The Opium War
Page 46
17 Greenberg, British Trade, 118.
18 Peter Ward Fay, The Opium War, 1840–42 (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 49. This is an excellent account of the Opium War, told from the perspective of European and American participants and observers.
19 Quoted in Jack Beeching, The Chinese Opium Wars (New York: Harcourt, 1975), 56.
20 John K. Fairbank, ‘The Creation of the Treaty System’, in Fairbank ed., The Cambridge History of China: Volume 10, Late Ch’ing 1800–1911, Part I, 216.
21 Maurice Collis, Foreign Mud (London: Faber, 1997), 66.
22 Greenberg, British Trade, 139–40.
23 Collis, Foreign Mud, 68.
24 Ibid., 75.
25 See, for example, Gützlaff, A Journal of Three Voyages. Facetious cynicism aside, adherents to Qing China’s various heterodox movements did eagerly consume Christian tracts.
26 Collis, Foreign Mud, 70.
27 Hunt Janin, The India–China Opium Trade (North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 1999), 82.
28 Ibid., 132–5.
29 Ibid., 28.
30 See Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, Report of Proceedings.
31 Charles Toogood Downing, The Fan-qui in China, in 1836–7 (London: Henry Colburn, 1838) Volume I, 55.
32 Janin, The India–China Opium Trade, 71.
33 Dikötter et al., Narcotic Culture, 46.
34 Zheng, The Social Life of Opium, 83.
35 Ibid., 71–2.
36 See Chen Yung-fa, ‘The Blooming Poppy Under the Red Sun: the Yan’an Way and the Opium Trade’, in Hans van de Ven and Anthony Saich eds., New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution (M. E. Sharpe: New York, 1995), 263–98.
37 David Anthony Bello, Opium and the Limits of Empire: Drug Prohibition in the Chinese Interior, 1729–1850 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 168–9, 228 and passim. See also Joyce Madancy’s highly informative The Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin: The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Fujian Province, 1820s to 1920s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003) for an account of opium suppression spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
38 Translation adapted from Zheng, The Social Life of Opium, 57.
39 Dikötter et al., Narcotic Culture, 34.
40 Howard, ‘Opium Suppression’, 86.
41 Ibid., 87.
42 Ibid., 92–3.
43 See table in Lin, China Upside Down, 89.
44 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 96 and McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money, 76.
45 Captain Arthur Cunynghame, The Opium War: Being Recollections of Service in China (Philadelphia: G. B. Zieber, 1845), 237.
46 Translation adapted from Dikötter et al., Narcotic Culture, 60–61.
47 McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money, 92.
48 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 96.
49 McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money, 78.
50 Ibid., 82.
51 Dikötter et al., Narcotic Culture, 74.
52 McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money, 83.
53 Dikötter et al., Narcotic Culture, 52–3.
54 ‘Admonitory Pictures’, Chinese Repository 5 (1837), 571–3.
55 McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money, 78.
56 Dikötter et al., Narcotic Culture, 51–7.
57 Ibid., 34.
58 Howard, ‘Opium Suppression’, 88.
59 Ibid., 90.
60 Ibid., 60.
61 Lin, China Upside Down, 13.
62 Wakeman, ‘The Canton Trade’, 173.
63 See tables in Lin, China Upside Down, 89 and 95.
64 This section relies heavily on the analysis in ibid., 108 and passim, which offers a stimulating reappraisal of the global economic factors acting on late-Qing China.
Two DAOGUANG’S DECISION
1 Yan Chongnian, Zheng shuo Qing chao shi er di (Correct accounts of the twelve emperors of the Qing) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), 164.
2 James Polachek, ‘Literati Groups and Literati Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century China’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (University of California, 1976), 128.
3 Wan Yi et al., Daily Life in the Forbidden City: The Qing Dynasty, 1644–1912 (New York: Viking, 1988), 312, 316.
4 Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 1999), 114.
5 Joseph Fletcher, ‘The Heyday of the Ch’ing Order in Mongolia, Sinkiang and Tibet’, in Fairbank ed., The Cambridge History of China: Volume 10, Late Ch’ing 1800–1911, Part I, 364.
6 For these and other statistics, see Benjamin A. Elman’s extraordinarily detailed account of the examination system in A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 267, 134, 143.
7 Ibid., 291–2.
8 Pamela Kyle Crossley, The Manchus (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002), 124.
9 This section is indebted to the marvellous reconstructions of Manchu life in Mark Elliot, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001) and Pamela Kyle Crossley, Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
10 Quoted in Elliot, The Manchu Way, 201.
11 Quoted in Wan Yi et al., Qingdai gongtingshi (A history of the Qing court) (Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe), 334.
12 Susan Mann Jones and Philip A. Kuhn, ‘Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion’, in Fairbank ed., The Cambridge History of China: Volume 10, Late Ch’ing 1800–1911, Part I, 127.
13 Betty Peh-T’i Wei, Ruan Yuan, 1764–1849: The Life and Work of a Major Scholar-Official in Nineteenth-Century China before the Opium War (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006), 284.
14 The Analects of Confucius trans. and notes by Simon Leys (New York: Norton, 1997).
15 See Polachek, ‘Literati groups’, 181, and also The Inner Opium War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), two pioneering examinations of internal policy debates in the Qing court before, during and after the Opium War.
16 Jonathan D. Spence, ‘Opium Smoking in Ch’ing China’, reprinted in Michael Greenberg, British Trade, 150.
17 Quoted in Collis, Foreign Mud, 82–3.
18 Quoted in Polachek, The Inner Opium War, 111.
19 For the full document, see Alan Baumler’s invaluable Modern China and Opium: A Reader (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 6–11.
20 Quoted in Chang, Commissioner Lin, 89.
21 See Chinese Repository 7 (1838), 271–80 for a translation of Huang’s memorial.
22 Baumler ed., Modern China and Opium, 15–20.
23 Huang Jueci, ‘Memorial Against Consumers of Opium’, Chinese Repository 7 (1838), 271–80.
24 Mao, Tianchao de bengkui (The Collapse of a Dynasty) (Beijing: Shenghuo, 1995), 90–91.
25 Arthur Waley, The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1958), 122.
26 P. C. Kuo, A Critical Study of the First Anglo-Chinese War with Documents (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1935), 220.
27 Mao, Tianchao, 92–3.
Three: CANTON SPRING
1 Yang Guozhen, Lin Zexu zhuan (Biography of Lin Zexu), (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), 7.
2 For biographical information on Lin, see (in addition to ibid.) Qi Sihe et al. eds., Yapian zhanzheng (The Opium War) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1954) Volume 6, 245–67 and Mao, Tianchao, 95–6.
3 Lin, China Upside Down, 287.
4 See Polachek, ‘Literati groups’, and also The Inner Opium War.
5 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 120.
6 Yang, Lin, 137.
7 Kuo, A Critical Study, 223.
8 Ibid., 226.
9 Yang, Lin, 134.
10 Kuo, A Critical Study, 215.
11 Qi, Yapian zhanzheng Volume 1, 314.
12 Waley, The Opium War, 24.
13 Liang, Yifen wenji, 23.
14 Figures from Cha
ng, Commissioner Lin, 129.
15 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 352–3.
16 Xiao Zhizhi, Yapian zhanzheng shi (History of the Opium War) (Fujian: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1996) Volume 1, 194.
17 Waley, The Opium War, 30–31.
18 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 261.
19 Dai Xueji, Yapian zhanzheng renwu zhuan (Biographies of Figures from the Opium War) (Fujian: Fujian jiaoyu chubanshe, 1986), 1–3.
20 The literature on the British empire is predictably enormous. For a classic survey, see Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion 3rd edition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). For more recent accounts, see John Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System 1830–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) or Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2003). For a good overview of twentieth-century scholarly theories of British empire-building, see David Cannadine, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, Past & Present 147.1 (1995): 180–94.
21 Clagette Blake, Charles Elliot, R.N., 1801–1875: A Servant of Britain Overseas (London: Cleaver-Hume, 1960), 2.
22 Ibid., 18–19.
23 Dai, Yapian zhanzheng renwu zhuan, 252–5.
24 Gerald Graham, The China Station: War and Diplomacy, 1830–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 73.
25 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 387.
26 Ibid., 190.
27 Additional Papers Relating to China (1840), 5.
28 See references in le Pichon, China, Trade and Empire, for example 479, 497.
29 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 188.
30 Ibid., 188.
31 Graham, The China Station, 81.
32 Melancon, Britain’s China Policy, 76.
33 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 146.
34 Ibid., 147.
35 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 356.
36 Ibid., 356.
37 Ibid., 357.
38 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 153.
39 For this description of the approach to Canton, see Downing, The Fan-qui in China Volume 1, 230–316.
40 Le Pichon, China, Trade and Empire, 499.
41 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 156.
42 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 358.
43 Select Committee, Report (1840), 91.
44 Fay, The Opium War, 155.
45 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 163.
46 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 372.
47 Ibid., 387.
Four: OPIUM AND LIME
1 Waley, The Opium War, 49.
2 See ibid. and Chang, Commissioner Lin, 172.
3 Tan Chung, China and the Brave New World (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1978), 203.
4 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 375–6.
5 Qi, Yapian zhanzheng Volume 2, 16.
6 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 185, 269; Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 390.
7 For example, Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 387.
8 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 187.
9 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 432.
10 Waley, The Opium War, 55–60.
11 Ibid., 62.
12 Ibid., 65.
13 See, for example, Chen Xiqi, Lin Zexu yu yapian zhanzheng lungao (Essays on Lin Zexu and the Opium War) (Guangdong: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1990), 22–6.
14 Chinese Repository 8 (1840), 485.
15 Mao, Tianchao, 116.
16 Lin Zexu ji (Zougao) (Collected Works of Lin Zexu – Memorials) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962–65) Volume 2, 676.
17 Mao, Tianchao, 118–23.
18 Waley, The Opium War, 67 and Qi, Yapian zhanzheng Volume 4, 167.
19 Waley, The Opium War, 67.
20 See, for example, Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 369–72, 396.
21 Mao, Tianchao, 123, from Yapian zhanzheng dangan shiliao (Archive Materials on the Opium War) (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 1992) Volume 1, 543.
22 Mao, Tianchao, 124, from Yapian zhanzheng dangan shiliao Volume 1, 723.
23 Mao, Tianchao, 124.
Five: THE FIRST SHOTS
1 Chinese Repository 3 (1834), 372.
2 Quoted in Thoms, The Emperor of China, 3.
3 Fay, The Opium War, 191.
4 Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, Is the War with China a Just One? (London: James Ridgway, 1840), 6–38.
5 Quoted in James L. Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 67. This book offered a pioneering reappraisal of this key early encounter in Sino-British relations.
6 See citations in Raymond Dawson, The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European Conceptions of Chinese Civilisation (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 66.
7 A Resident in China, The Rupture with China and Its Causes (London: Gilbert and Piper, 1840), 59.
8 Quoted in Chung, China and the Brave New World, 1.
9 Without this rhetorical sleight of hand, we would be without a rich literature of racist generalizations about the ‘Chinese national character’. We might never have had Arthur Smith’s multiply reprinted 1894 classic Chinese Characteristics, which told you everything you needed to know about the Chinese in two dozen informative chapters (on ‘Intellectual Turbidity’, ‘The Absence of Nerves’ and of course, ‘Contempt for Foreigners’); or Rodney Gilbert’s irascible 1926 bestseller, What’s Wrong with China. The country, Gilbert told his millions of readers, ‘is already spoiled and capricious beyond words, simply because she has been consistently overpraised and overrated when she should have been spanked.’ Cited in Robert Bickers, Britain in China (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 28. See also Bickers, Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (London: Allen Lane, 2003) for an excellent portrait of one Briton in modern China.
10 Secondary research on the Qing dynasty has changed radically over the past two decades. Older views of the dynasty (both Chinese and Western, the latter represented by the work of John K. Fairbank, such as Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Historical Studies, 1953–54)) tended to see the Qing as intensely sinicized and inward-looking. More recent scholarship has emphasized instead the ways in which Manchu ethnic identity was preserved through the dynasty and the vigorous expansionism of the regime. For background and surveys of the period, Spence, The Search for Modern China, and relevant volumes of The Cambridge History of China offer very good starting points; the perspectives offered in Willard Price ed., The Cambridge History of China: Volume 9, Early Qing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) reflect the most recent trends in scholarship. William Rowe’s China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009) is an excellent new one-volume book on the dynasty. See also the following for a further sampling of Qing scholarship: Crossley, The Manchus and A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Elliot, The Manchu Way; Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar; Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); James Millward, Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity and Empire in Qing Central Asia 1759–1864 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Peter Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005); Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (New York: Norton, 1999) and The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing (London: Tauris, 2006).
11 Price ed., The Cambridge History of China Volume 9, 10.
12 Perdue, China Marches West, 205.
13 Translation slightly adapted from Jonathan Spence, ‘The Kang-Hsi Reign’, in Price ed., The Cambridge History o
f China Volume 9, 156.
14 Ibid., 291.
15 Quoted in Jonathan Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent (London: Penguin, 2000), 60.
16 Hevia, Cherishing Men, 201.
17 Waley-Cohen, The Sextants, 97.
18 William Hunter, The ‘Fan-Kwae’at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825–1844 2nd ed. (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1911), 26.
19 Ibid., 40.
20 Quoted in Chung, China and the Brave New World, 43.
21 Quoted in Lydia H. Liu’s eye-opening book, The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World-Making (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 58.
22 Quoted in Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise, 40. I owe this insight to the enlightening accounts of Hevia in Cherishing Men, and Waley-Cohen in The Sextants of Beijing.
23 Quoted in Hevia, Cherishing Men, 179.
24 Quoted in Rawski, The Last Emperors, 6.
25 Hunter, The ‘Fan-Kwae’, 61.
26 Chang, Commissioner Lin, 203.
27 Waley, The Opium War, 80.
28 Additional Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 10.
29 Kuo, A Critical Study, 252.
30 Lin Zexu, Lin Zexu quanji Volume 3 (Fuzhou: Haixia wenyu chubanshe, 2002), 216–18.
31 Correspondence Relating to China (1840), 474.
Six: ‘AN EXPLANATORY DECLARATION’
1 Kenneth Bourne, Palmerston, the Early Years: 1784–1841 (London: Allen Lane, 1982), 408. The following section on Palmerston’s Foreign Office is much indebted to Bourne’s lively and detailed account. See also http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/publications/historians1/history-notes/the-fco-policy-people-places/the-buildings-fco (accessed 22 July 2009).
2 Bourne, Palmerston, 434.
3 Fay, The Opium War, 192–3.
4 Dai, Yapian zhanzheng renwu zhuan, 248–51.
5 Bourne, Palmerston, 459.
6 Ibid., 461.
7 Ibid., 470.
8 Ibid., 471.
9 Fay, The Opium War, 200.
10 Melancon, Britain’s China Policy, 86; I am indebted to Glenn Melancon’s careful unpicking of the background to the Whig Cabinet’s decision for war with China.
11 For a tour-de-force account of the period, see Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006).
12 Melancon, Britain’s China Policy, 95.