometers from Hulunbeier, Heilongjiang Province, China.

Before 1689 A.D., Lake Baikal was part of Chinese territory. It was called the North Sea in ancient times because of its extreme northern location.

In ancient times, the Chinese called Lake Baikal the North Sea, and there were other names such as White Sea, Lake Baikal, and Lake Baikal.

In the spring of 119 B.C., Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che ordered Wei Qing and Huo Zaowei to go deep into the desert north to pursue the main Xiongnu forces.

Huo went to the north with his army for more than 2,000 miles, chasing wolves to Mount Xu and Mount Guyana, and the battle line of the army reached Lake Baikal.

The Book of Han - Huo Zhaodi Biography says: "Drinking the sea, sealing the wolf in Xu-bit. Qilian County West River."

In 100 B.C., Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered Su Wu to send Zhonglang General as an envoy to Xiongnu. After being detained, he tried to get Su Wu to surrender and was sent to the North Sea to herd sheep.

It is recorded in the Book of Han - Su Wu's Biography: "Lying in his arms, he bit the snow and swallowed it, but he did not die for several days. I thought Xiongnu was a god but migrated to the northern sea of Wu where no one was herding sheep."

In 89 A.D., Dou Xian led his army more than 3,000 miles into the Pass and broke the Northern Xiongnu to Yang Xiyan. He carved a stone to remember the merit and wrote a mountain inscription for Feng and Ban Gu.

In 646 A.D., Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty destroyed the Xueyantuo Khanate and established the Hanhai Governorate, which was the earliest administrative institution officially established by the Chinese government in the Baikal region, but the road was long and changed several times.

In the Yuan Dynasty, Genghis Khan once again unified the Baikal region and the Shireka River basin.

Starting from the 15th century, the Russians gradually expanded into Siberia and several wars took place.

On September 7, 1689, the famous Treaty of Nibuchu was signed between Russia and China. Both sides agreed to use the Trans-Hingan Mountains as a border, and a large area of land belonged to Russia.

The Russians continued to cross the border and devour the whales. 1727 saw the signing of the Treaty of Brunsky-Chakhto, in which the territory north of the Erguna River to the Shabina Ridge was assigned to Russia.

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared its independence, but it was not recognized internationally. in 1921, Mongolia became officially independent under the control of Soviet Russia and joined the United Nations in 1961.

Baikal has been far from China ever since.

Lake Baikal has 27 small islands. The average depth of the lake is over 740 meters and the deepest is over 1,640 meters. It is indeed the deepest lake in the world.

The lake has an area of 31,500 square kilometers and ranks seventh among the world's lakes. Because of its depth the world's first, its total volume of 23.6 trillion cubic meters, and its water storage is second only to the largest saltwater lake Caspian Sea.

Among freshwater lakes, Lake Baikal has the highest storage volume, exceeding the total volume of the Great Lakes in the United States and 33 times the total storage volume of all lakes in China.

It has been calculated that it would take 400 years to drain Baikal's water at the usual outflow.

Assuming that all the rivers of the world pour into Baikal, it would take at least 300 days to fill up.

Assuming that all the water from the Yangtze River flows into Baikal, it would take 25 years to fill the lake.

More than 300 rivers are flowing into the lake around Baikal, but only one river flows out, the Angara River at the southwest end, which flows north into the Arctic Ocean.

Due to its geographical location, Lake Baikal has a freeze period of five months a year. When the temperature drops below -30°C, the ice is more than 70 cm thick, so cars can safely drive on the ice.

The most exotic scenery is formed in this extremely cold climate.

There is a unique landscape in the extremely cold winter.

Lake Baikal is located in the geothermal anomaly zone. The methane and other gases that are constantly released from the underwater crust are too late to release bubbles on the water surface during the freezing of the lake and are blocked and frozen in the ice, creating a wonderful picture of lake ice.

In the process of temperature change, the lake compresses and expands, generating irregular extrusion, thus forming irregular cracks in the ice, with lines crisscrossing and extending in a disorderly manner, in a thousand different ways, which is indeed a masterpiece of nature.

Standing on the ice, you can hear the sound of breaking the ice, very worried about falling into the lake after breaking the ice.

And the thickness of more than 70 cm of ice, even if cracked will not fall, and even the car also safe and sound.

During the years of the tourism boom, hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists visited Lake Baikal every year.

Now outbound travel has become a dream.

The world is so big, when are we going to see it?

If Mongolia had not become independent and if Russia had not split up, the biggest country in the world might not be Russia.