Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History

By Zheng Yangwen

This book is a timely and solid portrait of modern China from the First Opium War to the Xi Jinping era. Unlike the handful of existing textbooks that only provide narratives, this textbook fashions a new and practical way to study modern China. Written exclusively for university students, A-level or high school teachers and students, it uses primary sources to tell the story of China and introduces them to existing scholarship and academic debate so they can conduct independent research for their essays and dissertations. This book will be required reading for students who embark on the study of Chinese history, politics, economics, diaspora, sociology, literature, cultural, urban and women’s studies. It would be essential reading to journalists, NGO workers, diplomats, government officials, businessmen and travellers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781526126979

Book preview

Introduction

I began teaching the history of modern China in the spring of 2002 and have always posed a question to my students in the first lecture: ‘Why are you here?’ The answer given has been similar whether at the University of Pennsylvania (2002–2004), the National University of Singapore (2004–2006) or the University of Manchester (since 2007): ‘Whatever I do after I graduate, it might have something to do with China’. The economic reforms of the post-Mao period have generated a renewed interest in Chinese history. This interest, along with the desire for practical knowledge, has driven up the number of students registering for modules on Chinese history at the University of Manchester, with numbers rising from less than 30 in 2007 to nearly 150, half of the History Department’s intake, in the past few years. Indeed, many of my past students from all three institutions have since moved to live and work in China. These students bravely ventured out of their comfort zone to study something completely new; many had not learnt a thing about the ‘Middle Kingdom’ in their secondary education. Their enthusiasm as they followed me up the levels, and even onto postgraduate studies, inspired me to do more for them.

Historians often begin to tell the story of modern China from the eve of the First Opium War (1839–1842), when the Middle Kingdom was under Manchu rule. We cannot understand modern China without understanding the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Hunter-gatherers from what is today’s north-east China, the Manchus replaced the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and ruled the Middle Kingdom until 1911. This was not the first time the Manchus had established their rule in China; their ancestors constituted the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), until they were swept away by the Mongols, who established the Yuan dynasty (1272–1368). Alien rule is not uncommon in Chinese history as China’s neighbours took advantage of its political vacuums and military weakness, and laid their hands on valuable resources. China has faced constant threats from its northern neighbours for the past two millennia. That is why many Chinese regimes built and rebuilt the Great Wall – to deter the advance of those they referred to as ‘barbarians’. The Manchus called their conquering of China a ‘great enterprise’. They were organised under the Eight Banners – their unique combination of civilian and military systems; each Banner group was led by a prince and was identified by the colour of its flag.¹

But conquering China was an easier task for the Manchus than governing it; neither their ancestors nor the Mongols held it for historically long periods. The Manchus found themselves ruling over a land that consisted of a very diverse range of geographies, climates, foods, languages and cultures, and a wide variety of peoples, who practised religions unknown to them; the majority of the population were Han Chinese, who worshipped ancestors and Confucius. China’s economy was based on agriculture, cash cropping, household industries, trade and commerce. More importantly, its polity was managed by a fleet of scholar-officials, who passed three levels of imperial examinations, through which the best and the brightest were selected to govern. The early Qing Emperors, Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, worked hard and learnt quickly on the job. Their reign, from 1644 to 1799, is normally referred to as the early Qing. They subscribed to Confucianism and more or less followed the Ming system, which pleased the Han Chinese elite and scholars, many of whom came to accept their alien rulers. They were also innovative, letting the Banner warriors control the country but leaving the civil administration in the hands of Chinese scholar-officials.

The early Qing regime introduced a series of policies to restore the economy and agricultural production to feed the increasing population as conquest gave way to peace and development. To ease the burden of rapid population growth, the regime encouraged and facilitated migration to newly conquered and remote areas where land was available. They also encouraged diversification in food production, and maize and the sweet potato came to supplement rice and wheat; these had been brought to Asia by Europeans, and then to China by overseas Chinese. The early Qing period saw the arrival of more European traders; they purchased large quantities of silk, porcelain and tea, among other things. China accepted only silver as payment. As Europeans dressed, dined and drank better, China became silver rich, as little was bought from the Europeans in return. This would later cause problems.

The growth of the population meant more demand for consumer goods, which drove the increased production of cash crops and handicraft/household industries. Trade and commerce were in the hands of commercial guilds. Their guildhalls can be found in many big cities; Beijing alone was home to more than 100, specialising in everything from paper to salt. As urbanisation intensified there was a consumer revolution, in which many cultures flourished, from fashion to food. Wuhan is a good example of this process, as it grew from a small town during the early Ming into a cosmopolitan emporium (like Chicago in the United States) and transportation hub, as it sits in the heart of central China. Commerce and consumption led to the emergence of large banks and affiliated services, such as security agencies, around the country. Foreign trade brought European goods and commodities from Southeast Asia, such as clocks and opium. Rich consumers began to explore these expensive and exotic foreign goods, as they were considered status symbols. More wealth meant more schooling, more learning and more examination candidates.

The early Emperors patronised the arts and literature, whether for their own pleasure or to show how Chinese they were, by compiling dictionaries and sponsoring literary works. The Qianlong Emperor is said to have written more than 20,000 poems. The early Qing Emperors were interested in what Europe had to offer; they retained the Jesuit missionaries who had been admitted by the Ming dynasty and took advantage of their skills, from clock-making and mathematics to classical music. They commissioned the Jesuits to produce paintings, European musical instruments and even palaces. Many Catholic missionaries, Jean Joseph Marie Amiot for example, worked for the Qing court until their death and were buried in Beijing, and many were showered with gifts and privileges. The early Qing alone testifies to my claim that China was not a ‘Walled Kingdom’, closed to the outside world, before the First Opium War, even though its openness came with caveats.² From the 1580s, when they first entered China, to the eve of the Anglo-Chinese conflict, Catholic missionaries operated not just in the Qing court and the capital, but also in the far-flung reaches of the empire.

The early Qing Emperors campaigned to secure the borders. They enlarged the map of China, bringing Mongolia, Xinjiang (New Dominion), Taiwan and Tibet into the orbit of the empire. Early Qing China appeared awesome and powerful; its wealth and sophistication seduced not just its neighbours, but also an increasing number of Europeans. The early Qing court continued the age-old Chinese practice of tribute trade, as many foreign missions came bearing gifts and conducting official trade while in China. This giving of tributes was not just a form of trade but also a means of diplomacy, as the royal ceremonies and gifts given in return overawed the foreigners, hence keeping them under control. It seems that the Manchus had done better than the Ming. Eminent historian Charles Hucker delivered this verdict:

For the first century and a half of their rule the Manchus gave China good government and strong leadership, so that Chinese life flourished in every regard. In the eighteenth century China attained the last golden age of the imperial tradition and very likely was the most awe-inspiring state in the world.³

But all was not well for the Manchus by the late eighteenth century, and the verdict on the late Qing period, roughly 1800 to 1911, would be quite the reverse. The early Qing regime was able to grow the economy and increase food supply, but these policies were executed by watchful and capable Emperors. Once they were gone, China would become the ‘land of famine’, as the population continued to grow and the ecological consequences of exhaustive cultivation became manifest.⁴ The legendary Banner warriors were long gone by the mid-Qing; their descendants were born and lived in privilege. Few cared about fighting; Manchu military power dwindled. The thriving foreign trade and wealth were now dependent on a single commodity: tea. This would lead to a trade deficit and problems beyond trade. Although small-scale industrialisation had begun, there was little technological innovation. The family-based business model prevented the kind of capital accumulation that had been a hallmark of industrial revolutions in Europe. The growth of the early Qing was replaced by stagnation, the consequences of which would become manifest in the late Qing, when domestic rebellion and foreign intrusion would bring the decline and end of Manchu rule.

The late Qing thus stands in sharp contrast with the early Qing. The lessons presented in this volume tell the story of the Qing dynasty’s decline and chart the transformation of modern China from the First Opium War to the era of Xi Jinping, the present General Secretary of the Communist Party. They follow a chronological order; this is important, as they provide a clear timeline on which students can easily locate events, characters and major issues. Every lesson begins with a thought-provoking vignette that highlights the theme of the lesson. It then proceeds to tell the main story, supported by primary sources. I have chosen to use primary sources provided by ordinary people in my effort to integrate ‘small’ people’s history into the larger narrative – my answer to the challenge of lecturing on big history with concrete details, and to student complaints that existing survey books do not provide primary sources and specifics. The lessons will also facilitate seminar discussions. Translations from Chinese sources are my own unless stated otherwise; they try to be as faithful as possible to the original texts so that they retain their texture and flavour. Each lesson is complemented with a few images, many never used before, fresh from research libraries and newly opened special collections.

Chinese characters are transliterated into pinyin, rather than the old Wade-Giles spelling; for example, Nanjing (pinyin) replaces Nanking (Wade-Giles spelling), but the Treaty of Nanking remains as it is because it was thus signed. Chinese names are listed in their Chinese order – Mao Zedong, rather than Zedong Mao – but this does not apply to footnotes, where authors are listed the way they are published. More than a decade of teaching has made me aware that it might be easy for students to learn about a historical event and its characters, but it is often not easy for them to navigate the maze of growing scholarship and academic debates. These will be introduced in the final section of each lesson, headed ‘Mapping the Scholarship’. That section is not a bibliography like those in the syllabus which students have complained about for being just a list of books. Neither is it an annotated bibliography. It introduces readers to existing scholarship and key debates just enough for them to embark on independent research, where they will undoubtedly discover more on their own, and write essays and dissertations where they are expected to come up with their own arguments and conclusions.

Lesson 1 sets the stage for modern China, as it traces the origins, identifies the theatres and outlines the consequences of the two Opium Wars. We cannot understand modern China without understanding these Anglo-Chinese conflicts, which raised the curtain on modern China. European powers came, not exactly to rule, but to pursue and safeguard their economic interests. The dynamics and processes that were sparked by their interaction would come to dominate the history of modern China over the course of the next century. The desire for trade led the British to knock on the Chinese door; in their wake came the Protestant missionaries, who were eager for new converts. Lesson 2 focuses on the coming of the Protestant brand of Christianity and the Chinese effort at Sinicising this foreign religion. This was taken to the extreme by the Taiping Rebellion, led by Hong Xiuquan, who proclaimed himself ‘God’s Chinese son’. Despite that affair and its disastrous consequences, the late Qing saw the emergence of Chinese intellectual–spiritual leaders who continued to redefine Christianity for local use, bringing about the Sinicisation of which the Jesuits had long dreamt.

Foreign threats and the inability to suppress rebellions made the late Qing court and its scholar-officials see the need for change – the focus of Lesson 3. Late Qing reform under the names of the Tongzhi Restoration and the Self-Strengthening Movement was part and parcel of late Qing politics. But reform was reactionary, ad hoc, limited; and it was subjected to Empress Dowager Cixi’s political needs and ends as she used it to orchestrate her rise to and stay in power. While reform enriched Japan, it brought more defeat and humiliation for China. Lesson 4 looks at the ‘scramble for China’, when more Western powers and Japan used their military prowess to demand their share of the Chinese pie.⁵ Region by region, these empire-building powers claimed their sphere of influence and made their presence felt. The Boxer Protocol, discussed in Lesson 4, is a defining example of Western imperialism at its worst. This contributed to the rise of nationalism and united many Chinese in their common stance against the imperialists and the Manchus; it gave them a political platform.

Lesson 5 examines what I call the ‘Age of Revolution’ in modern China. This period saw the 1911 Wuchang Uprising, followed by a series of revolutions, political, intellectual, commercial and socio-cultural. Although nationalism led to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, it did not see the birth of the kind of new modern nation many had wished for. Intellectual revolutionaries questioned the soundness of China’s age-old political philosophy and blamed Confucianism for the nation’s woes, while the country disintegrated into warlord rule. Lesson 6 studies that disintegration as warlords, Nationalists, Communists and the Japanese all battled it out for control of China in the four decades after 1911. This reminds us of the Warring States period (475–221 BC), when more than 100 small kingdoms fought for control of China. In the first half of the twentieth century, manmade disasters were compounded by natural calamities. The real casualties of four decades of war were the ordinary people; their misery was made all the worse by the frequent natural disasters.

Following this period of fighting, the unlikely winners, the Communists, emerged triumphant in 1949, to be the new masters of China. Lesson 7 takes on the Mao era from the political, economic, cultural and diplomatic perspectives. Its paramount leader subjected the Chinese people, intellectuals in particular, to waves of political cleansing. The Communist Party failed its people and the economy, but it did not fail its Third World friends. Mao did not successfully make the transition from rebel leader to executive of a modern nation, but Deng Xiaoping did. Lesson 8 surveys the post-Mao era from the perspectives of politics, economics and international relations. The Deng regime launched economic reform and pulled many out of poverty as China developed into the second largest economy in the world in less than three decades – a real ‘Great Leap Forward’. But reform also brought problems. It led to a widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. Much like the late Qing reform, post-Mao economic reform was conducted in the absence of political change.

More than a century of reform and revolution changed China; this can best be seen in the lives of Chinese women. Lesson 9 charts their long march to modernity. Progressive intellectuals believed that in China women had always been oppressed. Women’s liberation became a political platform for both the Nationalist and the Communist regimes, but women were not really liberated until the post-Mao era, at a time when women’s liberation stopped being an ideological platform for the state. What irony! Change can also be seen through the transformations of sport, the performing arts and the Chinese family – all considered in Lesson 10. Like women’s liberation, these areas were political platforms for the Communist regime; their modernisation was politicised as a result. They are windows through which we can gauge China, and they offer unique insights. However, more than a century of reform and revolution did not change everything; some people and cultures are more resistant than others. The post-Mao era offers hindsight unavailable to us before and can teach important lessons.

This book recounts national and even international history; it does so by privileging local, individual and ordinary tales. It charts China’s transformation from political, social, cultural, economic, military and diplomatic perspectives; it also features religion, the diaspora, the environment, sport and performing arts at important junctions. It focuses on the transition as experienced by the Chinese people, including women, children and ethnic minorities; it also considers the foreigners who played important roles. It examines major events and characters, but it also tries to connect them, to allow the longue durée picture to emerge. It tries to tease out the dominant themes; it also entertains diverse hypotheses. It highlights crises but also records achievements. It acknowledges existing scholarship but also asks provoking questions that challenge established views. Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History is not just food for students who study China and Chinese history, but also mental furniture for anyone who is interested in what our future world might look like.

1  Frederic Wakeman Jr, The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).

2  Witold Rodzinski, The Walled Kingdom: A History of China from 2000 BC to the Present (Waukegan [IL]: Fontana Press, 1991); Zheng Yangwen, China on the Sea: How the Maritime World Shaped Modern China (Boston: Brill, 2011).

3  Charles Hucker, China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture (London: Duckworth, 1975), p. 296.

4  Walter H. Mallory, China: Land of Famine (New York: American Geographical Society, 1926 first edition).

5  Robert Bickers, The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire 1832–1914 (London: Allen Lane, 2011).

Lesson 1

The ‘Race for Oriental Opulence’

¹

Thomas Short, MD, wrote of the medical value of tea in A Dissertation Upon Tea, published in the early eighteenth century:

Another Thing which mightily ingratiates the Use of the Liquor to Men of a sprightly Genius, who court the Continuance of their lively and distinct Idea, is, its remarkable Force against Drowsiness and Dul-ness, Damps, and Clouds on Brain and intellectual Faculties; for its keeping is too great; But to prevent frightful Dreams, ’tis best to take three or four dishes in the Afternoon, but not too strong, lest it cause Watch-ings, and to forbear a Flesh Supper after: the Same Time and Quantity is best to prevent Drowsiness.

The Muses Friend, Tea, does our Fancy aid,

Repress those Vapours which the Head invade,

And keep that Palace of the Soul serene

Fit on her Birth-day to salute a Queen.²

Dr Short elevated tea to the status of a panacea fit for a queen’s birthday. It would seem that the British people were in full agreement with Short. Scarcely known to the British Isles in the early seventeenth century, tea was becoming a popular commodity by the eighteenth century. Eminent historian Maxine Berg has argued that ‘by 1760 a breakfast of toast and rolls and tea was entrenched in middling circles’.³ This change in appetite was to have consequences beyond the breakfast table, as this commodity created a tie between Britain and the source of the drink – the Middle Kingdom. Lesson 1 tells the story of how Britain’s demand for tea led to two Anglo-Chinese conflicts in the name of opium. The Opium Wars heralded the beginning of a new era in Chinese history and since then they have never ceased to generate debate, historical as well as political. Lesson 1 also helps students to navigate the growing maze of scholarship and offers potential new lines of enquiry for what is an old topic. What insights can post-Mao hindsight offer us?

A Tale of Two Commodities

European fascination with Chinese goods, artefacts and decorative arts would lead to the development of Chinoiserie, which swept through western Europe from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. This intensified in Britain as the Industrial Revolution produced middling classes eager to consume luxury goods, such as tea, a drink they had not been able to afford before. This fashion in and demand for tea was good news to the British East India Company (EIC), whose business in China had until then been unprofitable. The Europeans, and the British in particular, had bought much from China since the Age of Exploration; but the Chinese bought little in return. To make matters worse for European traders, China accepted only silver, or gold, as currency. To trade with China, Europeans had to carry shiploads of silver on their voyages. Eventually, foreign traders found it increasingly hard to find silver, while China became rich in the metal. This meant they were running not just a trade deficit but also a monetary deficit with China.

This twin deficit was only one of the problems European merchants encountered. Their trade was limited to a small area, the so-called Thirteen Factories, a row of houses outside the city of Guangzhou (Canton) facing the Pearl River estuary, and they could conduct their business only through a governmentlicensed monopoly called Gonghang (Cohang). This was an agency established for the exclusive purpose of dealing with foreign trade; it managed foreign tribute missions and procured for the Qing court. This meant foreign traders had no choice when it came to what kind of tea – or silk or porcelain for that matter – they could purchase; nor did they have any direct contact with merchants, let alone markets, in China. Not only that, they were forced to observe elaborate procedures and diplomatic etiquettes, which made them feel like representatives of vassal states. In addition, they were not allowed to bring families and could stay only in the designated area, and not venture out into the city of Guangzhou – hardly conditions they were used to in Europe and other parts of the world.

But tea had become more than just a simple commodity to Britain. Berg believes that tea was not a major raison d’être for EIC voyages until 1763, when the trade became profitable.⁴ A mere 20 years later its significance was shown by the Commutation Act of 1784, in which the government required the EIC to always maintain a year’s stock of tea.⁵ Tea had become important to national security; its rising popularity meant good business for the EIC and income for the British government. The EIC knew the importance of trade with China: it financed the first official embassy to the Qing court, in 1793, headed by Lord Macartney:

That the Chinese trade is the most important and the most advantageous of the Company’s extensive concerns is, I believe, universally admitted; and that it is worthy of high consideration in a national point of view requires but little proof. It employs direct from England 20,000 tons of shipping, and nearly three thousand seamen; it takes off our woollen manufactures and other products to a very considerable extent; and it brings into the Exchequer annual revenue of about three millions sterling. It is the grand prop of the East India Company’s credit, and the only branch of their trade from which perhaps they may strictly be said to derive real profit.⁶

What John Barrow referred to as the ‘grand prop’ was, in fact, tea; he was private secretary to Lord Macartney. The embassy went in the name of celebrating the birthday of the Qianlong Emperor (reigned 1735–1796) but it came with a series of propositions. These included having British representation in Beijing, free access to the interior and an island offshore on which they could do business without Chinese interference. The last demand would be granted 40 years later with the colony of Hong Kong but, for now, all were refused by Qianlong.⁷ Despite this diplomatic failure, trade with China increased, but so did the twin deficit. By the late eighteenth century, China was probably the richest country in the world as it had absorbed the global silver supply. This had made it increasingly difficult for all European traders, but in particular the British, as they went to China for more tea. They would need to find either more silver or something that the Chinese would buy with silver. The Chinese were buying some foreign goods with silver, mostly luxury items, such as European clocks and opium. Indeed, it seems the Chinese demand for opium was increasing by the early nineteenth century. This was a ray of hope for the British: they had finally found something they could sell to the Chinese.

Seeking a more satisfactory trade relationship, Britain sent another embassy, this time led by Lord Amherst, in 1816. But it turned into a disaster as Lord Amherst was not received by the Jiaqing Emperor (reigned 1796–1820) despite the fact that he was just outside the audience hall. As, initially, with Lord Macartney before him, Chinese officials had insisted that he perform the ritual of kowtow. He refused this request, knowing that his predecessor had not done so, as can be seen from the memoir of George Staunton, Macartney’s deputy:

The Ambassador, instructed by the president of the tribunal of rites, held the large and magnificent square box of gold, adorned with jewels, in which was enclosed his Majesty’s letter to the Emperor, between both hands lifted above his head; and in that manner, ascending the few step that led to the throne, and bending on one knee, presented the box, with a short address, to his Imperial Majesty; who graciously receiving it with his own hands, placed it by his side, and expressed ‘the satisfaction he felt at the testimony which his Britannic Majesty gave to him of his esteem and good will, in sending him an Embassy, with a letter and rare presents; that he, on his part, entertained sentiments of the same kind towards the Sovereign of Great Britain, and hoped that harmony should always be maintained among their respective subjects’.⁸

Despite being refused the audience, the Amherst embassy was not a failure because the information they gathered about China, from its growing opium consumption to its coastal geography and poor defence, would serve the British expedition during the First Opium War. Anglo-Chinese trade increased dramatically through the 1820s until 1834, when the British government, committed to free trade, revoked the EIC’s exclusive trading rights with China, originally granted by Elizabeth I in 1599. More and more private English merchants were now going to do business in China, breaking the equilibrium and causing more problems.

To better manage the situation, the British government appointed William John Napier as the first Chief Superintendent of Trade. Armed with instructions from Lord Palmerston, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Napier arrived in Macao in July 1834. He headed straight to Guangzhou without informing the Chinese authorities and without following established protocol. His no-nonsense style did not secure him a meeting with the Governor-General. Humiliated and frustrated, he resorted to attacking the city, which led to a stalemate. He retreated back to Macao, where he died in October; this was the so-called ‘Napier fizzle’. His short tenure and sudden death might explain why his successors, Sir John Francis Davis and later Sir George Best Robinson, maintained a more conciliatory stance towards China and were content with maintaining the status quo.

The quiescent policy allowed trade, which for the British mainly meant buying tea from and selling opium to China, to reach a level unseen before. We have briefly looked at the reason for the increasing British demand for tea. What about China’s demand for opium? Opium had been among the many items given as tribute from South and Southeast Asian countries to the Ming court since 1483, if not earlier. Just like tea, this royal luxury had begun to filter down the social ladder by the seventeenth century, thanks partly to the coastal Chinese who travelled to and from Southeast Asia. They smoked opium mixed with tobacco in places like Indonesia; they also brought the habit of smoking home. As the Qing dynasty entered its prime in the eighteenth century, China’s urban elite began to smoke and opium became a fashionable form of consumption, as it was imported, expensive and a status symbol.⁹ Soon, the middle classes joined in – an effort to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ – which explains why the demand for opium increased in the early nineteenth century. This more or less coincided with the rising popularity of tea in Britain. Was this simply coincidence, given that the popular consumption of these commodities developed separately in different cultural contexts? As the demand for opium grew inside China, foreign traders, the British in particular, met that demand with shipments from India and Turkey. Economic historian Michael Greenberg carefully studied the Jardine Matheson archive and provided key statistics from the eve of the first Anglo-Chinese conflict (Table 1.1).¹⁰

Table 1.1 Opium shipments to China, 1830–1839 (total numbers of chests)

Source: Michael Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China 1800–42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), appendix I. Bengal included Patna and Benares.

We can see that in less than a decade, China had more than doubled its intake of opium. This had two consequences: outflow of silver and an increase in opium addiction. This was most obvious in Guangzhou, the maritime city that was home to some of the earliest smokers: ‘The most addicted are found in Canton, today among the scholar-officials many indulge in such a Buddha. As to brothels and hostels, they are all equipped with it to allure clients.’¹¹ This was a situation repeated throughout the empire as time went on. Silver was used for large transactions such as those for foreign trade and paying taxes, whereas copper coins were used for small and daily transactions. The rapid withdrawal of silver led to a paralysis of the national finance and economy. Merchants and peasants had little to no silver to pay taxes and governments struggled to pay salaries. Scholarofficials were paid in silver; their indulgence both directly added to silver outflow and advertised the habit to other Chinese, as one of them in Zhejiang described:

My friend, Yao Chunpu, bragged to me about the marvels of opium. He said that it smelled fragrant and it tasted pure and sweet. When depression was drizzling and melancholy settled in, you lie down facing the partner on the low bed with a short lamp and take turns to inhale. At the beginning your spirit is refreshed, soon your head is cleared and eyes sharpened. Then your chest and diaphragm are suddenly opened and your mood is many times better. Before long your muscles are softened and your eyelids closed. At this point, you doze off on the pillow, detached from any thoughts as if you were in a dream world. Your spirit and soul are calmed. This really is a paradise. I smiled and said that ‘it looks like that but it’s not so’. Recently among the four classes of people, only peasants do not taste it; many officials indulge in it. As for the brothels, everyone uses it as a bait to allure clients.¹²

The social problems caused by consumption and addiction could be seen in many other big cities, including Beijing. Manchu princes were not exempt either. Opium smoking was slowly destroying not just the economy but also many families, as addicts would sell wives and children in order to continue their habit. It demoralised the army, as soldiers became addicts. Many officials called for prohibition in the 1830s and there was lively debate in officialdom. To the surprise of many, a few even called for legalisation, but this never gathered much momentum. The prohibitionists won in the end as the Daoguang Emperor (reigned 1820–1850) summoned the then Governor-General of Liang-Hu (Hubei and Hunan provinces), Lin Zexu, to Beijing in November 1838. Lin was tasked with the job of solving the opium problem as Imperial Commissioner. He left the capital immediately, spending Chinese New Year 1839 on his way to Guangzhou. No one would have known of the fateful events that were about to shape far more than just Chinese history.

The Opium War

Commissioner Lin Zexu arrived in Guangzhou in March 1839 and issued an edict to the foreign merchants who lived and worked in the Thirteen Factories. It was delivered by the Gonghang merchants’ guild, headed by Wu Bingjian (Howqua).¹³ The edict demanded that the foreigners hand over their stock of illegal opium and sign a bond guaranteeing that they would not bring opium to China again. After only a few complied with the order, in late March Lin surrounded the area with troops and took away the Chinese who worked there. The foreigners held out for nearly two months, until late May, before sailing away, leaving behind more than 20,000 chests of opium.¹⁴ Lin sent out a proclamation stating that the stock would be destroyed in public view on the beach of Humen in early June 1839. Charles W. King, a partner in the firm Olyphant and Co., went to witness the destruction with two friends:

We found the spot to be an enclosure of some 400 feet square, well palisaded, the side opposite (away from) the river being occupied by neat building, for storing the opium, and etc. The larger part of the fore ground was covered by three vats of perhaps 75 feet by 150 each, opening by sluices into the river. The chests of opium, after being reweighed, and broken up in the presence of high officers, were brought down to the vats; the contents, ball after ball, broken down and crushed upon platforms, raised on high benches above the water, and then pushed by the feet of the Coolies into the receptacles beneath. A large number of men were employed in this macerating the balls for some days with long rakes, until the whole had become a fetid mud, when the sluices were raised, the vats emptied into the river. Every precaution seemed to be used by the officers to ensure the complete destruction of the drug, the spot being well-guarded, the workmen ticketed, etc. In fact, we turned from the scene, fully satisfied that the work was being performed with rigid faithfulness, and much disposed to wonder, that while Christian Governments are growing and farming this deleterious drug, the Pagan monarch should nobly disdain to enrich his treasure with a sale that could not fall short of 20,000,000 Spanish dollars.¹⁵

The destruction was also witnessed by the American missionary Elija Bridgman, whose account can be found in Chinese Repository Volume 8. Lin Zexu wrote a letter to Queen Victoria. He had asked Captain Warner, a merchant and naval officer not engaged in the opium trade, to deliver it but we do not know the fate of this letter.¹⁶ It seems that Lin had done the job he was tasked to do: opium destroyed and smugglers gone. But trouble was soon to descend upon China. Then Chief Superintendent of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot, had instructed British merchants not to sign the bond. Some of these merchants went to Macao while others headed home. William Jardine and James Matheson worked hard, seeking reprisals for the Chinese imprisonment of British subjects in the Thirteen Factories and the loss of private property – in other words, their opium. They were among many who had lobbied for free trade with China, a wind that was blowing strong. The Foreign Office was bombarded with petitions from merchants around the country.

While the British government was gearing up for war, events on the ground hastened the ultimate confrontation. In the heat and humidity of July 1839, a few British and American seamen landed in Jiulong (Kowloon), where they could get fresh water and provisions. After consuming a large amount of alcohol, they got into an argument with a local grocer, Lin Weixi (Wei-hsi). The sailors beat him up and Lin died from his wounds the next day. Commissioner Lin Zexu demanded that Captain Elliot hand over the suspects since the crime had been committed on Chinese soil and should therefore be subject to Chinese law and punishment. Elliot replied in August saying he could not hand them over to the Chinese authorities because they were British subjects who should be tried by their own laws. He tried to defuse the matter by paying compensation to the victim’s family. While Lin and Elliot exchanged letters and quarrelled on, something else happened.

Captain Warner of the Thomas Coutts had signed the bond, reasoning that his cotton business had nothing to do with opium, and he was on friendly terms with the Chinese. He had, in other words, defied the order of the British Superintendent of Trade, who had asked British merchants not to sign the bond. When Warner tried to enter Guangzhou in November 1839, it seemed that Captain Elliot instructed British ships to blockade him. Apparently the Chinese were trying to help Captain Warner to get through the British blockade but their junks were flying red flags, which might have given the impression that they were declaring war. It is in the midst of this scuffle and confusion in the narrow strait Humen, referred to by Europeans as both Bogue and Bocca Tigris, on the estuary leading to Guangzhou, that the first skirmish of the First Opium War, the so-called Battle of Chuenpee (Chuanbi), took place. To retaliate, Commissioner Lin put an embargo on British trade in January 1840.

Back in Britain, parliament voted on the developing crisis in April 1840 after a brief debate. Those who voted for retaliation numbered 271 against 262 opposed, a difference of 9 votes. This gave Lord Palmerston the backing he needed. An expedition force made up of British and Indian troops was sent to China. By June they had assembled on and near Hong Kong Island, which was being used by Captain Charles Elliot as a colony without Chinese permission. In July 1840, the first expedition, led by Charles Elliot and his cousin, Commander George Elliot, began in earnest. Rather than engaging with Commissioner Lin’s forces in the Pearl River estuary, the expedition forces charged up north, taking the island of Zhoushan (Chusan) in Zhejiang, and then straight to the port of Tianjin, the harbour of Beijing, in August 1840. This disturbed the Qing court and the Daoguang Emperor. Elliot handed a letter of grievance to the Tianjin authority complaining that Commissioner Lin had