The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  The regents, charged with responsibility for the recent war and (a fine effrontery on her part) with treacherously capturing Loch and Parkes, were sentenced to be tortured to death, but this was commuted to suicide by the silk cord for Princes I and Cheng, and beheading for Sushun. Jung Lu was rewarded with the viceroyalty of a province and control of the army; Yehonala and Sakota assumed the titles of Empress of the Western and Eastern Palace respectively,* and from that moment the former concubine never relaxed her grip on imperial power. When her son, the new Emperor, died in 1873, she engineered the succession for her infant nephew, but when he reached manhood and showed reformist tendencies she had him interned and wielded supreme authority until her death.

  Yehonala Tzu-hsi was the world’s last great absolute queen, and may be compared to Catherine the Great and the first Elizabeth. For the ills her country suffered through her resistance policy and refusal to accept change, she may fairly be blamed; against that, she kept the world at bay from China until the end of the century, when economic decline, war with Japan, and the Boxer Rising (which she exploited against the foreign powers) completed the undermining of imperial rule. Soon after her death China was a republic; whether it would have profited from earlier revolution, earlier reform, and earlier acceptance of the outside world, no one can say.

  In its details, Flashman’s portrait of Yehonala is a faithful one; her beauty and charm were legendary, as were her less admirable qualities, and his account of her lifestyle is confirmed elsewhere, even to such trivia as her favourite food, clothes, jewellery, and board-games. How just he is in his sweeping assessment of her character is a matter for conjecture; as her biographer Sergeant observes, contemporary writers, depending on their viewpoint, show her almost as two different women, “one a monster of iniquity, the other a lovable genius”. There is ample evidence that she was vain, greedy, cruel, and autocratic, but less that she was as callous, ruthless, and promiscuous as Flashman suggests. Opinions differ sharply about her private morals; she was for years concubine to a depraved monarch, and rumours of her immorality were persistent (but she did not lack malicious enemies); apart from Jung Lu, her lovers were said to include a later Chief Eunuch, Li Lien Ying (“Cobbler’s Wax”), her confirmed favourite, who may not have been a eunuch at all – the American artist, Katherine Carl, described him as tall, thin, and “Savonarola-like”, with elegant manners and a pleasant voice. There is virtually no personal evidence for her early life; most of the memoirs refer to her later years, when the picture is of a sprightly, domineering old lady of unshakeable will, immense vanity, high intelligence, and winning charm when she chose to exert it; obviously a once great beauty, and retaining to the end her silvery voice and flashing smile. (See Philip W. Sergeant, The Great Empress Dowager of China, 1910; Daniel Varè, The Last of the Empresses, 1936; E. Backhouse and J. O. P. Bland, China Under the Empress Dowager, 1910, and Annals of the Court of Pekin; Princess Der Ling (Te Ling), afterwards Mrs T. C. White, lady-in-waiting to the Dowager Empress, Two Years in the Forbidden City, 1924, and Old Buddha; Charlotte Haldane, The Last Great Empress of China, 1965; J. and M. Porteous, “An Explanatory Account of the Chinese Ladies”, pamphlet, Dublin, 1888. For the political intrigues of 1861, see Morse, International Relations.)

  * * *

  * But not Sang-kol-in-sen, who had been stripped of his title and command after the fall of Pekin in October, 1860.

  * Flashman is plainly mistaken in assigning this title to Yehonala in 1860.

  APPENDIX III:

  The Doctor of Letters of the Hanlin Academy

  One of the most touching, and illuminating, documents of the China War is a diary covering the last few weeks before Elgin’s army reached Pekin. It was kept by a Doctor of Letters and member of the Hanlin Academy, living in the capital, and is an invaluable record of the crisis as seen by an educated, middle-class Chinese. He calls it “a record of grief incurable”; the time of national catastrophe was also, for him, one of personal tragedy because, while the barbarians were closing on Pekin, the doctor’s aged mother was dying, and the diary is a moving record of his personal anxieties set against the background of great events. The diary has another value: it shows the power which the Yi Concubine Yehonala exerted on the dying Emperor and his court, and the extent to which she was responsible for the bitter resistance to the Allies’ demands.

  “In the moon of the Ken Shen Year (August)”, writes the doctor, “rumours began to circulate that the barbarians had already reached Taku (Forts).” There was “alarm and uneasiness” in Pekin, but no flight as yet. “His Majesty was seriously ill, and it was known that he wished to leave for the north, but the Imperial Concubine Yi … dissuaded him and assured him that the barbarians would never enter the city.” After news of the defeat at Taku, however, people began to leave, and as the news became progressively worse, the exodus became one of thousands.

  The doctor now turns to his own immediate troubles: his mother’s medicine, the preparation of her coffin, its appearance, and its cost – which, he reflects, would have been much greater if he had not had the foresight to buy the wood years earlier and keep it in store. “This comforted me not a little.”

  His next entry is divided between national affairs and the progress being made on the coffin. There are “rumours that Pekin would be bombarded on the 27th [sic], so that everyone was escaping who could. On the 27th we put on the second coating of lacquer. On that day our troops captured the barbarian leader Pa-hsia-li (Parkes) with eight others, and they were imprisoned in the Board of Punishments.” He notes that the Emperor was preparing to leave, but the Imperial Concubine Yi persuaded some of the high officials to memorialise him to remain. All officials were now sending their families and valuables out of the city.

  His mother’s death was clearly approaching, so the ceremonial robes were prepared. His mother thought the coverlet was too heavy, so one of silk was substituted, but she thought that too luxurious. “Her parents-in-law,” she pointed out, “had not had grave-wrappings of such valuable stuff.” Meanwhile, in “the battle at Chi Hua Gate” (which presumably means Pah-li-chao), “the Mongol cavalry broke, and many were trampled to death in the general rout.”

  And now “the Princes and Ministers besought the Concubine Yi to induce His Majesty to leave … His Majesty was only too anxious to start at once … (but she) persuaded the two Grand Secretaries to memorialise against his doing so, and … a decree was issued stating that in no circumstances would the Emperor leave the capital.”

  Another battle was reported the next day (September 22; this was either a false rumour, or more probably the Allies mopping up after Pah-li-chao), and the Emperor, “attended by his concubines, the Princes, Ministers and Dukes [sic], and all the officers of the household, left the city in desperate rout and disorder unspeakable”. In fact, the doctor notes, the barbarians were still some way off, and the court was at the Summer Palace, so there was nothing to fear.

  “Up to the last the Yi Concubine begged him to remain … as his presence could not fail to awe the barbarians, and thus to exert a protecting influence for the good of the city and people. How, she said, could the barbarians be expected to spare the city if the Sacred Chariot had fled, leaving unprotected the tutelary shrines and the altars of the gods?”

  Shortly after this, the doctor’s mother died, “abandoning her most undutiful son … her death lies at my door, because of my ignorance of medicine.” He was worried about having her buried, in case the barbarians should desecrate her grave, but finally had her buried in a temple. A few days later he notes briefly “vast columns of smoke seen rising to the north-west”.

  “When the Yi Concubine heard of the … surrender, she implored the Emperor to reopen hostilities.” But His Majesty was dangerously ill, “so our revenge must be postponed for the time being”.

  He was not a Doctor of Letters for nothing, for in short space he conjures up a most moving and vivid picture: of life and death going on in a small house in Pekin while
the captains and the kings make history; of his concern for the indomitable old lady reproving his extravagance while the Imperial Army crumbles; of his touching self-reproach at her death and his admiration for the fiery Yi Concubine vainly urging resistance for the honour of China; of his fears for his mother’s grave while the Summer Palace is burning. And perhaps the strongest impression he leaves is that if the men of Pekin had matched the spirit of the women, Lord Elgin would have bought his treaty dear. (For the Doctor’s diary, see Backhouse and Bland.)

  Glossary

  bahadur title of honour (Hindustani)

  bandobast organisation (Hind.)

  Cangue wooden punishment collar

  chandoo high quality prepared opium

  chin-chin good-bye; conversation (Chinese)

  chow-chow water dangerous cross-currents

  daffadar cavalry commander of ten (Indian Army)

  fan-qui foreigner

  Ghazi fanatic

  Harka force of Bedouin cavalry

  Hong association of Chinese merchants

  impi Zulu regiment

  Indaba business, affair (lit., council. Swahili)

  jemadar under-officer

  kampilan slender-bladed cleaver (Malay)

  Kya-hai! summons to waiter or bearer (lit. “What is!” Hind.)

  Lorcha Chinese-rigged river ship

  Naik corporal (Indian Army)

  rissaldar cavalry troop commander

  samshu rice spirit

  Sat-sree-akal Sikh greeting, sometimes used as a slogan

  Sawney Scotsman

  sgian dhu black knife of Scottish Highlanders

  shabash bravo! (Hind.)

  Sing-song Chinese music-hall

  snotty midshipman (Royal Navy)

  sowar trooper (Indian Army)

  Syce groom (Hind.)

  taipan head of a business (lit. great man, boss)

  tanguin Malagassy poison

  Tutti-putti broken (tutti-putti zamin, broken ground, Hind.)

  Wang king, prince

  yamen official residence, office.

  Notes

  1. Flashman is usually vague about dates, but from internal evidence (see p. 35) it is clear that the ten days were March 1–11, 1860. It is not known why he was on transit through Hong Kong at this time; approximately eighteen months earlier, in the autumn of 1858, he was definitely in India, preparing to return to England at the end of his service in the Indian Mutiny, which earned him a V.C. and knighthood (see Flashman in the Great Game), but the present narrative makes it plain that this return did not take place, and that during 1859 he was engaged in further foreign service. What this was a later packet of the Papers may explain, but there is some reason to suppose that it was connected with China, since up to the end of 1858 he had never visited that country, yet at the beginning of the present memoir he writes of it with apparent familiarity, and displays some fluency in Chinese, a language not mentioned in his earlier reminiscences. There is a possible alternative for 1859, far-fetched though it may seem: one reference in his earlier writings suggests an acquaintance with John Brown, the American abolitionist, whose celebrated raid on Harper’s Ferry took place in October, 1859, and since Flashman had been at one time an agent (albeit an unwilling one) of the Underground Railroad, it is not impossible that the missing eighteen months were partly spent in the United States – although in what capacity it would be rash to speculate.

  2. A reasonable summary of Anglo-Chinese relations up to 1860, including the Arrow War of 1856. For details of the Palmerston – Cobden debate (February 26, 1857), see Division IV of J. Ewing Ritchie’s Life and Times of Viscount Palmerston.

  3. Flashman, of course, had no scruples about the opium trade, but the mere fact that he mentioned morality to Mrs Carpenter is some reflection of the opposition that was growing against the opium interests. China had legalised the traffic for the first time under the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin; the opium lobby brazenly claimed that this was voluntary; Sir Thomas Wade, a leading China expert, said the concession had been “extorted”, and Lord Elgin postponed the relevant clause rather than force China’s hand. In fact, the Chinese recognised that there was nothing they could do about it; “the present generation of smokers must and will have opium,” their commissioner told Elgin, a fact recognised by such experienced observers as the missionary Alexander Williamson, who called for abolition by Britain, but admitted that it would make little difference to the Chinese, who would get their drug anyway (Williamson knew the figures, and that it was not uncommon for a labourer to smoke 80 cash worth of opium a day out of his wage of 120 cash (2½p.)). This argument was fastened on by the opium lobby, whose line is echoed by Mrs Carpenter; what is surprising is that even old China hands like John Scarth could assert that the drug was smoked as a sedative rather than as a narcotic. An excellent summary of the subject is J. Spencer Hill’s Maitland Prize-winning essay of 1882, The Indo-Chinese Opium Trade (1884); Hill came to the subject strongly prejudiced against the anti-opium lobby, but his investigations changed his mind. (See also John Scarth, Twelve Years in China (1860); Alexander Williamson, Travels in North China (1870); H. B. Morse, The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, 1908.)

  4. Unless there were two Jack Fishers, midshipmen on the China Station in 1860, Flashman’s young acquaintance can only have been John Arbuthnot (“Jackie”) Fisher, later admiral of the fleet, Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, godfather of the Dreadnought battleship, and the foremost name in the Royal Navy since Nelson. Just as Wolseley (see Note 6) may be called the architect of the modern British Army, so Fisher with his “big-gun” turbine ships gave the Royal Navy command of the seas in the first half of the present century. He entered the navy when he was thirteen, and served during the Crimea before going to the China Station in 1859, where he took part in the capture of Canton and the attack on Taku Forts. He was in Chinese waters in the spring of 1860, and still a midshipman although acting-lieutenant, a rank not confirmed until the end of the year. Since Flashman certainly knew Fisher in later life, it is surprising that he does not identify him at their first meeting; on the other hand, his brief description sounds very like the young “Bulldog Jackie”.

  5. Chinese secret societies, tongs and triads (the Heaven and Earth Association, the Dagger Men, and others) had various recognition signals; three fingers round a cup was that of the White Lilies. (See Scarth.)

  6. Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833–1913), “the model of a modern major-general”, was one of Britain’s most important soldiers. He won no distinction as a commander in a great war, but his record in the so-called “little wars” – indeed, the variety and success of his service generally – is probably unique in the history of arms. An Anglo-Irishman, he followed his own maxim that if a young officer wants to do well he should try to get himself killed; Wolseley tried really hard, first in the Burma War, when he was badly wounded leading the attack on an enemy stockade; in the Crimea, where he was twice wounded, losing an eye; in the Indian Mutiny, where he served in the relief and siege of Lucknow, being five times mentioned in despatches; in the China War of 1860; in Canada, where in his first independent command he put down the Red River Rebellion without a casualty; in Africa, where he won a lightning campaign against King Koffee of Ashanti, and captured Cetewayo, the Zulu leader; in Egypt, where he beat Arabi Pasha at Tel-el-Kebir and took Cairo; in the Sudan, where he reached Khartoum just too late to rescue Gordon, his old friend of the Crimea and China. He was made a viscount, and later field marshal.

  But Wolseley’s real importance was as a military reformer and creator of the modern British Army; having seen and suffered under a traditional regime which, while largely successful, had hardly changed in centuries, and being a confirmed champion of the private soldier, he foresaw the need for change in a rapidly changing military world. He had seen the first “modern war” in the struggle between the American States (where he met Lee and Stonewall Jackson), and his reforms and reorganisations, bitterly opposed at the tim
e, prepared the British Army for a new era of warfare; his influence, largely forgotten, is on the Army still. He was (as Gilbert and Grossmith recognised when they caricatured him in “The Pirates of Penzance”) a man of many talents; a trained draughtsman and surveyor, he sketched and painted well, and wrote several books, including most notably The Soldier’s Pocket Book, a life of Marlborough, a novel, and his reminiscences of the China campaign.

  Flashman shows him briefly as a young staff-officer, before the full flowering of the quick temper and impatient efficiency which were to make the expression “All Sir Garnet” synonymous with the modern “Right on!” Wolseley always wanted the best; typically, he chose for one campaign a man who had beaten him in competition. Disraeli passed an illuminating judgment on him: “Wolseley is an egotist and a braggart. So was Nelson.” (See his Narrative of the War with China in 1860 (1862), and Story of a Soldier’s Life (1903); Sir John Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol XIII, (1930); Dictionary of National Biography.

  7. Since Flashman probably knew more eminent fighting men – including the great names of the Crimea, Mutiny, U.S. Civil War, and Afghan and American frontiers, to say nothing of his various native foemen – than any other observer of his day, his opinion of James Hope Grant (1808–75) has to be taken seriously. The record seems to bear him out; Grant’s active service in India and China is chiefly remarkable for the amount of time he spent in hand-to-hand combat, to which he brought an iron constitution and an apparently total disregard for his own safety. “To die is nothing,” he once explained, “it’s only going from one room to another.” It was in outpost work and the leadership of flying cavalry columns that his talent lay, although his one major command (China, 1860) was conducted with efficiency, despite his being to some extent at the mercy of his diplomats (Fortescue is scathing on this). Flashman’s character sketch and physical description are sound; he makes the important point that the terrible fighter and stern disciplinarian was an unusually gentle and kindly man, whose consuming interest was music – Grant was a gifted ’cellist and composer, and indeed owed an early advancement to the fact that his commanding general was a keen violinist who wanted a ’cello player as brigade-major. Despite his sketchy education, Grant was something of a military innovator; he is credited with introducing regular manoeuvres and the war game, and it is interesting that Wolseley, the most intellectual of soldiers, should say: “If I have attained any measure of military prosperity, my gratitude is due to one man, and that man is Sir Hope Grant.” (See Sir Hope Grant and Major Knollys, Incidents in the China War; Fortescue; D.N.B.)