The Mandarin uttered platitudes, trusting David Lee to improvise plausible replies to the barbarians’ chatter. David had explained that barbarian etiquette restricted conversation at a reception to trivialities and absurdities. All Chinese gentlemen knew that the congenial atmosphere of a reception was designed to promote the amicable discussion of official or commercial business.
The barbarians’ manners were quite peculiar. They and the Shanghai gentry had laughed at his troops’ utilitarian uniforms, apparently believing that gaudy uniforms made men good fighters. The first clashes with the rebels had allayed that official contempt. Obviously the barbarians were impressed only by power, display, and wealth. Even their officials spoke with feeling only about profits.
What would their attitude be, the Mandarin wondered, if the Taipings were not implacably opposed to the opium trade and the Dynasty had not reluctantly legalized it four years earlier? If the reverse were the case, the profit-mad outlanders might have turned against the Sacred Dynasty. Young David Lee had explained that the interlopers could not balance their books if they did not peddle the drug. Balancing books, whatever that meant, was manifestly a rite as essential to the barbarians’ welfare as the sacrifices the Emperor offered each spring at the Altar of Heaven were to the harmony of the Empire.
Some two hundred barbarians were milling in the hall under the pseudo-Chinese roofs of the Customhouse. The Mandarin looked longingly through the open doors, where the Hwangpoo gleamed deceptively cool. His gaze encountered the dapper Frederick Townsend Ward, who commanded the Ever Victorious Army. His black beard waggling, the adventurer was chatting with a colonel of the Army of Huai. The American’s father-in-law, the squint-eyed profiteer Yang Fang, whom the outlanders called Takee, was interpreting. That uncultured opportunist, who supplied and paid the Ever Victorious Army on behalf of the provincial government, was prospering even more blatantly after marrying his ill-favored daughter to Ward. Takee’s affairs would require further examination. Preliminary inquiries had already released a nauseating stench of corruption.
The Mandarin looked with pleasure at the great globes of peonies shining crimson in emerald pots before banks of orange and pink azaleas, which he always associated with Shanghai. The American officer who commanded the gunboat Mencius stood chatting with a young woman among dark firs in brown jardiniéres scrolled with yellow dragons.
Gabriel Hyde normally found Fronah Haleevie Henriques stimulating, but she was today so lively—almost frenetic—that she put him on edge. Saul and Sarah were quite right in hoping the reception would bring her out of herself, though they had probably not expected the febrile gaiety she now displayed. Her former love of such social gatherings apparently revived, she was gazing eagerly around the company and chatting animatedly. Nonetheless, her light-brown eyes stared enormous from a face whose flesh had melted. Her cheekbones stood out starkly, and her hands were frail claws, which seemed burdened by her gray tissue-silk shawl embroidered with silver arabesques.
“Have you been avoiding me, Fronah?” Gabriel teased Fronah, playing to her mood. “I’ve come by several times since I got back from Anking. And every blessed time Maylu or that poisonous new houseboy said the same thing: Missy not feeling well today. More better you come back ’nother time.”
“I really haven’t been feeling well, Gabriel,” she said.
“Are you avoiding me?”
“Not you, Gabriel. It’s just that I feel tired so much of the time. Though today I’m full of energy for some reason.”
“What does Willie MacGregor say?”
“He can’t find anything wrong. He says I must get out more.”
“Don’t you eat, Fronah? You look worse than the refugees. You’re almost emaciated.”
“I do eat, Gabriel, believe me. I force myself to eat. But I can’t keep it down. I keep getting sick.”
“What does Willie say about that?”
“No physical cause, he says. It must be in my mind. Anorexy, he calls it. That’s why I’m so thin. It is so provoking when there’s so much I want to do.”
“How can your mind make you sick, Fronah?”
“I don’t understand it. I don’t want to be sick. But just looking at all this food nauseates me.” Her smile flashed. “At least I won’t have to worry about gentlemen pursuing the grass widow. Not when I’m thin as a rail.”
Gabriel was moved by her spirit and touched by her condition, even if he could not believe that the disturbance of her mind could have such a profound effect on her body. She was like an engine running so fast it threatened to shake itself to pieces, though only a few years earlier she had been a vibrant girl grasping at life with eager hands, as exciting to others as a thoroughbred filly or a sleek racing sloop. She was, he feared, burning herself out by the intensity of her emotions, and he knew she took virtually no nourishment. David had told him she swallowed a few spoonfuls of rice gruel when Maylu forced her to.
“Fronah, just look around you.” His neutral tone, he hoped, did not reveal his fears. “Not at these fat cats here. But look at the refugees streaming into the city. They’re really hungry and weary … some badly injured. You said you wanted to do something for China, for the Chinese. What about them?”
“Please don’t bully me, Gabriel,” she protested. “Willie MacGregor’s asked me to help in his hospital, and I’ve spent some time there. But I get tired so easily—and anyway, scrubbing and cleaning, even changing bandages, isn’t such a great thing. I want to do more …”
“It’s a beginning, Fronah.” He was unaccountably angry at her predicament. “And do try to eat more.”
“I do try.” She looked up at him dully. “But somehow I just …”
“Damn it, they want me,” he broke in. “You’ll have to excuse me, Fronah. But remember what I said, and for God’s sake, try!”
“I will, Gabriel, I promise.” She lifted her minutely pointed chin determinedly.
The unspoken summons from David Lee was not wholly unwelcome to Gabriel, who was exasperated by his inability to help Fronah. The junior Mandarin again nodded his head imperatively as the American pushed through the throng.
The interruption was most welcome to the Mandarin Li Hung-chang. He had been on the verge of an unseemly public quarrel with Takee and Takee’s henchman, the Customs Intendant Wu Hsü, when the orderly whispered in David’s ear. The Mandarin could hardly ignore the profiteers’ challenge. Taking advantage of the congenial atmosphere of the reception, Takee and the Customs Intendant had impertinently suggested that he share the enormous profits of their illicit enterprises by assisting them.
The henchmen were not only milking the customs dues but discounting contribution tickets. Those emergency certificates, sold to defray the cost of the civil war, entitled purchasers to nominal official appointments. Takee and the Customs Intendant were buying contribution tickets for a tenth of their face value and selling them at half face value. Their profits were enormous, but the revenue the government received was derisory.
The Mandarin Li Hung-chang was pleased to escape that confrontation for the moment. He was not yet so well established in Shanghai that he could afford to clash with the local bureaucracy. The administrative structure he was building with his own men would require at least another six months for completion.
“Military necessity, gentlemen,” he said brusquely. “You must excuse me.”
The curt explanation was no pretext, Gabriel learned when he spoke to David.
“The Long Hairs are moving up in force,” his friend said. “Our outposts report the Loyal King is finally mounting his all-out attack. A hundred thousand men are marching on Shanghai. The Mandarin plans to take them on himself. He believes this could be the climactic battle.”
CHAPTER 51
June 19, 1862
Soochow Creek
NORTHEAST OF SHANGHAI
Each of the opposing generals issued his final orders for the decisive battle in a state of fury. Both ranted against their superiors
and their allies as dawn crept over the Yangtze Delta on June 19, 1862, and the armies that had skirmished for weeks moved toward a direct confrontation. Spires of vapor were already forming, though the sun had not yet risen to bake the sodden land laced with watercourses. The muggy atmosphere inflamed the temper of the generals and sapped the resolution of the troops.
The Loyal King was eager to launch his attack before the rising sun dazzled his soldiers’ eyes. His attention was, however, diverted by the stream of messages demanding that he return to relieve the Heavenly Capital of the implacable pressure exerted by the armies of the Viceroy Tseng Kuo-fan. Moreover, he was fearful that Soochow, which he had been forced to leave virtually undefended, would fall to enemy columns outflanking his sixty-thousand-strong assault force. Even the Loyal King’s relentless honesty flinched from acknowledging that the twenty-three-centuries-old city of silks had become his personal refuge as well as his personal domain. He ascribed his disquiet equally to the Heavenly King’s interference and to the venality of his seven hundred foreign mercenaries.
Without those foreigners, his fieldpieces would be ineffective. Yet he had stripped all other Taiping armies of cannon for the climactic attack on Shanghai. If the golden bullets of bribes induced the foreign officers fighting for the Imps to withdraw or desert, as the blond Englishman had predicted, how could he depend upon his own rascals? Dormant patriotism, as well as natural affection for their countrymen, could be awakened by promises of reward or amnesty. Without the stiffening of mercenaries many of his newly mustered units would crumble.
The Mandarin Li Hung-chang was distracted by repeated thunders from the Northern Capital, which sometimes appeared even farther removed from the realities of the modern age than from the battlefields of the South. He had swallowed the Empress Dowager’s private reprimand with a smile, but it lay heavy on his stomach. He had humbly acknowledged Yehenala’s constant reminders that Chenkiang, rather than Shanghai, was the key to the lower Yangtze Valley—and had ignored her commands to shift his forces to that stronghold. Though he knew he would pay for his temerity, he would not abandon the industry, trade, and revenues of the treaty port to the Long-Haired Rebels.
Yehenala would not forgive his insubordination—even if he were successful. As the protégé of a favorite concubine, he had advanced rapidly. As the whipping boy of the same lady, now Empress Dowager Regent, he could suffer demotion and exile. Though she had already shown herself as quick to degrade as to promote, he could not act otherwise, even in self-protection. If he shifted his forces to Chenkiang, he might ultimately pay with his head for the disasters that must follow the loss of Shanghai.
His foreign allies were also distressing the Mandarin. The treaty port was the key to the Yangtze Valley—and the foreigners were the key to Shanghai. Yet not only the coming battle, but the campaign, perhaps the war, could be lost by their pusillanimity. British troops and the foreign-officered Ever Victorious Army had initially put up a brave show, but it was only a show.
During the past three weeks, the foreigners, overawed by the Taipings’ overwhelming strength, had withdrawn from half a dozen fortress towns. They had been deceived by a hoary stratagem: a flag-campaign had made the rebels appear far more numerous than they were. Some foreign officers had undoubtedly succumbed to golden bullets. They were a venal lot, more easily bribed than even his corrupt countrymen.
As dawn silvered Soochow Creek, the Mandarin Li Hung-chang stood at bay. The sun rose and kindled the scarlet-and-yellow flags of twelve columns of Holy Soldiers converging from the west. At that moment, the Loyal King launched his assault.
Aaron Lee commanded the veteran battalion protecting the two Taiping batteries facing Chapei on the northern edge of the American settlement. Those batteries were commanded by Lionel Henriques through the mouth of a former yamen clerk from Canton, who had perfected his pidgin and his opportunism as a go-between for foreign merchants and Mandarins.
Before dawn, twenty-eight-year-old Major Aaron Lee had burned incense to Kuan Ti, the god of war, in a ramshackle village temple. His patrician skepticism had yielded to a prudent wish to propitiate Heaven, which might actually direct events on earth. Lionel Henriques, a decade older, had then joined Aaron in intoning Shm’a Yisroel!—Hear O Israel!—the Hebrew prayer praising the One True God—before reciting the Taiping version of the Lord’s Prayer. His supple spirit saw no inconsistency in such twofold worship.
David Lee shifted uneasily from foot to foot among the staff officers clustered around the Mandarin Li Hung-chang. At twenty-four, he was facing his first major battle, but his natural ebullience sustained him. Though many officers could get down no more than a spoonful of rice gruel, David had swallowed three bowls of congee. His rumbling stomach told him that he might have been unwise, and he broke wind noisily.
David’s uneasiness arose not only from natural fear but from the demeanor of his commander, whom he held in reverence. The Mandarin had visited his displeasure with his mercurial allies upon his liaison officer to the foreigners. Distrusting both the regular British commanders and the mercenary leaders of the Ever Victorious Army, the Mandarin had charged David to convey orders in terms no self-respecting officer could accept. His vicious temper was not allayed by his knowledge that David’s translation would draw the sting from his words. For the Mandarin, the young man with the gift of tongues at that moment embodied the perversity of his allies. He did not call David “Young Lee,” but “Ni, chia-huo … You, fellow.”
Gabriel Hyde was still considering the Mandarin’s invitation to become his English secretary. The thirty-year-old American had been detached from the Mencius, since the British squadron would bottle up the Taiping Water Force in the Long River. With four Royal Navy officers, all equally uneasy on land, he had been detailed as liaison officer to the British infantry, which the Mandarin could not command but only advise, and the Ever Victorious Army, which the Mandarin could command—if its fractious officers would obey. David Lee found Gabriel sharing hardtack and dried beef with the British officers around a campfire flickering in the sullen dawn. David’s round face was set in a grimace so lugubrious it was comical.
“The General presents his compliments, Gabriel.”
“Let’s have it, youngster. What’s the bad news?”
“He’s not happy with the colonel commanding our batteries on the Chapei front. He’s also worried about the foreign gunners. He knows they’re insubordinate, and he’s afraid they’ll run away.”
“What’s it to do with me?”
“You’re to take command. He thinks your Chinese is adequate. Barely adequate, he says.”
“Thank him for the compliment, but tell him it’s crazy to give me that assignment at the eleventh hour.”
“I wouldn’t argue, Gabe. He’s in no mood to listen.”
“All right. But I’ll need a piece of paper.”
David unrolled a parchment scroll. The black ideograms were ratified by the Mandarin Li Hung-chang’s signature and by two vermilion impressions: his personal seal and the four-inch-square seal of the Army of Huai.
“If you people were stranded on a tropical island,” Gabriel laughed, “you’d need a document authorizing you to gather firewood.”
“Of course. Good luck, Gabe!”
“The same to you, youngster.” Gabriel swung onto his horse. “Remember, duck when you see the flash. It’s too late when you hear the report. I’ll see you after the party.”
The yellow and the scarlet banners began moving forward in the false dawn before the sun could blind the Holy Soldiers attacking from the west. The great battle flags of divisional commanders were widely dispersed, as were the progressively smaller flags of the commanders of regiments, battalions, and companies. Having learned caution from previous encounters, the Loyal King had not ordered the massed charge that normally terrified the Imps but could today expose his men to the foreigners’ deadly rapid fire. Instead, the Holy Soldiers utilized the little cover the flat terrain offered, firing
their crude small arms behind dikes and houses, while their cannon probed the enemy’s breastworks. After five minutes, the banners were furled one by one. The Loyal King knew they would not demoralize his new enemy but mark choice targets for that enemy.
The Imperial forces and their allies waited on a curved four-mile front. Sharpshooters fired when the yellow tunics flashed or cannon hurled shots. Chinese and Manchu spearmen waited tensely, while British infantrymen nervously fixed bayonets in fortifications as strong as improvisation could make them. Their weapons were far superior, and the boggy land crisscrossed by dikes and streams hampered the attack. Nonetheless, the enemy’s tactics were shrewd, and his opening barrage was surprisingly well aimed. Besides, the soldiers knew that the Loyal King, who was by far the best Taiping general, had concentrated his crack units for the climactic battle—and that the defenders were outnumbered almost three to one.
Gabriel Hyde longed for his own quarterdeck and his own disciplined crew. Never happy fighting on land, he was doubly unhappy as the rising sun transformed the paddy fields into bright mirrors. The Chinese colonel he had relieved hovered resentfully in the background, while the four British mercenary gunners were almost as loath to take orders from a Yank as from a Chink.
Besides, he felt trapped. The Mandarin had sited the batteries a mile north of Soochow Creek, so that the artillerymen could not run away. If they abandoned their guns, the creek was too far distant to provide refuge—even if they could cross it. Though the breastworks sheltering the cannon were substantial, Gabriel had no confidence in the two companies of Imperial Braves protecting the precious guns.
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