by Tom Anderson
The war wore on with neither side gaining a major advantage, and while Britain extracted additional trade from Berar, Pitt noted gloomily that the costs of prosecuting the war outweighed such gains. While the Marleburgensian regime at home remained fairly hands-off with respect to the BEIC – certainly more than Fox had been – a series of increasingly angry letters arrived by the slow route around the Dutch Cape, wanting to know why the BEIC was emptying its coffers to fund a pointless native war with little prospects of gaining advantage when Britons were starving in the street. However, it was not until the events of the summer of 1815 that the situation truly changed.
The Gorkhas had been vaguely known to the British for years by reputation; fearsome fighters from Outer Tibet, or Nepal as it was otherwise known, who sullenly bowed their heads in vassalage to the Qing Emperor of China since their defeat in a Tibetan war a couple of decades earlier. Now, though, with China breaking up thanks to the Three Emperors’ War and her troops withdrawn from the eastern frontier to fight for one side or another, the Gorkhas took the opportunity to break free. Led by Narayan Shah, they attacked the British vassals of Oudh and Boutan, demanding tribute and a shift of allegiance. This was a threat the BEIC could not afford to ignore lest it lose all authority; yet the Company could also not afford to fight a war on yet more fronts, or her vitally needed profits would go down the drain.
At the same time, the French suffered their own problems, with Muslims in the Carnatic and Kerala rising up and protesting against alleged discrimination in favour of Hindus in the French colonial organisation, with some rebel leaders claiming that French Muslim sepoys’ muskets were greased with the fat of the abominable pig. The rebellions were put down, but not before one jihadist leader, Imam Mohammed Abbas, used his followers to torch a fleet of French East Indiamen in Trivandrum harbour, costing half a million livres. Missirien soon had angry letters of his own, and even threats of dismissal.
The Portuguese, meanwhile, slowly extended their own influence, using the Peshwa’s titular claim of rulership over all Marathas combined with weariness with the war to appeal to supporters of Scindia and Holkar. The Gaekwad of Gujarat was persuaded to pay lip service to the Peshwa in exchange for increased trade rights and Portuguese assistance against future Neo-Mogul attacks, strengthening Peshwa Madhavarao Narayan’s position and credibility. Their greatest triumph came when Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the Jat ruler of Bhurtpore (a fortress city close to the Scindias’ capital of Gwalior) agreed to formally accept the Peshwa’s suzerainty and stand against the ‘rebellious’ Scindias and Holkars. Just as the Durranis had rebuilt the shattered Mogul Empire according to their own needs, now the Portuguese tried to do the same with the old unitary Maratha Empire.
It was becoming obvious that the situation was unsustainable, and Missirien agreed to meet with Pitt in Coorg, a British possession in Kerala surrounded by French-backed Mysore. Despite their former adversarial relationship, the two men hit it off well, and Missirien explained his change of stance with a typically overblown metaphor: “whereas before I spoke of cutting the largest slice of cake, I now realise that fighting over the knife only gets both of us hurt; instead, let us first decide who shall get which portions, and then let us work together to bake a larger cake”. A second meeting in Bombay saw the Portuguese governor-general, Vale, invited. It was there that the broad foundations were laid of what became the International Oversight Board for East Indian Trade – commonly abbreviated to the India Board or the ‘Board of Concord’.
Both Britain and France withdrew from the Maratha War to focus on their own problems, forcing Haidarabad and Mysore to do the same (which required the ‘unfortunate death in a riding accident’ of the young and headstrong Nizam). With help from Assam and Konbaung Burma, the British threw the Gorkhas out of Oudh, though many British generals wrote of how impressed they were with the Gorkhas’ soldiering. Even then the British proved incapable of ejecting the Gorkhas from Boutan, which became an accepted part of Nepal for the present; in that mountainous terrain the Gorkhas were in their element. Britain conceded the loss in exchange for diplomatic and trade representation at the Gorkha capital of Kathmandu. It was there British agents learned that the Gorkhas, prior to their attack on India, had already (re-)conquered Tibet from the absentee Chinese.
Lacking European support, the Maratha War petered out in 1818 with no real changes, besides the weakening of both sides. Bhurtpore had been lost to the Peshwa, and Bundelkhund rose in rebellion against the Marathas, who had always been seen as foreign rulers. Bundelkhund joined Berar as part of the network of British/Haidarabad vassals, somewhat balancing the loss of Boutan. The French crushed their Muslim rebellions and focused on repairing their sectarian image. The Portuguese continued to build their renewed Maratha state, setting their sights on eventually bringing the weakened Scindias and Holkars to heel, while nervously watching the Neo-Moguls to the north. At a meeting in Guntoor in 1819, the Indian Board took its first formal, constitutional meeting, unlike the unofficial ones beforehand. The Board consisted of three representatives each from the British and French East India Companies, two from the Portuguese, and one from the Danish Asiatic Company, which had undergone something of a revival with the accession of Valdemar V to the throne in 1816. The Dutch in Ceylon and parts of Malabar were excluded for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with events surrounding Chinese affairs in the east in previous years.
The Board’s mission was to ensure peace and stability in India, trying to resolve differences between the Companies and the native rulers they backed, holding to Pitt and Missirien’s claims that any gains from war would be outweighed by the losses incurred in the process. From then on, the coffers of London, Paris and Lisbon began to overflow with trade gold. London began to rise from the ashes as Lisbon finished its own phoenix period, until King John VI could openly claim on the seventieth anniversary of the Lisbon earthquake in 1825 that the city was now greater than it had been before the disaster. And France, though still suffering from the losses of almost an entire generation of young men thrown into the fire from the wars of Robespierre and Lisieux, began to heal her wounds.
It was in 1821, in the midst of Britain’s struggling to deal with a crop failure in Bengal, that John Pitt, the architect of British India, finally succumbed to pneumonia. His last words are recorded variously as “My India! How I leave my India!”, as his successor would have to try and overcome the famine without his guidance, or alternatively “I think I could eat one of Bhalami’s lamb bhoonas”, in reference to a famous Calcuttan chef. Regardless of the truth of these claims, Pitt left shoes that would be very difficult to fill…
Map: The Indian Subcontinent in the Year 1820
Chapter #88: Breaking the China
“I kept six honest serving-men,
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are Watt and Ouais and Waar
and Hao and Wen and Hu.”
- SERICA, The National Spirit of CHINA, from the light operetta The Orienteers,
by J.B. Collins and Andrew Faircloth, 1899
*
From: “The War of the Three Emperors” by Giacomo Occhialini (1956, English translation 1960)—
The death of the Guangzhong Emperor to a treacherous bodyguard, coupled with his failure to name an heir, triggered the descent of Qing China into the first full-scale war of succession for the throne in the dynasty’s history. While the Qing had certainly had succession disputes before, such as that between the sons of Hung Taiji, Hooge and Dorgon, these had always been resolved more or less peaceably by a striking combination of compromise and ruthlessness. While, for example, the Yongzheng Emperor had often been suspected of usurping the throne by backdoor manipulations, this accusation had certainly not been a cause for internal strife in the Empire; the fact that no outside opponent had ever capitalised on a Qing succession dispute illustrates the state’s skill in ensuring these did not escalate into full-scale civil wars. Until now.
Both Guangzhong
’s sons claimed the throne once the news of his failure to name an heir slipped out. The elder, Baoli, had been out of Beijing with his idol and mentor General Yu Wangshan, pursuing the fleeing Russian prisoners who had engineered the Emperor’s death and then taking their revenge upon them. The younger, Baoyi, had remained in the Forbidden City along with the ageing but still powerful Prime Minister, Zeng Xiang. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say this arrangement was a good summary of what was to come.
Realising that Yu Wangshan’s army was superior to those decaying Green Standard Army[149] brigades still stationed in Beijing, and the fact that Yu and Baoli would return before siege preparations could commence, Zeng Xiang decided the only option was a temporary retreat. Baoyi and his household fled the city, regardless of the obvious negative implications, making for the old southern capital of Jiangning.[150] There he proclaimed himself the Chongqian Emperor, while Baoli’s army marched into an undefended Beijing to hear his own proclamation as the Yenzhang Emperor. Scattered battles along the Yellow River (Huanghe) followed throughout 1807 as the two sides sent their summons to the imperial armies on the frontier, demanding obeisance from their generals. 1807 culminated with Yenzhang’s siege of Xi’an. At the end of three months, the city was relieved by Chongqian’s newly recruited troops from Chongqing, with the Green Standard forces within the city sallying forth to defeat Yenzhang’s men. Yenzhang, aided by General Yu, retreated in good order but did not surrender the northern bank of the Yellow River to Chongqian. By this point it was obvious to most spectators that this war would not be over quickly, save by the sudden death of one claimant or the other. Assassins flew back and forth almost as often as messengers, none of them finding their mark.
In the latter part of 1807 and throughout 1808, both sides’ messengers on the other hand did achieve their aims, communicating orders to the frontier armies to return to the interior of the vast Empire and fall upon the foul pretender. Broadly, Yenzhang benefited more from this. This is often simplistically represented in schoolbook histories as being the result of his Manchu romanticism rallying the Eight Banners to his cause. This is of course at best an oversimplification and at worst an outright untruth. Firstly, the Banners’ ethnic composition, though theoretically Manchu, was in practice something of a patchwork by this point in history. Furthermore, few Manchus bought into the rather naïve nativist philosophy espoused by General Yu and his pupil the claimant Emperor. Most subscribed to the idea that Chinese civilisation was something to admire, emulate and insinuate into, not reject as soft and urbane.
Inevitably the real reasons behind Yenzhang enjoying such support are more complex. He was always more popular with the generals than with the rank and file. This was largely a result of the fact that the generals feared a continuance of, and intensification of, the Guangzhong Emperor’s policy of insularism and disengagement from the outside world under the Chongqian Emperor if the latter were to win the war. Confucianism was one thing, but Guangzhong’s lack of concern for his Empire’s frontiers (coupled to the fact that the weak-willed Chongqian was likely a puppet of the like-minded Zeng Xiang who had masterminded the implementation of Guangzhong’s policies) could pave the way for territorial losses and even invasion. Those generals who had served with Yu in the west in particular feared the possibility of a unified Kazakh horde managing to break the New Great Wall. (As it happened, when Jangir Khan indeed took advantage of China’s civil war to attack in 1811, the Wall held; however, all the lands west of it that Yu had secured a few years earlier indeed fell to the unified khanate). Most military thinkers therefore favoured the more dynamic Yenzhang, who after all had served on the frontier himself, no matter his sillier ideas.
Of course, those ideas did alienate most of the Han majority along with other Chinese ethnic groups, however, and some Banners – together with the virtual entirety of the Green Standard Army – rallied to Chongqian. Chongqian reacted to his brother’s ideology by modelling his policies on those of the great Kangxi Emperor, his great-great-grandfather, no matter how unconvincing this was to those who knew how biddable Chongqian was. In particular, rather than appealing solely to Han in reaction to his brother’s Manchu supremacy, he once more proclaimed the tolerance of all groups under the Son of Heaven, including the Manchu themselves. While this seemed like a sensible policy at the time – no sense in antagonising groups such as the Hui or especially the Mongols, who might easily be driven to support Chongqian – in retrospect it is probable this was actually more damaging to his cause than the alternative, for reasons that will become clear…
*
From: “Rose of Syria Ascendant: A History of Modern Corea”, by Dr Carlos Coelho (1933, English translation 1937)—
The reign of King Hyojang[151] had been a tumultous time for the Kingdom of Corea. That, said the more conservative and paleo-Confucian nobility, was by definition a sign of failure. Or rather they whispered it; for Hyojang had not managed to steer the kingdom against their prevailing wind for thirty years without the proper application of ruthlessness. Furthermore, his decision to reverse his father’s persecution of Catholics had had an unexpected benefit: it turned out that Catholicism was much more widespread in Corea than its rulers had realised, and now every secret Catholic in a lowly occupation, serving nobles, had a vested interest in letting slip any overheard scandals and intrigue to the agents of the man who protected their freedom. This helped Hyojang thoroughly cement his grip on power, with the aid of his principal advisors, the great Silhak thinkers Jeong Yak-yong and Pak Je-ga. For a while the conservative forces put their hopes in Hyojang’s son Myeongjo – who disagreed with his father as much as Hyojang had with his – but his death by drowning in 1798 silenced that idea. Predictably, this death was considered suspicious both then and now, and many have suggested that Silhak agents of Jeong might have engineered the act. However, it seems equally likely that Myeongjo was dispatched by a secret-Catholic servant acting alone, given that he made no secret of his desire to see the religion outlawed and its adherents executed.
Whatever the reason, Myeongjo’s death saddened his father, whatever their differences, and Hyojang died four years later in 1802. His second son Gwangjong acceded to the throne in his place. Some have called Gwangjong ‘like-minded’ to his father, but this description lacks clarity. One does not become only the third Corean king in history to receive the appellation “the Great” by slavishly following the example of one’s parent. Whereas Hyojang had only toyed with Silhak philosophy, using it more for pragmatism than his own personal beliefs, Gwangjong was a true believer. He had the harshest critics of Silhak and other paleo-Confucians imprisoned or even executed. He even experimented with the system of farm collectivisation that Jeong had espoused but had never been able to get approved under his father – however, the results from this were decidedly mixed. Nonetheless, while Hyojang had tentatively outlined his ideas of a Corea that one day could stand against China rather than being forever its larger neighbour’s vassal, Gwangjong openly embraced the notion. He implemented Jeong’s vision for reforming the system of gwageo civil service examinations for the first time. While Hyojang’s reforms had helped remove corruption from the examinations – similar to those of the Yongzheng Emperor in China – it was Gwangjong who went further, adopting Jeong’s ideas of examinations focused more on pragmatism, technical subjects… and military theory.
From a lofty position of hindsight we can see that if the popular scientific romance theory of multiple possible histories is more than a dream, in ninety-nine out of a hundred possible worlds, Gwangjong would certainly not be called ‘the Great’ and might indeed have led Corea to its doom. The idea of being able to stand against the Qing was questionable at best; even if the Chinese state decayed into decadent corruption – which was far from assured – sheer numbers combined with outrage at such behaviour from one of the Empire’s most loyal vassals would surely inevitably result in the eventual conquest of Corea. Indeed, if the Guangzhong Emperor had been a little less i
nward-looking, it is likely that Gwangjong’s peacetime moves alone would have alarmed the Qing court enough to start putting pressure on Seoul to reverse its dangerous course. But under the ‘Bright Centre’ and his failure to take much interest in his Empire’s frontiers, Corea was able to carry on regardless.
Nonetheless it seems very likely disaster would have come sooner or later, with Gwangjong’s relentless drive towards a confrontational position, had the Three Emperors’ War not intervened. As a result of this, for the first time in years aside from minor routine, messengers from the Qing court – from both Qing courts – arrived in Seoul, one from Beijing under Yenzhang and one from Jiangning under Chongqian. Both demanded the allegiance of China’s vassal. The question of which to support divided the Corean court along lines much more complex than those long drawn up around Gwangjong’s support for Silhak neo-Confucian thought and those who favoured the paleo-Confucian thought of his grandfather. The majority favoured the Jiangning government of Chongqian. They considered Yenzhang’s ideas to be repugnant. Furthermore, this support of Chongqian went across the great political divide: Silhak supporters liked the idea of an inwardly-turned government like Guangzhong’s continuing under Chongqian, allowing Corea to continue its own movement towards a more independent course; while the paleo-Confucian conservatives saw Chongqian as a continuation of the Chinese model of government they admired. Generally speaking the only reason for Coreans not to support Chongqian was out of fear of Yenzhang’s retaliation if the latter won the war, or even if he did not – for Yenzhang’s main power base was naturally Manchuria, looming over the Kingdom of Corea.